The Albertville City Board of Education voted unanimously on Tuesday morning to hire Chris Graves as the new head basketball coach for Albertville High. Graves became available with the closing of Birmingham-Southern College, where he had been head coach since 2011.

Graves replaces Major Deacon, who left after one season to become head coach at Thompson. Deacon’s Aggies finished 23-8 and lost in the Class 7A, Area 7 tournament to Grissom.

“I think Albertville is a place where they really care about basketball,” Graves said. “It’s important to their community. I felt a good connection, a synergy of purpose, when I visited with them about the job.

“The superintendent Dr. (Bart) Reeves has been awesome and (athletic director) Matt (Lambert) has been first class through this whole process. It feels like a good fit for my family. If you’re going to move, you want to be where you believe in the community, the school and what the program is all about. I had a real comfortable feeling with the leadership of the school system.”

Graves, a Fort Worth native, graduated from Lake County Christian High School and earned a bachelor’s degree at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Ark., in 1999. He got a master’s in Exercise Physiology at the University of Arkansas in 2004, where he was a graduate assistant for legendary Razorbacks coach Nolan Richardson.

Graves led Birmingham-Southern to five conference championships – three regular-season titles and two tournament crowns – in 12 years as head coach. He took the Panthers to the NCAA Division III tournament in 2011, 2012 and 2016. His 2016 team advanced to the Sweet 16. He was an assistant at BSC for three years before taking the top spot.

“I’m a Birmingham-Southern graduate,” Albertville AD Lambert said. “I played baseball there for coach Brian Shoop, so Birmingham-Southern has always been a special place for me. I knew coach Graves and followed his career there. I hate that the school is closing, but the Lord’s timing is always perfect. The door was open at Albertville and Birmingham-Southern was closing its doors. Coach Graves was the first person I called. I knew he was more than likely looking for a job and we needed someone like him.

“We’re very blessed and fortunate to get hold of him at the right time. He’s a good hire for us, for sure.

“I don’t know how many I’ve told this, but in my vetting process,” Lambert said, “I’ve yet to hear one negative comment about the guy. You have to be pretty special to have a long stay at BSC. The way he answered our questions was exactly what we were looking for.

“He’s going to be an awesome coach on the court, but he will have a bigger impact on our guys’ hearts and character. He will help them to be good husbands and fathers. They will benefit more than just on the basketball court.”

Graves, 47, compiled a 200-142 record at Birmingham-Southern, a .585 winning percentage. His conference record was 112-69, a 61.9 winning percentage. His last team was 15-11, 9-5 in league play.

He was head coach at Pell City High School from 2006-08 and at Columbia Central in Tennessee from 2003-05. From 2001-03, Graves was an assistant coach at Tennessee State University in Nashville and from 1999-01 he was a graduate assistant at the University of Arkansas.

Graves is scheduled to meet with the Albertville community at a reception today at 6:30 p.m. in the gymnasium lobby.

“I’m excited to meet some of the local community and the guys and get ready to go to work,” he said. “I think we have, from my research, a really strong class of seniors coming. Some of the younger teams have had a lot of success. It’s such a challenge in the area that we play in where they have some of the best coaches and teams in the state.

“It will be fun to try to raise the level of our program to meet the challenge of these elite teams,” Graves said. “I also know how important the Marshall County games are and that county tournament.”

Graves said his preferred style of play comes from the BSC tradition of Duane Reboul. “If you’ve watched Samford or Mountain Brook with Bucky McMillan or Huntsville High with coach (Christian) Schweers, we run that system. But you have to use the talent you have and be adaptable enough to play the system that works with your guys.

“This summer, that will be the base system we run and we’ll adjust as needed. That’s a benefit of coaching at a small college. Often you have a base system and then have to adjust.”

Graves and his wife, Merin, have three children – two sons, Bryce, 17, and Bo, 11, and a 6-year-old daughter, Avery. Merin Graves is an optometrist at the Birmingham VA Medical Center.

“She loves the work at the VA,” he said, “and she’s good at it. There is a VA clinic in Guntersville and one in Huntsville. She would prefer to stay with the VA because she loves the veterans and we hope she’ll be able to do that.”