Keith Gatlin to High Point Wesleyan

Keith Gatlin has been named the new boy’s basketball coach at Wesleyan Christian Academy also know in many circles as High Point Wesleyan.

Gatlin replaces Tim Wilson had just moved up to coach the boys this past season after being in charge of the girl’s team for several years. Wilson had much success with the girl’s team, but the road was a little bit more rocky with the boys.

James Robbins and Jonathan Johnson were HPW’s top upperclassmen and sometimes Coach Wilson wanted to go more with his younger players for the future and maybe that didn’t mesh too well with the veterans and that may have been the source of some of the problems. That is just a personal observation and maybe we’ll never know the whole story.

The rest of the story on Keith Gatlin is that he has one heck of a basketball pedigree. Keith grew up down in the Rocky Mount area and he set all kinds of prep records and was named North Carolina High School Player-of-the-Year back in the early 1980’s.

Keith followed Rocky Mount native Charles “Buck” Williams up to the University of Maryland and played for legendary Terrapin coach Charles “Lefty” Driesell. Keith Gatlin set all kinds of assist records that stood for many years at Maryland and his college roommate was the great Len Bias.(Now deceased)

Keith came to Greensboro and was set to play for the Greensboro City Gaters of the short-lived Global Basketball Association(GBA), but he suffered a knee injury and never got to suit up for the City Gaters. John Schneer who is now the Athletic Trainer and assistant Athletic Director at Greensboro Day, helped oversee the repair of Gatlin’s knee since Schneer was the Gaters’ trainer and Schneer also helped with Keith Gatlin’s re-hab while Schneer was working at Guilford Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Center.

Gatlin recovered enough from that knee injury to get in some quality time playing professional basketball in Europe and did well enough finacially to return to Greensboro after his playing days in Europe were complete.

Gatlin became a youth basketball coach and helped run camps here locally and he also served as the assistant to Greensboro Day School head coach Freddy Johnson. Gatlin later coached the girl’s at GDS for a brief time, before Josh Shoemaker took over the Lady Bengals. Keith and his wife also opened up an over-the-road trucking company that put them in the transport business.

Keith became the head boy’s basketball coach at the now-defunct Veritas Academy in Kernersville and maintained that team and job for one season.(2008/2009) Keith had the Deng brothers, the Coble cousins and several other top-notch high school basketball players on his squad at Veritas and it will be interesting to see if any of those kids will surface at High Point Wesleyan.

Keith Gatlin has had strong ties to Nike over the years and one would expect to that relationship to continue as he proceeds to Wesleyan.

Good luck to Keith Gatlin, the former Maryland Terrapin, now the new head boy’s basketball coach for the High Point Wesleyan Trojans.

3 thoughts on “Keith Gatlin to High Point Wesleyan

  1. Keith Gatlin can’t coach his way out of a wet paper bag. Witness a couple of games last season, offense was very weak, team had no chemistry, It seems to me ,he doesn’t have a clear understanding of his personel. He had a very talented lead guard Torre’ Somerville along with Deng Leek. Defensively, no philosophy, no concept. Whoever hired Gatlin must be on drugs WOW. I guess everyone needs a second chance but not when it comes to young men goals and dreams.

  2. Ill never understand this posted comments by Blackmike
    He played for me in Germany for 4 Years, was an exellent character und brilliant leader on the floor. He runs a lot of school basketball clinics with terrific succsess.
    He play in Hagen/ Germany from 93-96 and is still today known here as an honorable person and player. With his skills and hios character there is no doubt that he can run a team.

  3. Gatlin is a great leader and coach. Very involved and respected in the community. It was a privileged to have learned from Coach Gatlin!

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