MONROE — The decision felt right for Justin Clemmons. He’s ready to lead the Monroe High School girls basketball program.
“Being invested in the Monroe community, it was a good fit for me and my family,” said Clemmons, who was announced Friday — pending school board approval May 22 — as the Hornets’ next head coach.
Clemmons takes over for Chad Adolph, who recently left for the Loveland girls basketball coach position. Adolph led Monroe to a 37-53 record in four seasons at the helm.
“Priority one is to grow the numbers within the program,” Clemmons said. “As a Division I school, we need to have a junior varsity program. Practice reps are different than game reps. These girls need the opportunity to play at the JV level — which is important.”
Clemmons met with the team on Friday to discuss expectations and plans going forward.
“We must get one percent better every day,” Clemmons said. “Me being one percent better every day with them is how we can control things, and being role models in the community are the most important things.”
Clemmons, a 2014 Edgewood graduate, has been an intervention specialist at Monroe High School the past four years.
“Me being in the building will be huge,” he said. “We can focus on the relationship building stuff, rather than strictly focusing on it during a two-hour practice.”
Clemmons was an assistant basketball coach at Edgewood for five years — four with the girls program and one with the boys. Clemmons was a three-year varsity assistant for the boys basketball team at Monroe, and he’s also done some football, baseball and track assistant coaching.
This is the first head coaching position for Clemmons, who turns 27 in two weeks.
“I’m extremely excited to have Coach Clemmons join our girls basketball programas our next head coach,” Monroe athletic director Eric Silverman said. “As a teacher in our building, Justin is extremely well respected by our staff and students as a person who is genuine and authentic in his passion for helping students reach their goals.
“Coach Clemmons has a strong track record building positive relationships with students to maximize both their academic and athletic potential, and I am looking forward to his leadership of our girls basketball program.”
Clemmons said there will be focus on continuing Adolph’s community culture within the program.
“We need to make it an enjoyable experience for the kids and establish the mindset that academics is just as important than what we do on the floor — the way we carry ourselves,” Clemmons said. “We need to represent the community well. The good thing is that these are great kids already. That’s going to be the easy part. We need to build on that.
“Getting our weight room up and building strength is another must and establishing that year-round. Knowing that the girls won eight games last year is important to remember compared to the success in recent years — do the things that are already established.”
Clemmons said he understands the current — and growing —competition within the Southwestern Buckeye League, as Butler County foes Edgewood and Ross join the conference next school year.
“We will have to earn it every night,” he said. “The principlesare that we will run man to man and mix it up with zone if the situation fits itself. We have an athletic group. Trying to speed teams up and establish the tone defensively will be important.
“Offensively, we finished in the bottom half of the league, so trying to get them to open up more. I’m a dribble-drive guy, sets to get shooters open or looks for players inside. It will be our MO, with a personnel-based and matchup-based. Having some established sets are some things that we will do and hang our hat on.”
Clemmons said he has phone calls set up in the coming days to establish a coaching staff. He said he’s “looking inside the high school walls. The more people you have in the building is a good thing to build the relationships with the girls.”
Clemmons graduated with a special education degree from Miami University in 2018. He resides in Monroe with his wife Melissa and their 13-month-old son.
