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In the basketball coaching world, you would be hard pressed to not find someone in all areas that has ties with the Indiana men's basketball program, especially in the state of Indiana. Recently, it was announced that former Indiana guard Sherron Wilkerson was named the new head coach of Jeffersonville (IN) High School, his alma mater.

The former Hoosier was able to take time and join the Indiana Sports Beat Radio powered by TheHoosier.com with Jim Coyle to discuss becoming the new head coach at Jeffersonville plus his overall dreams as a head coach, Mike Woodson, and more.

“Its been an absolute, unbelievable welcoming, said Wilkerson. "I think its always any high school kid’s dream, specifically in the state of Indiana, to be able to coach at your alma mater. So me personally, this has been a dream come true”

Like mentioned above, Wilkerson is a product of Jeffersonville High School where he believes is the foundation of what he knows about the game of basketball today. During his high school career he saw a ton of success including leading the Jeffersonville boy's basketball team to winning the 1993 IHSAA State Championship, the only state title in the program's history. He was also named Indiana Gatorade Player of the Year and a McDonald's All-American in 1993, as well.

“It's my home and I think even from a state perspective I think the people know the love I have for Jeffersonville," said Wilkerson. "It gave me the foundation to be able to do the things that am doing in my coaching career today.”

After recording a total 1,140 points and 404 assists in 83 games at Jeffersonville, he would then go onto to play at Indiana from 1993-96 before transferring the University of Rio Grande to finish out his college career. After finishing school, he would play professionally for eight years, mostly overseas, before getting into coaching.

Once his playing career had come to an end, Wilkerson switched his full focus into coaching. Before returning to Jeffersonville as head coach, he had multiple stops as an assistant coach which includes Indiana high schools like Jeffersonville, Rock Creek, Herron, and Madison while also at the college level with IU Southeast, Lincoln Trail College and Lamar University. His most recent stop was in northern Indiana at Logansport High School where he was the head coach for the past decade.

“Ill be honest, I never had any intentions on leaving Logansport, then obviously when I got the call from Jeffersonville, I’ll be honest it was bittersweet because I felt like it was my duty to come back to Jeffersonville,” Wilkerson said.

Jeffersonville is a place that Wilkerson holds so much pride and passion in. Getting back to the place that he had so much success at and being the head coach brought out a lot of emotion in him

“I’ll be honest, when I got the job there were some tears, said Wilkerson. "It was overwhelming. Lot of emotion.

“It’s surreal.....Obviously the excitement is here, now we got a lot of work ahead of us.”

With every coach at any level, there are obviously goals that they want their team to reach. One of the goals that Wilkerson talked about was getting Jeffersonville back in state title contention. The Red Devils of Jeffersonville have had great teams and players in the past, but not at the caliber of the Wilkerson led team in 1993.

"It’s the standard," Wilkerson said. "As a fan, former player you want excellence. You want to expect the best. I wouldn’t necessarily call it ‘pressure’ as much as motivation.

“We are in a position now where we are coming in and changing the culture. We are doing things a little bit differently than they typically have. So for me, my duty is to come in and earn everybody’s trust and make sure we start leading this program in the right direction."

With all the transition that is going on, Wilkerson is a very busy man right now. However even though there were some controversial times during his career at Indiana, Wilkerson still makes the time to keep up with what is going on with the program and is still very supportive of Mike Woodson and his team.

“They are in a really, really good spot,” Wilkerson said. "Obviously, I’ve had a lot going on but the next thing on my agenda is to reach out to coach (Mike) Woodson and hopefully have the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with him.

"He has done a marvelous, marvelous job of getting Indiana basketball back to what Indiana fans and faithful are used to seeing. It’s been amazing to watch it.”

As far as right now, Wilkerson could not be happier being back at his alma mater Jeffersonville and being the head coach. He has his full focus in making Jeffersonville one of the best programs in the state again and is truly living out one of his dreams.

“I think we all as coaches have a bucket list and that bucket list is very difficult to accomplish, especially in the game of the coaching profession because it’s really competitive," said Wilkerson.

“My number one dream is to be a Division 1 head basketball coach. My number two dream is to be head coach of Jeffersonville high school.”

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