New Holmes Lady Bulldogs Head Coach Tracy Pope does not want to highlight himself.
But the 33-year-old has a lot of fond memories playing basketball for the Holmes Bulldogs. The 2008 Holmes graduate especially recalled March 13, 2007 during his junior season when David Henley served as the head coach. The host Bulldogs knocked off the Covington Catholic Colonels, 72-60 in the 9th Region title game at the 3,000-seat capacity David M. Evans Fieldhouse on their way to a state semifinal finish.
“I was on the bench as a player. The fire marshall had to shut it down. The stands were packed. The baseline was hardly clear. It was to the brim. You had people standing on that top of row of bleachers. Nobody was sitting down. It was almost like you were at an NFL football game. It was crazy,” Pope said. “But when we won, to see everyone storm the floor as well was like, ‘Woah. I’ve never seen anything like this.’ It was nuts. We celebrated on the floor for a while. But I knew there was a bigger celebration in the locker room. It was a very magical time that I hope to bring back to the girls basketball program.”
Holmes won the 9th Region crown three times during Pope’s time in high school. Holmes owns a 9th Region record 15 titles, and 16 overall. Holmes finished state runner-up his senior year. The Bulldogs then brought home that elusive state championship in 2009.
Pope teaches physical education at Holmes and had been on the Holmes boys basketball staff the last five years. He served as the boys freshman head coach and an assistant to the junior varsity and varsity teams the last four years. He was a freshman assistant during the 2017-2018 season.
“Tracy already knows the kids, the team,” said Ken Ellis, Holmes Director of Athletics. “He knows the parents. But most importantly, he knows basketball.”
The Holmes fieldhouse is a storied location for boys and girls basketball, and has often played host to regional tournaments.
“You always want to win on that floor. It doesn’t matter what school you represent,” Pope said. “This is the best gym in Northern Kentucky.”
The Holmes girls won a second straight 9th Region crown just five years ago and drove to the state semifinals before losing 51-36 to eventual state runner-up Franklin County in 2017. That marked the fifth region crown in school history.
It also equaled the deepest any Holmes girls team has driven in the state tournament. Holmes also lost in the state semifinals in 2002 when Erica Hallman starred there and the late Casey Sparrow was the head coach.
But the program has fallen in the last four years going a combined 30-76 missing out on the 9th Region Tournament by losing in the 35th District semifinals each season. T
Pope takes over for Alissa Brown, who had been the head coach the last three seasons. Brown brought stability to the program after it went through four head coaches in four years between 2016 and 2020.
Pope said he remembers when Denny Sword served as the Holmes girls head coach when he was in high school. His mom played for Holmes and he spent a lot of time with his cousin Todd Humphrey growing up. Humphrey just completed his first season as the head coach of the Boone County Lady Rebels program.
Holmes has a nice player to build around in junior 5-foot-9-inch Nejai Lewis. Lewis led the Lady Bulldogs averaging a double-double of 15 points and just more than 11 rebounds last year. Lewis has 747 points and 787 rebounds for her career.
Lewis started to see some varsity action in the eighth grade and sophomore point guard Aaliyah Hayes had seen varsity action every year going back to her seventh grade year. But Hayes could not play last year because of injuries. Pope is not sure if Hayes will return. After Lewis, the next five Holmes scorers graduated.
“We’re having a better attitude and letting players know that we care,” Lewis said. “We’re just making sure everyone is buying in. We need a team leader who can speak to everybody in a way that people can take it.”
Pope said Lewis leads by example. He said Lewis gives the younger players a standard to shoot for. Pope said the Holmes freshman boys team scrimmaged the varsity girls to help the Lady Bulldogs prepare for faster opponents.
“I’ve stayed close to basketball at every level – middle school, freshman, varsity for both boys and girls,” Pope said. “I already have a relationship with a lot of the players on both sides and I’ve known Nejai for two or three years. Even last year, I helped Coach Brown out a few times during the season. The relationships have been built already prior to me even getting the job.”
Pope said some students in the Holmes buildings have agreed to join the team for summer basketball. He’s hoping they will have good experiences and come out this winter.
“I think that alone encourages a lot of girls to come out,” Pope said. “All I can do is extend that branch and if they reach for it, it’s like, ‘Come on in, be a part of this.’ A lot of people call Holmes boys basketball a family, a tradition and all that stuff. It’s a brotherhood. I feel the same way about the girls basketball. This is a sisterhood.”
Pope said he’s read former NBA Head Coach Phil Jackson’s book 11 Rings to learn how to build team chemistry. Jackson won 11 championships coaching the Los Angeles Lakers and the Chicago Bulls.
“(Jackson) had mentioned something about when you give each person on the team a responsibility, that makes them feel way more important to the team no matter how small or how big it is,” Pope said. “They accept that role. It builds a team and keeps them together. I’m not just talking about basketball. Give them a job, make it theirs and always hold other people accountable to it. On or off the basketball floor, they know what they provide to the team.”
Pope agreed that a good model of consistency for programs is contending for regional titles on a yearly basis. Pope mentioned this year’s freshman class finished undefeated as eighth graders during the regular season. The team lost in the middle school tournament title game. He worked out with four of them days after he took the job.
Pope has also begun to put together a staff. He’s hired two assistants in Benny Rice and Jim Amstead. He is not sure what offensive and defensive styles the Lady Bulldogs will try to run yet but he said he does not want to be predictable.
“I’m just making sure I bring the right people on board – somebody that cares about the girls, somebody who cares about the community and somebody who is a member of the community and school,” Pope said. “I have a couple people in mind. But I’m waiting. I’ve always been told, ‘If you can’t make a decision, don’t make a decision.’ Eventually with things like that, things will fall into place to where I find the right person. I wouldn’t really ask someone if they won’t say yes because they love this game. They love this place and they love these kids.”
Pope is aware of the challenges of playing in the 35th District and 9th Region. Notre Dame graduated nine seniors from last year’s district tournament championship team and Holy Cross graduated one. But Notre Dame returns junior forward Noelle Hubert and Holy Cross returns 6-2 sophomore forward/center Julia Hunt, who has offers from Western Kentucky University and Xavier University.
“I don’t want to take anything from any other ballclub. I think the region has a lot of talent that’s spread out. I think we have a lot of great coaches in our region. I think they have a lot of girls that work hard for them even if it’s right around the corner at Holy Cross or as far out as Cooper. I think the region is a healthy region,” Pope said. “But I don’t like to focus on other teams so much as I like to focus on mine and just making sure we’re doing what we have to do to be successful. If we’re doing what we have to do to be successful, then we’ll be successful. Your opponents are always on your radar and things like that. But at this point, I like to focus on our girls.”
Pope noted what he sees as one huge advantage of playing at Holmes.
“You get to play with your best friends that you’ve known your whole life. I just want to coach a committed group of girls and I’m not going to sit here and say committed to winning because if you look on the scoreboard and what it says on the scoreboard determines your happiness, then you won’t be very happy often,” Pope said. “There are a lot of losses in this life that you take inside and outside of sports. I just want a group of girls committed to playing hard, committed to the game, committed to each other, committed to the school and committed to the community. That’s really it for me. If you commit to that, we’ll win and we won’t have to worry about the scoreboard.”
