Anthony Epps is returning to coach high school basketball in Campbellsville.
Epps, who was raised nearby in Lebanon and led Marion County High School to the 1993 state championship, was introduced Tuesday as the new boys’ basketball coach at Campbellsville High School, a job he held previously.
“This is home to me,” Epps said. “I grew up in Lebanon with my family but Campbellsville is home. It’s good to be home.”
In 2018, he took over the CHS boys’ team from long-time coach Tim Davis, who was Epps’ high school coach at Marion County, after having led the Lady Eagles to their first district championship in more than a decade.
“When Coach Davis asked me to come over to Campbellsville years ago, he talked to me about the family atmosphere here and how everyone is family,” he said. “All of you here today are like family to me.”
He said Davis and his wife, Joni, “are like my second parents.”
Epps left Campbellsville to coach at the collegiate level. He was an assistant coach at Northern Kentucky University for two seasons before leaving the staff. He also taught at at Covington Holmes Middle School.
He admits he missed the relationships he had developed coaching at the high school level.
“College basketball is a business,” he said. “You’re dealing with mostly adults who when they are on their last leg of college, they know what they want to do. High school and middle school kids are still growing and we can mold them, we can direct them and we can get them on to college.”
Davis, who coached Epps in high school, said the school is getting just an outstanding basketball mind who also is a great classroom teacher.
“He just has a knack for the game,” he said. “He’s taken that as to how he coaches, but it is also how he can relate to kids Getting him to come back is a big plus, not just for our basketball program but our entire school system. Anthony is going to impact all of them.”
Epps made it clear to his new players that he has high expectations.
“This is not about me, this is about you guys,” he told the players at the announcement. “I can show you how to dribble the ball but you have to do it. I can teach you how to shoot the ball, but I can’t put the ball into the basket for you. I am asking you to buy into what I am selling.”
Epps not only won a state championship at Marion County but was the starting point guard on the 1996 Kentucky NCAA title team.
“I played for Coach Davis and I played for Coach Rick Pitino,” he said. “They taught me the game of basketball. I just want to give back what I learned to you guys.”
link