Caddo Hills announces Chris Jones as new boys basketball coach

DEWAYNE HOLLOWAY/dewayne@mcnews.online

Chris Jones

CADDO HILLS – The Caddo Hills Board of Directors placed their boys basketball program into the hands of an Indian legend Friday evening with the hire of Chris Jones as the new boys basketball coach.

Principal Jason Whitaker recommended Jones for the position of head boys basketball coach Friday night after a brief executive meeting. The vote to approve his recommendation happened quickly and was unanimous. The vote followed the official acceptance of former coach Josh Ferrell’s resignation.

Jones is a 1990 graduate of Caddo Hills High School and was a key force in the state championship era of the late 1980s and 1990. After high school he attended Ouachita Baptist University.

He has had eight different coaching positions since graduating from OBU in 1996, three of which were in area schools.

Jones started his career with a one year stint at Sparkman as the head boys basketball coach. From there he moved closer to home to coach the junior boys at Centerpoint from 1997-98.

He shifted roles into the girls basketball arena in 1999 to coach the Mountain Pine girls program. This would prove to be his longest stint with 10 years as the head Lady Red Devils coach.

He traveled to Lonoke to coach junior boys for a year before stepping into the head boys position at Glen Rose. He coached at Glen Rose from 2010-13 before moving to Hughes for a year. The consolidation of Hughes with West Memphis led him to Lakeside-Lake Village where his was the head boys basketball coach from 2016-19.

Jones has worked as the Assistant Senior Girls Basketball Coach at Watson Chapel from 2019-21.

Principal Jason Whitaker stated that they had received 14 people submit applications for the position left vacant with the departure of Josh Ferrell to Paris High School. Through interviews they were able to narrow the search to five. Whitaker shared that he had narrowed the search to five coaches he had coached with and against that he thought could lead the program forward, but ultimately he felt Jones was the right choice.

Jones brings personal championship experience in an Indian jersey to the program. He takes over a very talented group of athletes that returns two starters and several who contributed significant minutes from last year’s run to the 2A championship game in Hot Springs.

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