Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Goshen High School has lured longtime basketball coach Anthony Carter out of a short retirement to return to the hardwood and lead the Eagle basketball program.

On Monday, Carter was hired by the Pike County Schools Board of Education as the new head boys’ basketball coach after deciding to retire from coaching in March.

“Goshen is a very unique place, they have a lot of tradition there,” Carter said of his decision. “When I coached at McKenzie, I saw the potential that was there. When the opportunity presented itself, Coach (Don) Moore and I talked and it felt like a pretty good fit for me and a pretty good reason to come out of retirement.”

Carter pointed to that tradition at Goshen as being a key reason for his decision to lead the Goshen basketball program.

“Major Lane coached there for years and he was the principal there when I was playing high school basketball,” Carter recalled. “Once I started coaching I watched him and watched the way he did things and the way he conducted himself and worked with his players. Goshen has always had a tradition of being good in all sports; they were always very competitive.

“So, the tradition more than anything else was very important to me. It’s a rural area and I’ve worked in rural areas before. The main thing is going to be about letting these kids know that you love them. That’s so important to the job.”

Carter is a Greenville native that was an All-State basketball player at Greenville High before playing college basketball at Faulkner University and then eventually playing professionally overseas. Following his playing career, Carter was an assistant coach at Lowndes County, Georgiana and Southside-Selma. He went on to become the very first head football coach at Barbour County and served as an assistant basketball coach on Barbour County’s 2001 State Championship basketball team.

Carter went on to serve as head basketball coach at Carroll in Ozark from 2002 until 2006 and also spent time as an assistant girls’ basketball coach at Carroll before taking over the boys’ program at New Brockton from 2014 through 2018. Carter’s 2015 New Brockton squad made the Elite 8 for the first time in 15 years.

He went on to coach At Abbeville from 2018 through 2020, finding great success with the Yellow Jackets earning a 22-6 record in his first year. His Abbeville teams went 36-16 in his two seasons there. Carter went on to serve as head coach at McKenzie until 2021 and spent this past season – before retiring – as offensive line coach for the Hillcrest-Evergreen football team. Carter’s goals at Goshen are simple and comes back tradition.

“I just want to help get that tradition back and get the fans back in the gym and the kids excited about basketball again,” Carter emphasized. “Coach Moore has done a fantastic job with the football program and the goal is to get the all around sports program back to that point. I want to come in and work with the staff there and do anything I can to make sure all the sports at Goshen are successful and get the program back to where it used to be.”

Carter has been an assistant football coach – along with his basketball duties – at most of his coaching stops and has been everything from an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach to offensive line coach. He will once again serve as an assistant football coach at Goshen, as well.

“Wherever Coach Moore needs and wants me, that’s where I’ll be (on the staff),” Carter said. “If he wants me to be water boy, and that’s what it takes for us to be successful, that’s what I want to do. Whatever it takes to get it done, I’m happy to do it.”