Faith Academy has a new leader for its boys basketball program, naming Joey Nieves as head coach after he built a winning reputation at a Florida Panhandle Christian school.
Nieves arrives in Mobile County from L.E.A.D. Academy in Pace, Florida, where he started the school’s basketball program from scratch in 2019. He steps in for Chad Applin, who left Faith Academy to take a new position elsewhere. In a Facebook post, the school thanked Applin for his years of commitment to the program and wished him well in his next opportunity, though efforts to reach Applin directly for comment were unsuccessful.
Nieves said the move to Faith Academy came about somewhat unexpectedly. “I didn’t look for a coaching vacancy,” he said. “In fact, I wasn’t planning to leave L.E.A.D. Academy. (Faith) was looking for someone else and the person they were interested in threw my hat into the ring. Some of the best jobs you don’t expect to get and when God opens a door, I try my best to be obedient.”
Describing his coaching philosophy, Nieves said he plans to keep things straightforward. “I’m all about being disciplined, structured and playing team basketball,” he said. “It’s all about we and not about me. I think we’ll be satisfied with the types of players we have there.”
At L.E.A.D. Academy, Nieves guided the program through four seasons with records of 5-20, 8-13, 27-2 and 14-16, with that final mark coming after the school became a provisional member of the Florida High School Athletic Association and began facing larger Class 5A and 6A programs such as Pine Forest and Chiles. Nieves said the program deliberately sought out tougher competition rather than padding its win total. “We could’ve had a schedule that would have guaranteed us another 20-win season but we wanted to be able to go up against some tough competition,” he said.
Nieves, a native of Jersey City, New Jersey, graduated from Gateway High School in Kissimmee, Florida, in 2005, where he played basketball, before going on to play three seasons at Pensacola Christian College. He later earned his degree in education from Liberty University. Before launching the program at L.E.A.D. Academy, Nieves worked as a guidance counselor and assistant varsity basketball coach at Heritage Christian School in Kissimmee, and also coached the Southeast Elite travel basketball program.
Nieves is married to the former Katie Berg, and the couple has four children. His hire gives Faith Academy a coach with experience both building a program from the ground up and competing against larger classifications, as the school looks to keep its boys basketball program competitive within the South Alabama private school ranks.