Jacksonville State has hired former South Alabama women’s basketball coach Rick Pietri as its new women’s head coach, JSU athletic director Warren Koegel announced Monday.
Pietri led the Lady Jaguars for 13 seasons and is the winningest coach in program history with a 220-167 record. He becomes the latest former South Alabama coach to join the Jacksonville State athletic department.
Turnaround at South Alabama
Pietri, a South Alabama graduate, took over the Lady Jaguars in April 2000. The program had posted 10 consecutive losing seasons before his arrival.
In his first season, 2000-01, South Alabama went 13-16, its highest win total in more than a decade and just two fewer wins than the program had combined over the previous two seasons. In his second year the Lady Jaguars started 16-5 and finished 17-11, the program’s first winning record since 1989-90. His third team opened 14-1 and finished 22-7.
Under Pietri, South Alabama won back-to-back Sun Belt Conference West Division titles in 2003 and 2004 and made consecutive Women’s National Invitation Tournament appearances in those seasons. His teams went 130-54 at home and posted winning records in five of his final six seasons.
Coaching Background
Pietri started his college coaching career as a men’s assistant at Spring Hill College from 1989 to 1993, then spent the 1993-94 season on Duane Reboul’s staff at Birmingham-Southern.
He became a head coach at Mobile’s B.C. Rain High School, where his boys’ teams went 106-32 from 1994 to 1998, reached the state final four in four straight seasons and earned him Class 5A Coach of the Year honors in 1998. He then coached the boys’ program at St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Mobile for two seasons before South Alabama hired him.
Rebuilding Job at JSU
Pietri inherits a Jacksonville State team that went 1-27 overall and 1-15 in conference play last season.
His hiring continues a connection between the two schools. In December, Jacksonville State named former South Alabama defensive coordinator Bill Clark its head football coach. Clark brought Duwan Walker with him as defensive coordinator and hired former South Alabama assistant Chuck Dunn to coach inside linebackers and serve as strength and conditioning coach.
