Husband and wife team to take over basketball coaching at Caldwell County high school.
Maury Patterson is the new girls basketball coach at Hibriten High School in Lenoir, and his wife, Jenni, will be his lead assistant.
And no, you don’t see that often.
“She is a social worker at a hospice here,” Maury Patterson said, “and she’s pretty good at working with people. She will be helpful dealing with younger females, especially when they someone to talk to and they might feel better talking to a female.”
Patterson played high school ball at nearby West Caldwell for legendary coach Danny Anderson. His wife is a former player at Lincolnton High School.
In his new job, Patterson will coach against his alma mater at least twice per year. West Caldwell and Hibriten are both in the Northwestern Foothills 2A conference.
Hibriten athletic director Derek Reeves said former girls basketball coach Georgre Christas would move over to become boys’ swim coach. Christas, who has been at the school for four years, has swam competitively since he was 7, Reeves said, and won multiple county and state championships in Pennsylvania.
Reeves thinks Christas can build a strong swim program, and that Patterson can help turn around a girls basketball team that finished 4-20 last season. In the past six years, Hibriten is 21-97.
“Coach Patterson will bring with him to Hibriten a preparation and skill set that will prepare our girls and take our program to the next level,” Reeves said. “Besides his knowledge of the Xs and Os, coach Patterson is well known for the teaching and developing of the skills required for our women to be successful on the court.”
This will be Patterson’s first varsity head coaching position. He has previous experience as a men’s basketball assistant at Caldwell Community College for three seasons and at West Caldwell, where he was head junior varsity coach. He’s also coached a local middle school boys team.
Patterson, who runs a rec center in Lenoir, is well known for training some of the area’s better basketball players. He plans to use those skills to make Hibriten’s girls team better.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I want to teach them what hard work really is, and get them started earlier. It’s going to be a little different than what they’re used to. I mean, I’m kind of old school. They’re going to have to get on it.”
Cuthbertson names new boys basketball coach
Chris Caputi is the new boys basketball coach at Cuthbertson High in Union County. Caputi was an assistant at the school last season
Cuthbertson was 9-16 in 2019-20 under Mike Helms, who resigned. Helms, who started the program at the school 11 years ago, has a 177-122 career record.
Caputi, a New York native, moved to Charlotte to coach at Division II Queens University where he worked from 2014-16. He subsquently worked at Ardrey Kell High School and North Forsyth before coming to Cuthbertson last fall.
