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Just heard from coach Gabriel that he has been non renewed for next season. 11 seasons 132 wins. Teams really struggled the past two seasons playing a ton of young players. Good talent in the lower levels coming up. Who is the next head coach?

I hate to hear this. Coach has worked very hard for our school district and the basketball program for a long time. Coach, thanks for everything you did for all the kids at Alexander.

Blain Gabriel = Class

Can someone confirm?

As a parent I have mixed emotions about it. I see all that Coach Gabriel has done for the players over the years but I also see how Blaine has always had an assistant coach do most of the coaching for him. I feel for him but I am excited for the future.

So what is the future? Do they have teaching openings to recruit in a new coach?

It will be interesting to see who applies. Maybe someone on the inside?

I am not from the TVC area but I have a lot of reasons to keep my eye on the TVC basketball conference each year. I do not get to see Alex play enough to comment on a coach, but I did want to ask a question about Alex (and many other programs for that matter). Has little league hurt programs like Alex? Is the fact that LL programs are pulling away from head coaches and becoming travel teams hurting? I can remember just a decade ago, Alex having two junior high teams per grade (and usually both were pretty good). Now, they are having trouble having enough players for 9th and JV. Again, I am just asking, because my opinion comes from distant observation.

The youth league has not changed at Alexander in a long time. Numbers have went down because kids have quit once they become juniors and seniors.

They need to get back to teaching fundamentals and not so many plays.

I think the growth of other programs have hurt Alexander basketball. There were more freshman (14) in the high school program than the other three grades combined (5 seniors, 1 junior and 6 soph). Kids that played in jr. high are focusing on other sports or events. Competitive lifting, winter baseball and wrestling have picked up athletes that played basketball in jr. high. Alexander has some good depth coming up, but the past two seasons have seen the numbers fall off. We do not have the number of kids to choose from that teams like Athens, Vinton Co. or Unioto have.

Late bloomers often are on the bench in Jr high and become discouraged and don't go on playing in high school. Resulting in low numbers
because they think Jv- varsity team has already been formed. When some players may be better athletes in later yrs. of high school than
those that bloom early. Look at Micheal Jordan, he was a junior before he made varsity. Having two 7th-8th grade teams again would be great.
More player development and playing time.

Just an observation ...Alexander was a force in the TVC in basketball up until the football program picked up and started being successful. The same happened at Vinton County. In the 90s, the Vikings won 5 TVC football titles while the basketball team struggled. Its been just the opposite in the 2000s. Like I said, it may not mean a thing, its just an observation.

As for coach Gabriel. VC and Alex had some fierce match ups while I was in high school and I always look at him as a very classy coach on the sidelines. Hate to see him go. Hopefully he gets another opportunity to build a program up to the level he did at Alexander.

So all Alexander has to do is have two 7th and 8th grade teams and all of the Micheal Jordan type athletes in the 10-12 grades will come out to play. I am all for that. We need to start having four Jr. High teams and the wins will start happening again. It is easy.