A new, but familiar face will prowl along side the basketball court this winter when the Escambia Academy Lady Cougars tipoff their season.

New EA assistant headmaster David Walker will take over for Heath Gibson as the girl’s basketball coach, while Gibson takes over the baseball team full time.

Walker’s experience on the basketball court runs deep coaching at other AISA schools including Monroe Academy, South Montgomery Academy, Greenville Academy, Morgan and Clarke Prep. He also had a previous stint as the Lady Cougars’ head coach.

With so many stops in his past, Walker has worked to gain valuable experience at each school.

The challenge will for Walker will be returning to the bench for a school he once coached, he said.

I’ve coached basketball all of my life,” he said. “It’ll be a challenge to come back where you’ve been before, and the good thing is that I’m taking over a good program because Heath (Gibson) has had a lot of success with the girl’s basketball team. Hopefully, I can keep that going.”

With so much experience, Walker has gained hundreds of victories during his time as a coach.

He’s proud not just of the victories, but how many games he has coached, he said.

“It’s not because I’m good, it’s because I’ve been doing it for so long,” he said. “I’ve coached for around 40 years, so it’s easy to build up wins in that span. I’m proud to say I’ve coached more than 1,000 basketball games, and I feel good about that. It’s always been fun.”

Walker has not met with his new players yet, but he is preparing for that encounter.

His first order of business will be to go over what will be different now that he is head coach, he said.

“I’m going to tell the girls that things will be a little bit different,” he said. “Coach was an excellent basketball coach, but my style might be a little different. We’ll run different defenses and offenses, so there will be little things that will be different, but I hope to make it fun.”