By Robert Wilson
Starkville Academy’s Mark Alexander is the only coach in the 20-team MAIS Class 4A who coaches both high school boys and girls and junior high boys and girls basketball teams this season. In fact, he may be one of handful of coaches who coaches all four teams in Mississippi.
In addition to that, Alexander is the co-host of Mississippi Sports This Morning, a sports talk show which runs from 6 to 8 a.m. Monday through Friday, based out of Jackson.
Also, he is a part of the athletic communication department where he sends out information to parents about weekly schedules and changes.
Alexander – who is known around Mississippi for his detailed scouting reports (another time consuming task) – does manage to find time to sleep and eat occasionally.
The four-game grind is slowing down. Alexander’s junior high teams played their last games this week. He led his junior high boys team to the district runner-up finish Saturday. His junior high girls lost in the semifinals Thursday,
His high school boys and girls teams are playing this week in the North State Class 4A tournament at Pillow Academy.
Alexander has coached 85 games – 41 junior high and 44 high school – this season. Sixteen times this season, Alexander coached four games back to back to back to back. About half of those were away games to gyms as far away as two and half hours one way.
The 58-year-old Alexander was a three-sport letterman (football, basketball and baseball) at Forest Hill High and was a manager for Mississippi State and men’s basketball coach Richard Williams where he learned a lot about coaching basketball. Alexander was a sportswriter at the Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson from 1994-2006 before he started his coaching career.
Alexander – who is in his second season at Starkville Academy and has been coaching for 19 seasons, 16 in the MAIS (stops at Manchester Academy, Starkville Academy, Madison-Ridgeland Academy, Hartfield Academy, Heritage Academy and back at Starkville Academy) – wasn’t scheduled to coach all four teams this season. He was only going to coach the junior high and high school boys teams.
But last year’s girls coach, Robin Chastain, took a similar position at Magnolia Heights School and Starkville Academy head of school Jeremy Nicholas couldn’t find a replacement.
“Coach Chastain left kind of late in the year, and Mr. Nicholas worked diligently to find a replacement for her, but nothing ever materialized,” Alexander said. “He and I had discussed the possibility of me taking over if he couldn’t find anybody so that’s basically what happened. He took them to summer camp at Jackson Prep. I didn’t take over until school started.”
Alexander has coached four teams before in his career. In fact, not only did he coached four teams he was also the athletic director and taught seven periods a day, so he used that experience to navigate through this year.
“It has been challenging coaching all four teams,” Alexander said. “You’re talking four different scouting reports, watching film of all four upcoming opponents, watching film from the previous game, preparing practice plans for all four teams, and coaching four straight games every night,” Alexander said. “But at the same time, it has been very rewarding. Like they say, the bigger the challenge, the greater the reward. I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity. I love basketball, and love being on the bench for games, so I’ve enjoyed it.
“There have been some long night and short mornings. I don’t get a lot of sleep those nights, especially when we have long road trips. A couple of times, I’ve spent the night in my office at the school, just to try to steal some extra sleep before waking up to do the radio show in the mornings.”
And then there is the actual coaching of all four games, right after each other and the emotions of each of them, trying to set aside the last one, and get ready of the next one, then do it again and again.
“Coaching all four can be tough,” Alexander said. “There’s really not a long time between games, and some of the games are so close and intense. Win or lose, you have to be able to shut down after the game and gear back up for the next one. It’s not always the easiest thing to do. We run a lot of the same stuff for all four teams, but some teams have some plays that the other ones don’t and all that. There have been times when I called a particular play and I get five blank stares followed by a ‘we don’t have that play.’ We all get a good laugh about it. I call another one and we play on.”
Both of the high school teams were in rebuilding this season.
“We lost all five starters from last year’s boys team,” Alexander said. “Plus, we got a real late start because of football and missed out on a handful of early games. And on top of that, I was without three starters for a few weeks, and didn’t get two of those back until January. I think all those things have played a role in our inconsistency. When we show up ready to play, like we did against Hartfield and Simpson the first time we played them, we are pretty good. But when we don’t, we’re not very good. So it has been a little bit of a roller coaster ride with the boys. We look good one game, then not so much the next.”
The boys have a 11-9 record and the No. 3 seed from District 2 and play Madison St. Joseph Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the North State tournament at Pillow Academy in Greenwood. Sil Santucci, a 6-foot-5 sophomore, leads the team in scoring and rebounding.
“We lost four of the five starters from last year’s girls team,” Alexander said. “Only one returning starter in Kate Couvillion. Betsy Gray started before tearing her ACL in December of 2024. We were hoping she would be able to come back and play this year, but it really wasn’t looking good this summer. We weren’t even sure if we were going to have enough players to have a team. Fortunately, Betsy’s knee came around to the point where she could play, even though she’s nowhere near 100 percent. Our point guard, Elizabeth Fair, who is a big time soccer player, decided to play basketball for another year. And we had two girls (Mary Holland Nicholas and Reese McAfee) who decided to come back and play after not playing last year. Mix in a few junior high players and we had enough for a team.”
