hudson
By Cory Woodroof

BY MITCHELL STEPHENSON

The Home Pages will be taking some time this summer to highlight various members of our athletic community.

We’ll start with Nolensville High School athletic director and baseball coach Zach Hudson.

Hudson led the Knights on a special baseball season, as the team swept the district and region tournaments and made the state tournament.

He’s worked hard to build the baseball program from scratch. In 2017, the first year for the baseball program, the team was 0-12 in district action, and were 2-26 overall.

How does the athletic department work with the school administration to implement the overall goals of Nolensville High School?

ZH: In everything thing that we do both athletically and academically at Nolensville, we base it on positive relationships. We feel that if we as coaches and educators have strong, positive relationships with our students, that is going to lead to success both on the field and in the classroom. Athletically, we feel that if our team culture is strong, we will be successful. That philosophy starts at the top, and trickles down.

We cover all sports. What are some of the ways the athletic department supports the coaches, and student-athletes to be successful?

ZH: We meet a few times a year to discuss compliance, fundraising, facilities, new information, etc. In addition, we have a unique thing where we as coaches all get along really well and support each other. None of us pretend to have all the answers and we will all work for and with each other to figure things out. We all share athletes and facilities and all understand the big picture. It truly is a great place to work because of the people.

Every school has amazing student athletes, that may or may not be a superstar. Can you share a couple of success stories of your athletes that happen outside of their sport?

ZH: That’s a tough one. We have tremendous student athletes that are involved in numerous things. We as coaches demand a lot of our athletes. I would say, on the whole, their ability to balance athletics and academics is very impressive.

Are there any changes that you can share for the upcoming 2019-2020 sports season? As in any additional sports being added? Any new supportive programs being implemented to help the students?

ZH: For the most part, there aren’t any big changes. The TSSAA will be adding lacrosse as a sanctioned sport for the 2020-2021 school year. Currently, lacrosse is a club sport, so they will be transitioning to a sanctioned sport in a year. We have had some changes to our coaching staff.

Our new head coaches are:

Volleyball – Brett Young

Boys Basketball – John Stigall

Softball – Luke Patton

We will also feature other coaches from the Nolensville HS Athletic Department, and how they run their individual sports on in the near future. Be on the lookout.

Photo by Whitney Jarreld.