East Central Community College announced Thursday the hiring of Rahim Lockhart as its next men’s basketball head coach.

The Mendenhall native and former Ole Miss All-American player served as interim head coach this past season, taking over the Warriors in late November and earning a 7-12 record to finish out the campaign. His appointment concluded a six-week hiring process for East Central.

“It feels really good. To be a head coach in Mississippi JUCO is not an easy thing,” Lockhart said. “There are only 15 jobs out there, and I feel blessed to be a part of the 15 men’s basketball coaches in this league.”

Lockhart’s new position with the Warriors will be his second in junior college. He led the Jones County Junior College — now called Jones College — men’s basketball team for three seasons from 2014-17, compiling a 64-15 record which included trips to the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament all three years. In his final season at Jones, the Bobcats reached the NJCAA Division I Tournament round of 16. Lockhart was named MACJC Men’s Basketball Coach of the Year that same season.  

Prior to coming to ECCC late last year, Lockhart spent two years as head coach at Yazoo County High School, where he compiled a 59-3 record, reaching as far as the MHSAA Class 3A semifinals in 2019. Before taking over at Jones, he also had high school head coaching stints at Madison Central, Grenada and Taylorsville from 2007-14, winning multiple North State titles. He was an assistant at Ole Miss during the 2017-18 campaign as well.

Having coached all but the first two games of last season, Lockhart said an adjustment period with him won’t happen. 

“It gives us cohesiveness. It’s created familiarity. We’ve been around each other for a while; it’s not like I’m just coming into the picture and they have to figure out who I am and what I’m about. We’re going straight to business, basically,” he said. “We have a direction that we know we want to go, so we don’t have to come in and start fresh. You already have a base. You can start doing your work and start building your team.”

Lockhart said his priority is to get the program more wins. He added that next season’s team will look completely different as he’ll form his game plan with players’ strengths in mind, coupled with improved physical fitness. If both fall into place, the wins will follow.  

“I feel like that’s going to happen through attrition. We already have things in place; we have a great president, we have a great athletic director, we have a great board. Everybody’s moving forward with the plan, and the plan is to win a bunch of basketball games and bring some titles to Decatur. To make the community proud,” he said. “That’s just the nature of the beast. When you put in the work and you have a plan, it entails that success will come.”

Lockhard described his coaching style as aggressive, where pace is dictated and a large number of shots are attempted throughout the course of a game. He wants his current players to be prepared for that mentality and also offers an opportunity for prospective junior college athletes to be a part of it.  

“To any kid in the area, or any kid nationwide who wants to play this way, wants to play hard, wants to play fast, wants to get shots up, wants to have freedom, we’re going to have all those things,” he said. “My teams always pride themselves on team basketball and sharing the ball but also being aggressive and doing what you’re able to do well.”

He added that he has a track history of progressing his players and building their skills for the future.

“Your job as a coach is to get them to their maximum potential and allow them to display their talents that they can use at the next level,” he said. “And I have shown over the years that I have the ability to move kids to the next level.”