By Carolyn Cole
Published on September 25, 2008

Taft Turner is ready to take the court next week with Mustang High School’s girls basketball team as they start practice.

Turner will follow Nichole Copeland, who resigned last month as coach after eight years and leading the team to win the 2006 Class 6A state championship and to the 2007 state finals. She is continuing to teach biology at the high school.

Mustang School Board members selected Turner from a field of nine candidates Monday night. Turner comes to Mustang after almost 20 years teaching and coaching, mostly in North Carolina. Twice in his career, he’s coached boys high school basketball teams that were ranked in the top 15 schools nationally.

“You have to have a love for kids, if you are going to be in high school athletics,” he said. “It’s more about memories and helping kids to build bright futures ... it’s about the people more than about the program, games and fundamentals.”

Turner said he’s loved athletics since grade school and played football in college at North Carolina A&T State University, where he graduated in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in business education with a minor in economics and recreation management. He also obtained a master’s degree in education administration and supervision from the college in 1996.

While he has coached almost every sport, from swimming and cross country to baseball and football — basketball was always Turner’s passion.

“I am one of those people who believe whether you play or not is not necessarily a proving ground for being a coach, if you like to study the game and you have a passion for it,” he said.

In 10 years as an assistant basketball coach in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, Turner helped coach the 1998-1999 West Charlotte High School team to a 4A-state championship and a ranking of 14th in the nation. While at Myers Park High School, his team reached the second-round of the playoffs, and in his four years at Independence High School, the boys team has made the playoffs each year.

While he coached at Greensboro’s Dudley High School for eight years, the school’s 1996 team was state 4-A champions and ranked eighth nationally. The team’s star player Brendan Haywood was drafted by the NBA’s Washington Wizards.

Turner said he is most proud, not of the team’s athletic accomplishments, but that every player in the 1995 and 1996 teams qualified for college scholarships — many attended Division 1 schools. He said he stresses the importance of academics with his athletes, adding they must be students first.

Turner said he feels the same way about his skills as a business education instructor and a coach. For about 15 years, he spent his summers helping with the Friends of Mugsy Bouges Summer Basketball Camp and the University of North Carolina Basketball School, working with UNC coaches Dean Smith, Bill Gutheridge and Roy Williams. Turner has also helped coach youth teams, including helping to found the Greensboro Chargers.

“You learn by getting around other people who are willing to share with you,” he said.

Turner decided to move to Oklahoma to follow his fiancee Leslie Purcell, who works in basketball operations with the Oklahoma City Thunder. As a former basketball player, he said he expects she’ll help in coaching. As in Charlotte, Turner said he’s going to work to with other area coaches and basketball groups to help his students.

“Whatever I can do to create fun opportunities for my kids I’m going to do it,” he said.

Mustang will be Turner’s first lead role with a girls’ team, and he said he’s preparing for the challenge by seeking advice from a close friend who coaches girls’ basketball at Independence.
While boys’ play focuses on taking the ball to the rim, girls take basketball back to its roots, he said.

“The feature for women’s basketball is the floor game, the perimeter game,” he said. “Women take seriously the fundamentals of the game. They don’t rely on athleticism to save them.”

Turner said he expected to hit the ground running in Mustang Friday, after learning he was chosen for the job Monday. He said he hoped to start practice on schedule Wednesday.

“I am going to rely on my assistant coaches to make the transition,” he said.

Athletic Director Mike Clark said Turner met all of the qualifications school officials were seeking in a head coach.

“We look for somebody who is very knowledgeable of the game,” he said. “Somebody who can work with young ladies.”

Turner has three children — a son attending college on a football scholarship, a high school senior and freshman. He said his teenagers will finish their school year in Charlotte and his youngest child will start in Oklahoma schools his sophomore year.