There's another new sheriff for Fort Valley State men's basketball, and he knows success
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
Fort Valley State’s newest men’s basketball head coach brings quite the resume.
Mark Sherrill has been the associate men’s head coach at Johnson C Smith for the past two dozen years as part of a career that includes induction to the CIAA Hall of Fame, being part of 10 CIAA Western Division titles, and two Southern Division championships, plus a trip to the Division II Elite Eight.
FVSU made the announcement with a post on its main Twitter page at 4:18 p.m. Tuesday.
Its athletics department Twitter account was dormant from Nov. 4, 2017 until Saturday with the “announcement” – about seven hours before the season-opening football game at Florida A&M of the “renewal and emphasis on reviving the official athletics twitter account”.
Mark Sherrill Jr. and Sr.
The release, posted on the athletics Twitter feed about an hour later, didn’t mention previous head coach Sammy Jackson or his departure, and neither Twitter feed announced his resignation.
That apparently happened a few weeks ago, as per a posting on the news portion of the basketball team’s website with a story announcing Jackson’s resignation on Aug. 23.
"After visiting with my family, I made a decision to devote time to critical family issues which require my full attention," Jackson said in the story. "Unfortunately, that will prevent me from being optimally effective as men's basketball coach during the upcoming season. I hope what are now emergencies will prove to be temporary, and plan to resume my coaching career once they are resolved."
His resignation is to take effect on Sept. 30.
The school did post a story on the basketball team’s news portion of fvsusports.com stating Sherrill was the “sole finalist” for the job, and invited fans to meet him that day, Aug. 30. It stated he was the finalist from nearly 80 candidates.
The release drew a little publicity, like “Strangest Press Release of the Year” from hoopdirt.com, in which an unnamed writer wondered: “Has he been hired? Is he about to be hired? What if he bombs the community meeting? Did they interview anyone else?”
The announcement that he was actually hired came five days later.
Sherrill recruited nearly four dozen all-conference players and 11 All-Americans, plus three CIAA players of the year. His coaching career followed a stellar playing career, during which he left Johnson C. Smith as the program’s No. 2 scorer, with 2,552 points.
That included a school record of 774 points in a season, 1990-91, good for eighth nationally.
Sherrill was the program’s first All-American, taking Division II honors, after starting off his playing days as the conference rookie of the year.
“Coach Sherrill has been a part of Johnson C. Smith University’s basketball program since 1988 when he earned the CIAA Rookie of the Year honor and was one of the best players in Golden Bulls basketball history,” said Stephen Joyner Sr., Johnson C. Smith’s head coach and athletics director, in the FVSU release. “It has been my pleasure to be a part of Mark’s growth and development during his 24 years as my assistant men’s basketball coach. We have won CIAA championships together and developed a generation of young men who are leaders in their professions and productive members of society.”
Sherrill graduated in 1992. Since the 1993-94 season, Johnson C. Smith has had only four losing seasons.
The fact sheet on the FVSU men’s basketball web page hasn’t been updated since before last season. Kareem Kenney is listed as the associate head coach and Desmond Lofland as player development.
The Wildcats went 17-14 in 2016-17, 11-5 in the SIAC, and 13-16 and 9-10 last year. Jackson went 83-120 at FVSU.
According to last year’s roster posted on the website, the Wildcats are to return eight underclassmen.
There are no links regarding the program’s history or past seasons. But Sherrill is the Wildcats’ sixth head coach in less than two decades, following Michael Moore, Travis Williams, Emory Lightfoot, John Douglas, and Jackson, who lasted the second-longest on that list behind Moore, who was fired in 2003-04 after his 11th season.
The 2018-19 schedule has yet to be posted on the basketball team’s portion of the website. Sherrill will try to deliver the Wildcats’ first SIAC tournament title since 1998.