Local attorney and Rotarian of the Day, Mickey Simmons, brought Winnfield Senior High School’s new boys basketball coach Allen Tew to Winnfield Rotary’s November 13 meeting. Coach Tew is a native of Jackson Parish, with his home at Wyatt. He taught at Jonesboro-Hodge High School for 24 years and coached boys’ basketball for 15 years. 

Coach Tew said he was interested in coaching at Winnfield because he was impressed with the record of the boys’ basketball program for the past three years and he has family roots in Winn Parish as his mother grew up in Calvin. One might also speculate that the four-day a week school schedule was appealing, although Tew did not say as much.

As for this year’s prospects, Tew said they are a little behind in their practices because some team members were unable to practice with the basketball team because they were still playing football in the district playoffs. Winnfield lost two important guards from last year’s team due to graduation, but three of the starters from last year are returning. The team’s greatest need is more seasoned guards. 

New to the team are Tew’s son who opted to change schools with Coach Tew for his final year of high school and six or seven freshmen moving up from the middle school. We have 21 players on the team with seven returning as seniors. Tew said a few guys on the team improve their skills by playing basketball at the recreation center two or three times a week every week and really know the game of basketball. 

The team’s assistant coach is the middle school basketball team’s head coach Asante Belton.

Coach Tew says he prefers to play against good basketball teams because it improves the team’s play more than winning games against lesser teams.

As for the season, the team started off with a three-team scrimmage against Jena and Grant High Schools on Thursday, November 14, each team playing the two other teams for 20 minutes each. The opening game of district play will be against Lakeview HS at Lakeview, and the first home game will be against Peabody. Then comes a tournament at Alexandria Senior High, followed by play against Natchitoches Central.

Rotary gave Coach Allen Tew a warm welcome to our community.