The high school girls and Alexander had some growing pains getting to know one another, but the end result was they exceeded the expectations for this season.
“It took them a while to get used to my coaching style, and it took time for me to learn what worked and didn’t work for them,” Alexander said. “We struggled some early in the year when Kate was out two to three weeks with a stress fracture in her foot, but since then we’ve steadily improved to the point of playing our best game of the year earlier this week at Heritage. I think most people expected us to only win three or four games, so we’ve exceeded those expectations exponentially. The girls deserve all the credit. If anything, they’ve won despite my coaching. It’s been a fun ride with them. I’m glad I had the opportunity to coach them.”
The girls have an 11-13 record, are the No. 3 seed in District 2 and play Jackson Academy Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in the first round in the North State tournament at Pillow. Couvillion, a junior, leads the team in scoring, rebounding, assists and steals.
Alexander was glad he had some coaching help.
“Fortunately, I’ve had two really good full-time assistant coaches in Tony Minor (boys) and Adam Hodges (girls),” Alexander said. “They’ve both been great. They’ve helped me out a lot. And the kids have been great. We’ve had to do things a little differently than normal in regards to practices, etc., but they’ve rolled with it all year We’ve got a bunch of great kids, and that’s made it easier on me, as well.
“It was late it in the game that the school schedule had already been made out. The kids all had their classes lined up. So we couldn’t change things. That meant the junior high boys and girls had the same practice period. Same for the high school boys and girls. We have two gyms, so most days we split up. There have been some days we have practiced together with junior high and made it work. High school, normally one team goes with the assistant coach to our practice gym and shoots while the other group stays with me in the main gym for about an hour. Then, we swap it up and the other team goes to shoot while the team that was in the other gym comes to me. We’ve made the best of it. One thing that happened in Tennessee (his first coaching job), and the same in Starkville Academy, is that the teams get closer and really start pulling for each other even more than they normally would. There’s a bond that is created there.”
Nicholas has been impressed with Alexander.
“Coach Alexander has done a tremendous job for us this year as the head coach for all four teams, junior high and high school,” said Nicholas, who has been the head of school for 12 years. “I don’t think many people understand how taxing that can be, and yet he’s always proven up to the task. His knowledge of the game is extensive, and our teams are always prepared for their opponents in regard to schemes and tendencies. The man knows his stuff, and we’re happy he’s on our side.”
The players have enjoyed and learned from Alexander this season.
“Coach A has been really fun to play for,” Couvillion said. “I know he has had to make big adjustments with a young team. He always has a calm look on his face during games and is always drawing up new plays. I like that because as a player you really want to be tested and have the element of surprise for the teams we play.”
“Playing under Coach A for these past two years has been really fun and I’ve learned a lot,” senior guard Gibson Nickels said. “Coach A is really good about having a game plan and making sure you are prepared to play. So I’ve got to learn how important it is to study the team you are playing against. Coach A has also taught our whole team how important it it to play your role and do what’s best for the team.”
“We are so grateful to Coach for being willing to add to his workload and take the girls teams this year,” senior Mary Holland Nicholas, the head of school Jeremy Nicholas’ daughter. “We have really had a good time, from inside jokes to upset wins, and we hope he’s enjoyed coaching us as much as we’ve enjoyed having him.”
In addition to coaching, practicing, watching film and scouting for those four teams, Alexander has had some health issues, relating to his autoimmune condition, a situation he has been battling for more than a year. Sometimes he doesn’t have much energy, has body aches, muscle aches, and gets tired easily, just doesn’t feel good a lot of days.
“I’ve been on different medications and the doctors are still trying to figure out a true diagnosis,” Alexander said. “It’s been rough at times. Some days are better than others. There have been a lot of mornings where I’ve just had to make myself get out of bed and start the day. Some weekends all I do is stay in bed and sleep. But I owe it to the kids and to my employer to be at work and practices every day so that’s what I’ve done. It has been a long season, but fortunately I’ve been feeling better the last two weeks. Hopefully once the season slows down, I won’t have nearly as much stress, and the doctors can figure out the health part of it.”
The plan is for Alexander to return to only coaching junior high and high school next year and the school is expected hire a junior high and high school girls coach. Alexander is the school’s seventh girls coach in the past 10 seasons.
Starkville Academy is starting soon on a $1.8 million gym renovation project, which is expected be completed by the start of next basketball season. Alexander is excited about the new project.
“It is going to be really nice. It is going to be a game changer for us,” Alexander said. “We have always had just the one side and now we will have bleachers on both sides, which will allow us to host postseason tournaments. There will be basketball coach’s offices on the new side and will overlooking the court. There will be a film room and board meeting room and storage area. There will be new locker rooms.”
