Adkison resigns after nine years as Culleoka girls coach

By Maurice Patton

Derrick Adkison hasn’t closed the door on coaching again, but it’ll be a while before he leads another basketball team.

After nine years at the helm of the Culleoka girls program, Adkison resigned recently in order to devote more time to his family.

“My son’s moving into high school. I didn’t want to miss all of his games, with us playing at the same time,” he said. “I decided to step down for a while. It’s a tough decision. I love coaching, but I couldn’t afford to miss his games.”

Macon Adkison joined the Santa Fe boys team as an eighth-grader this past season, seeing action in a handful of games.

“I missed some of his first games this year,” Derrick said. “He didn’t get a lot of (playing) time, but he’s expected to get a lot more next year as a freshman.”

The 39-year-old Adkison began his coaching career at Santa Fe while student teaching there and continued as an assistant at E.A. Cox Middle School. He also spent time as a boys assistant at Culleoka, under Bruce Slatten and Marty DeJarnette, before taking the Lady Warriors’ helm for the 2012-13 season.

“He’s a great guy with a great work ethic, as honest and loyal as they come,” said DeJarnette, currently the boys coach at Columbia Academy.

Culleoka athletics director Doug Sharp, who preceded Adkison as girls coach, said a timetable for hiring a  new coach has not been established.

“We’ll post (the vacancy) and see,” Sharp said. “We haven’t really explored it.

“(Adkison) did a good job for us. He’s wanting to stay in coaching, help out with the fall sports. We’ll see how that works out.”

Coming off a 14-13 campaign in 2019-20, Culleoka finished 9-12 in Adkison’s final season, advancing to the Region 5-A quarterfinals for the fourth straight time and for the sixth time in his nine years.

“This junior class means a lot to me. I hate to not be with them for their senior year,” he said. “It was hard to tell them I wouldn’t be back.

“Before I know it, my son will be out of school.”

Culleoka becomes the second Maury County Public School in search of a girls basketball coach. Joshua Bugg was dismissed at Columbia Central last week after four seasons. Additionally, Independence has openings in both girls and boys basketball.

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