Sports

Skeete Introduced as New GC Coach

Posted: 3:46 PM Apr 23, 2012
Reporter: Scott Rossman

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Panama City, FL--The successor to Hall of Fame basketball coach Roonie Scovel is now officially in place at Gulf Coast.

Scovel's former player Vernette Skeete is taking over the G.C. women's program and today signed her contract at the Harrison Field House and met the media there.

Skeete was part of the undefeated oh-3 national championship team. She went on to get her degree from Alcorn State. From there she went back to coach her alma mater Malone.

She then went into college ball, was an assistant at Northwest Florida, and eventually down to the University of Miami where's she's been an assistant the last three years.

"It's just kind of been fun in that I can bring all that into it," says coach Skeete. "and then I can kind of add to it with my passion and my energy and get these girls ready to play. Right now it's my job to prepare you to go out there, and it's kind of like a puppet master, that I'm going to give you every optimal situation so that you can be successful. And that to me is what coaching is all about. So that when these girls step out on the floor, they have every opportunity to be great."

As for taking over a program led for so long, so successfully by coach Scovel, coach Skeete says she welcomes any and all the knowledge Scovel can still pass on.

Skeete is also firm that the program is hers to run, and it's up to her to put a winning team on the floor and to graduate young women who have the tools to succeed in all phases of life.

Vernette has 6 scholarships left to fill so she's already recruiting for the Commodores.