Today’s interviewee is Greene County coach Terrance Banks, whose team enters a bye week with a 5-2 record. The Tigers were 4-6 last season, and the GHSF Daily’s Improvement Tracker has Greene County as the most improved winning team in Class A Division II. Banks is in his first season in Greensboro. He was Meadowcreek’s interim head coach last season and was Newton’s head coach from 2013 to 2018.
1. You were in line to become Meadowcreek’s permanent head coach. Why did you decide to take the Greene County job, effectively going from Class 7A to Class A? “A large part of it was relationships. I was encouraged to come look at Greene County because the principal [James Peek, now retired] was the former middle school principal from Newton when I worked there. The principal of the career academy [John Ellenberg] was one of my principals at Newton. The district athletic director and now the current principal [Eddie Hood] was the head basketball coach when I was an assistant coach at Duluth. And then when I got out here, the facilities and the commitment to football was nowhere close to single A, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. They have a two-sided stadium, a field house and a turf field, all the amenities that I was accustomed to in Gwinnett and arguably better than at Newton. I love this small-town feel on Friday night. Things we have here opened my eyes. It was not what I was expecting, and in a good way.”
2. What are some of the most important things that you and your staff have done to make progress? “The talent was here. There were a lot of underclassmen. So the biggest thing was showing them how that 7A mindset works of being committed to doing certain things. We had spring football. We had only 29 or 30 players due to track and other stuff, but we went through the process. We went to 7-on-7s and padded camps. We took some lumps but played with Eastside and Social Circle, some teams that are doing well this season Our players got exposure to what everybody else is doing on a bigger level.”
3. What are some of the differences between coaching in 7A vs. A? “One of the things I love about it is that it’s more hands on. When you’re at a 7A school with 100-plus kids in a program, it’s hard to lay your hands on every kid relationship-wise. It’s not an extended bond because you’re just making sure the seniors are getting a good experience and the juniors are ready to come in. Here, our middle school practices with us on the other end of the field. I know my seventh- and eighth-graders before they get to the ninth grade. I went from a school with 2,500 kids where when a kid would say Coach Banks in the hallway, I knew the kid, but I didn’t always know the name. With 450 kids, you know everybody. When a kid says something, I know exactly who they are.”
4. What does your team do well? Passing seems to be one of them. Steve Miller is fourth in Class A Division II in passing yards, and Javaris Harris is second in receiving yards. “We don’t throw the ball a lot, but we have explosive plays. We’ve got a running back [Malik West] averaging 100 yards per game, and we have some kids that are very athletic, and because of that, we have been able to take advantage of that next level and put the ball in the air. We had our 4x100, 4x200 and 4x400 relay teams make state in track. So we have speed. We’re about to find out whether we’re ready for that next step because we’ve got Lincoln County and Washington-Wilkes coming up, and coaches are doing a phenomenal job at Aquinas. Our kids have never been to the playoffs. They know the history of those before them, but they’ve never experienced it themselves.”
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