By Rubin E. Grant
When Kevin Tubbs made the decision to leave as Homewood girls basketball coach two years ago to move to Seattle, he consulted with his son Logan.
Logan was headed into his senior year of high school and Tubbs didn’t want to uproot him. But Logan didn’t mind moving across country.
“We left it up to him and he was all for it,” Tubbs said.
Tubbs had just coached the Homewood girls to a 33-2 record and the 2017 Class 6A state championship when he and his family moved to Seattle to work as the director of research at the Seattle Science Foundation alongside his brother Shane.
There also was a bonus. Tubbs got to watch Logan play basketball his senior year.
“It was a great experience for him,” Tubbs said. “The school was great and the coach was great. I got to go to all of his games and just be a parent. That was really cool.”
But after Logan graduated, Tubbs missed being around basketball.
“My second year in Seattle was rough,” Tubbs said. “It was the first time in 28 or 29 years I was not involved with a team.”
At the end of 2018, Tubbs and his family decided to return to Homewood. Shortly after he got back, he got his old job back as the Patriots’ girls head basketball coach.
“I came back in the middle of February and I started looking for a job coaching again because that is where my passion is,” Tubbs said. “I started looking around and applying for other jobs that were open. I didn’t think about the possibility of coming back to Homewood.”
Homewood had an opening because Jazmine Powers, who replaced Tubbs and was the Patriots’ coach the past two seasons, left to become head coach at Bob Jones High School in Madison.
When Homewood learned Tubbs was back in town looking for a job, he was contacted, and things happened quickly. He was hired as the Homewood Middle School librarian in February.
“They had a teacher who transferred and they needed a certified teacher,” he explained. “It’s been cool. I’ve heard a lot of jokes about the Dewey Decimal System. But it’s great to be back home.”
Sliding Back Into the Groove
In the fall, Tubbs will be back at the high school coaching and teaching physical education.
He is familiar with the players he’s inheriting. In addition to coaching girls basketball the first time around, he was also athletic director for Homewood City Schools and implemented an offensive and defensive scheme for girls basketball throughout the system.
“They’re the same girls I was working with when they were in the seventh and eighth grade,” Tubbs said. “When I was going over things with them during spring practice, they just reverted back to what we did in the seventh and eighth grade. That was pretty nice.”
Tubbs was excited that 26 players participated in spring training, so the Patriots can have a junior varsity team along with the varsity.
“We’ll have only one senior on the varsity,” Tubbs said. “We’ll have mostly juniors and sophomores, so we’ll be a little young. But I definitely think we’ll be competitive.”
