MIDDLETOWN — Middletown High School named Steven Roe II as its next head girls basketball coach Monday morning, pending school board approval.
Roe takes over for Terrence Toliver, who recently accepted the head girls basketball coach job at Springfield.
The Middies went 8-15 last season and haven’t had a winning record since 2015-16 when they went 13-10. The last postseason victory for Middletown was during the 2013-14 campaign, a 60-47 win over Western Brown in the opening round.
Roe was an assistant to Toliver the last three seasons, when the Middies compiled a 12-51 record.
Middletown athletic director JD Foust said the decision to hire Roe was based on his established role within the program.
“Coach Roe brings with him a wealth of experience and leadership, as well as a mentality for championship-caliber competition,” Foust said.
Roe said the transition to head coach is going to be a smooth one, as he was more of an associate head coach to Toliver during the last three seasons.
“It’s a little unique situation in that outside of me being the voice during the game, I’ve been doing everything as the head coach,” Roe said. “I’ve always showed interest that if the opportunity presented itself for me to take over the program, I would apply for it.
“I want to continue what has been built here so far. I think the school is pleased where we’ve moved the needle to.”
Roe has coached youth sports for 20 years, including 15 at the high school level.
Prior to coming to Middletown, Roe was the head coach at Miami Valley School and Emmanuel Christian — both three-year stints. He also was an assistant boys basketball coach at Yellowsprings before that.
“We’re wanting to create a competitive culture — for them to understand what winning looks like,” said Roe, who noted when he came to Middletown with Toliver that the two had a five-year plan of increasing the program’s success.
“It all starts with mental toughness. We want to improve on our win record. The goals moving forward for me is to get the team above .500 and to get out of the first round of tournament play.”
Roe said he wants opponents in the Greater Miami Conference to expect a battle each time they hit the court.
“We want to be competitive against the top teams in our conference,” he said. “Winning starts with a belief system. We’ve come a long way in helping our girls to understand and believe in their abilities to compete with these tougher teams in the GMC.
“Our girls had already started to set goals, and we want to hold them accountable with obtaining those goals. We want to continue to empower our young ladies to believe in themselves and to embrace adversity — getting comfortable in being uncomfortable.”
Roe said discovering advantages and his players’ skill sets will determine how the Middies run their offense and defense.
“We’re going to continue to have some form of dribble drive offense and put the ball in the hands of our ball handlers and playmakers,” Roe said. “We want most of our offense to come from transition because of defense. We’re going to incorporate more bodies to make that happen.”
Roe, 50, resides in Dayton with his wife, Heidi, of 30 years, and they have four children.
