Troy Turman is coming back home to coach.

Turman was hired as Pleasant Home’s new boys basketball coach at Tuesday night’s Covington County Board of Education meeting.

An Andalusia native, Turman comes back to the area after coaching six years at Daleville. He coached the middle school team one year before being moved up to the varsity level after the school separated grades.

“I’m really excited,” Turman said about the opportunity to come back home and coach. “My whole family is excited. I’m just eager to get in there and get started. Maybe we can generate some success and get these guys going in the right direction.”

The Pleasant Home graduate replaces Bradley Stephens, who left the Eagles program to coach softball at Enterprise.

In his five years as Daleville’s head varsity basketball coach, Turman compiled a 97-50 record. In those five years, the new PHS coach’s teams have competed in the playoffs, winning three straight area championships and finishing in the regional finals twice.

While at DHS, Turman decided what offensive and defensive schemes he was going to run based on his personnel. He said he’ll be doing the same at PHS.

“The main thing I focused on was to see what my team is good at,” he said. “Whatever I felt like we can be good at, we worked on that and tried to be the best we can be.”

This is a special place for Turman, who played on Pleasant Home’s 2000-01, 2001-02 state championship teams. He played on the wing during the 2001 championship, and at point guard during the 2002 championship.

“I have a lot of great memories there,” he said. “It’s a place where I feel like with the right formula and work ethic and support, you can win at the 1A level. I’ve been a part of it before.”

Turman said during the state championship seasons, the teams he played on weren’t that special.

“We had a good group of guys with a really good coach (Anthony Clark),” he said. “We weren’t really different than any other Pleasant Home teams. We had the right pieces, we worked hard and had the right formula for success.

“It can be done,” he said. “My goals for the first couple years are to win ball games, and compete in the area and try to win an area championship. After that, we’ll go from there. Hopefully, we can generate some excitement and work on focusing on basketball.”

Turman let his players know that he was leaving DHS Tuesday afternoon.

Even though it was a tough decision to make, Turman said he’s happy to know that he left the school in good shape, basketball wise.

“The kids know how to win,” Turman said. “When I got there, there was a lack of pride and they didn’t have a winner’s mentality. There wasn’t any cohesion there. I got the kids to where they understand what it took to win.”

Turman is married to Carie, and the couple has two children, Betsy and Ben. He is the son of Larry and Debbie Turman; and the grandson of Carl and Bobby Turman, and Jimmy and Crystell Prestwood, all of Andalusia.

In addition to Turman, PHS hired Jessica Johns Gibson as its new head softball coach; and Richard Mercer as an assistant football coach.