By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

Harrison Central High School has a new head football coach.
Administration at the school announced Monday night that Nekemia Rich was offered and accepted the top job with the Red Rebels. Rich has been an assistant on the HCHS staff for the past two decades or so under four different head coaches.
He most recently served as defensive backs coach at HCHS.
Rich also led the Red Rebels to the 2014 Class 6A state track and field championship during his time at the school. He also served as an assistant in the Max Emfinger All-Star Game in 2013, a game that features players from all over the nation.
Rich was a standout player in high school at Starkville High School. He was a sophomore on the 1995 Yellow Jackets team that won the Class 5A state championship with a 34-14 win over Hattiesburg in Jackson.

Rich replaces Tony Myers at the helm of the Red Rebels, who stepped down after just two seasons in charge. He announced that he was leaving Harrison Central in order to move back to the Hattiesburg area.
Myers led the program for two years but was on the staff as the offensive coordinator since 2018. He was elevated to the top job to replace Casey Cain, who spent seven seasons in that seat before leaving.
The Red Rebels finished 6-6 overall last season and qualified for the first-ever Class 7A South State playoffs. Myers led the squad to a winning 6-5 regular season and a fourth-place finish in Region 4-7A before falling on the road in the opening round of the postseason 41-14 to powerful Brandon.

Myers replaced Casey Cain, who led Harrison Central for seven years. Ironically enough, Cain also left that post to return to the Pine Belt.
In basketball head coaching news, it is expected that a second Mississippi Gulf Coast boys hoops squad will officially have a new head coach in two days on Tuesday night.
After five years at the helm of the D’Iberville Warriors, Robin Sikes is heading west a bit down the Gulf Coast.
Last week, according to sources in prep basketball circles across South Mississippi close to the SouthMiss6 Sports staff, Sikes was offered and accepted the head boys basketball job at Pass Christian High School. The move is pending school board approval and the next scheduled meeting which is scheduled for Tuesday night.
Sikes is coming off a 10-18 campaign with the Warriors, and DHS missed the Class 7A South State playoffs.

Prior to that however, Sikes guided the Warriors to winning records and state playoff appearances in back-to-back seasons in 20223 and 2022 as well as a solid 17-8 mark in 2021.
One of the biggest highlights for Sikes during his tenure at D’Iberville was guiding the Warriors to back-to-back tournament championships in the prestigious Admiral Hardwood Club Holiday Classic in Gulfport in 2021 and 2022.
Sikes came to D’Iberville after spending two seasons as the head coach at Moss Point where he led the Tigers to back-to-back Class 4A South State playoff appearances. He also previously served as an assistant coach at his alma mater St. Martin before going to MPHS.
He was a standout player for the Yellow Jackets and then signed a basketball scholarship with the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.
He is set to replace one of the living legends at the helm of the Pirates in Buddy Kennedy, who stepped down after nearly 30 years as PCHS head coach at the end of last season.