After seven years of coaching baseball at Kirk Academy, Nathan Moncrief is changing addresses.
Moncrief was hired as the new baseball coach at Carroll Academy, replacing Rusty Miller who will stay on at the school and coach the softball team.
In addition to coaching baseball, Moncrief will be the elementary principal.
“I finished my master in educational leadership last summer and I was thinking that I wanted to get into administration and still coach,” Moncrief said. “Mrs. Penny Mitchell offered me the opportunity to be elementary principal and still coach baseball. I thought it was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. I think it’s a great opportunity. She will do things the way they need to be done and I look forward to learning a lot. As a coach, if things are running smooth in the classroom, it makes it easy on the field.”
Moncrief moves to Carroll after seven years at Kirk, which was his first job out of college. Moncrief graduated from Ackerman High School and did his student teaching at Weir and was a volunteer assistant at Winston Academy.
“He has been at Kirk for seven years and has built a good program there,” new Carroll Athletics Director Tommy Acy said. “They have been a fundamentally sound team for years there. We just liked his whole personality and his outlook was something we were looking for at Carroll. We had interviewed several candidates and I liked several of them. We had some good candidates. I’m glad I didn’t have to make the choice.”
Speaking of fundamentals, Moncrief said that will be his first order of business.
“We don't have any summer games scheduled,” Moncrief said. “We will spend some time this summer doing a lot of fundamental work and working on arm strength. I am hoping we can scrimmage four or five times so I can look at who can do what.”
Moncrief said he has had some good hitting teams at Kirk but knows you must be able to pitch.
“Two years ago at Kirk, I had a team that could really swing it,” Moncrief said. “All you had to do was stand on third base an wave them around. But we only had one good pitcher and that was it. Not winning it with that team will haunt me forever. It showed me that you had better develop pitching and play defense and that’s been my thing.”
The Rebels play in one of the toughest baseball divisions in the state against Winona Christian, Marshall, Oak Hill and Central Holmes.
“I’m familiar with all of those teams,” Moncrief said. “We have played Oak Hill the last two years and I know Marshall was really good when they were in our division at Kirk and Winona is two years off a state championship. I know the division will be a challenge. But I have been told several times that we have some pretty good players coming up. We are going to try and develop those young kids and see how good we can be. I know we have to develop some pitching.”
Moncrief will be assisted by football coach Bo Milton, Acy said. Milton stepped down as headmaster and will remain has head football coach and also teach history at the school. Acy said Miller will stay on at the school and coach fast-pitch softball.
