WS Chronicle

The West Forsyth Titans didn’t have to look far for their new boys basketball head coach. Former Atkins head coach Marlon Brim was introduced as the new head coach last week during a press conference.

Brim was the head coach at Atkins for seven years and turned that program into one of the more competitive programs on the 3A level. He was sad to leave his former players, but at the same time excited for the new beginnings with the Titans.

“There were reservations and it was really a hard decision because of what we built, some of the young kids that are there and just the overall body of work we have done at Atkins,” said Brim. “It was definitely a hard decision that had to be made.

“At first I was excited and then kind of sad because I knew I had to make the decision to leave Atkins. I was very excited to be the new coach at West Forsyth, so I was both happy and sad.”

Breaking the news to his former players at Atkins was tough for Brim, he said. They have a young core of players that are still developing and the relationships he has built with them are invaluable, so it was difficult to leave them.

“It was kind of hard at first but once I kind of broke the news, all the guys kind of gave me a handshake and congratulations,” he said. “It was kind of sad when I left Atkins on that day just knowing I won’t be the coach at Atkins High School.”

Brim will be taking over a program that has fallen below their traditional standards of the past. The Titans have not had a winning season since the 2016-17 campaign when they finished 27-3. Over the last five seasons, the Titans have only won a total of 29 games.

“I was talking to my family when the decision was made and I am very excited for the opportunity to build a program at West and West has a lot of traditions, so we want to go in ready to hit the ground running and just build it and hopefully we can have as much success as we did at Atkins,” Brim said about his hopes for turning around the Titan program.

West Forsyth has a reputation for having some of the best athletes in the area. Brim is looking to harness that athleticism and talent that the school possesses and put together a quality team on the court.

“That was one of the reasons why the job was so intriguing is the size of the school, the athletes and the kids that come to West. So, that was one of the main things that drew my attention to the West job,” he said about the talent the school has. “And as a school with that many kids, you are bound to have some athletes and some basketball players over there.”

Brim was able to meet the returning players from last year’s team to work on some skill building exercises and implement his weightlifting program. During his introductory press conference, Brim was also introduced to several parents of current players that will allow him to build relationships with them sooner than later.

Brim knows exactly what direction he wants to take the Titan program and feels they can achieve success if the players buy in.

“The vision is what it always was when we were at Atkins, which is to build a program of young men with character, toughness, a winning tradition and just overall great student athletes,” Brim said about what he expects from his program. “We want to compete at a high level, we want to play at a high level, we want to be a character program and we just want to put West Forsyth back on the map and we will do all of those things to make it that way.”

Even though he is moving up to the 4A level, Brim says he will run a similar style of play as he did with the Camels.

“I think we are going to do what we do,” he said.  “We will tweak a couple of things, but we want to keep the same type of style of play. We want to play hard, we want to play tough, we want to play unselfish and we want to play at the pace that I am used to. We won’t change a lot, but we will change a few things.”

Brim is an up-tempo style of coach who likes to see his players get out and run. He doesn’t run a lot of offensive sets but instead likes to give his players the freedom to create and make plays.

Developing his players to make them better on and off the court is the biggest goal for Brim. He says wins and losses are not the only measuring stick as to how a coach or team is performing.

“I don’t think you can judge a year by wins and losses. I think you judge a season by how kids get better, how they progress, how the season starts and ends and how the kids buy in from the first initial workout through the summer into the season and see a progression in every player and then you measure your first year by that,” said Brim.  

“It will be some good wins hopefully and it will be some tough losses, but I think overall we want to judge that first year off of the growth of the basketball player and building a program that way.”