by JASON GORDON
Hays High School boys basketball coach Kris Fuller is leaving to take the head coaching job at the new Round Rock Cedar Ridge High School.
Fuller will remain at Hays until the end of the school year before departing for Cedar Ridge, a school that will open with sophomores and freshmen in the fall.
Playing with no seniors and only two juniors on varsity at Hays this year, Fuller helped guide the Rebels to the brink of the playoffs despite a 2-14 start to the season. The Rebs won four of their final eight games, and only a loss to Lehman in the last game of the year prevented Hays from tying Elgin for District 17-4A’s fourth and final playoff spot.
Fuller’s wife Kim, who led Vista Ridge to the state volleyball finals in 2006 before leaving coaching to raise their two daughters, is also in the running for Round Rock Cedar Ridge’s head volleyball coaching job.
“It was a very tough decision,” said Fuller, who was the head coach at Hays for two years after five years as an assistant at a highly-successful McNeil High program. “For the first time in awhile there is some real excitement around the boys program at Hays. I feel the next two or three years will be some of the best ever for this program, and whoever takes over here has a chance to be very successful.”
Fuller said the chance to open a new school is one that doesn’t come along every day.
“It’s an excellent opportunity to start and build a program from scratch,” Fuller said. “It’s a challenge I couldn’t pass up. I have a lot of history in that area coming from McNeil, and it sort of feels like I’m going back home. I also have a history now coaching younger players, so I hope that translates to success at Cedar Ridge.”
Hays freshman guard Caleb Kimbro, who was recently named to the first-team All-District basketball squad, said he definitely didn’t see Fuller’s move coming.
“I was shocked,” Kimbro said. “But I wish Coach Fuller the best and hope we can continue to build on some of the things he taught us.”
Hays athletic director Bob Shelton had nothing but praise for the job Fuller did.
“Coach Fuller had a very young team this year and I thought he accomplished a lot with them,” Shelton said. “They were playing very good basketball at the end of the year.”
Shelton said a timetable hasn’t been discussed yet to search for Fuller’s replacement.
