Birmingham bound!

Published 5:00 am Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Escambia County head coach Anthony Hayes looks on from the sideline at a game in 2011. He has been absent for the past month for military duty but will be in Birmingham today to see his Blue Devils take on defending champion Butler in the Final Four.

Earlier this month, in the midst of his most successful season to date as leader of the Blue Devils, Hayes’ two roles clashed when he was called into service by the Army.

He deployed to Fort Bragg, N.C., on Feb. 1 — the day after his team’s senior night and final regular season home game.
While Hayes was gone for training, volunteer assistant coach Jerome Webster, with the help of ECHS baseball coach Andy Lambert, stepped up to lead the team into the area and regional tournaments, where they won both.

Hayes flew in from North Carolina at 5 p.m. Tuesday — just in time to lead the team he loves in the Final Four for Class 4A.

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“I’m overjoyed,” Hayes said. “It’s a beautiful thing that I get back in time to coach our team in the state semifinals. I thought I’d be back for the regional, but more training came up, so returning now fell into place.”

Hayes’ return to the bench for ECHS is not permanent at this point.

At some time following the state tournament, he will return to Fort Bragg, where his unit will eventually mobilize and report to Afghanistan.

The reason for his call up comes from the need for more men and women to fill the unit, Hayes said.

“If a unit is short on personnel, they will call you up if you meet the criteria,” he said. “I fit the criteria, so we will eventually mobilize and go overseas.”

This will not be Hayes’ first time going overseas to serve his country.

From 2009-10, the head coach of the Blue Devils was stationed for the first time in Afghanistan. This was early in his military career after he signed up in 2008.

Hayes’ decision to join the U.S. Army came after being a part of the ROTC program at Alabama A&M University where he played basketball.

“In college, I was in ROTC, and that’s where the original idea came into my head about signing up,” Hayes said. “I flirted with the idea and in 2008, I made the move to join the military.”

When it comes to the dual roles of high school basketball coach and Army sergeant, Hayes said he does what he can to keep them apart — but often they complement each other.

“I try to keep my coaching and the Army separate, but they mesh together,” he said. “Once you look at it all, it comes together with the training, practicing, discipline. It all goes together no matter how you try to keep it separated.”

As Hayes turns to the bench to lead the Blue Devils, he also joins the man that served as the team’s interim head coach, Webster.

“It’s really great that he’s getting to come back,” Webster said. “It’s great for the kids, and it will really boost our momentum going into this game.”

Webster led the Blue Devils for five games helping the team keep its winning streak in tact. The streak currently sits at 26 games.

With the team continuing to be successful after his departure, Hayes said he was not surprised.

“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” he said. “We have a talented group of kids, and Jerome is a great coach. We are extensions of each other, so it wasn’t a change at all when I left. I’m just proud of the way they continued to play hard and win ball games.”

With a game against the reigning state champions Butler on tap for 7:30 tonight, Hayes’ focus will be on finding a way to out-coach his opponent to reach the Blue Devils’ first state final in school history.

“We are going to take this thing one game at a time,” he said. “It’s just a different location for our program. We will play our style of basketball, and try to be up one point at the end of that game. We just have to be ourselves when we tip off.”