Terry Josting has been named head boys basketball coach at Haughton, principal David Haynie announced Thursday.
Josting, a former head boys coach at Parkway and head girls coach at Southwood and Bossier, replaces Norm Picou.
Picou, who was the head coach for one season, has accepted a position as assistant principal and athletic director at Red River.
“Terry’s been out of coaching for a couple of years and we wanted to give him an opportunity,” Haynie said. “We feel like he’s the best fit for us.”
Josting has spent most of his 25-year coaching career at Bossier Parish schools. He coached at Parkway for 14 years, including 10 as the head boys coach.
Before that, Josting coached for six years at Bossier where he was a boys assistant coach before becoming girls head coach. He also spent a year as an assistant coach at Lakeside.
Josting was an assistant boys coach at Southwood before replacing legend Steve McDowell, who won 12 state titles in 22 seasons, as head girls coach in 2013.
The Lady Cowboys won three District 1-5A championships in Josting’s four years as head coach.
Josting is a 1983 graduate of Parkway. His college football career was cut short by a knee injury at Nicholls State. He played basketball at BPCC and then went to LSUS before graduating from Louisiana Tech. He also has a master’s degree from LSUS.
Josting has been out of coaching since leaving Southwood. He said he wanted to have the opportunity of watching his son, Cade, play sports at Elm Grove and Parkway, where he will be a sophomore.
“I knew if I was coaching at another high school then I wouldn’t get to see him play,” Josting said. “That’s when I kind of decided to step back a little while and where I could go watch him play and see what he’s going to do.”
Cade played mulitple sports in middle school as well as youth baseball.
“Right now he’s just playing baseball so it works out,” Josting said. “It doesn’t conflict with my basketball schedule.”
Josting also said he missed coaching.
“It’s going to be nice getting back into it,” he said.
This will be Josting’s 28th year as an educator in Louisiana, and it will be like coming full circle. He did his student teaching at Haughton under coach Joe St. Andre.
He said he already knew a lot of people at Haughton and made the decision to take the job after talking to his wife, Michelle, and children. Josting has two adult children, Tyler and Lexie, who live in Bossier City and Shreveport, respectively.
“I started out there with my student teaching and now have a chance to finish up out there,” he said. “I think that’s kind of neat to finish out where I started out.”
Haughton went 8-20 overall and 1-11 in District 1-5A last season. The eight wins were the most since the Bucs won the same number in the 2011-12 season.
“Every coach is different,” Josting said. “I’m not going to say I’m going to come in and do things different from everybody else and all of a sudden it’s the right way and we’re going to be able to change.
“I want to create an environment where they can have fun playing basketball. I know losing is not fun. I’m a new coach coming in for them so it’s kind of like we’re starting from scratch. I want to create it so they can have fun and of course we can be competitive. Along the way if we can do that hopefully the wins will start coming.”
