By Fred Guarino
The Lowndes Signal

Jim Hunter Jr., 57, head basketball coach and athletic director at Calhoun High School, is among 12 major contributors to prep athletics in Alabama named to the 23rd class of the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame.

The 2013 class will be inducted at a March 18 banquet at the Renaissance Hotel at the Convention Center in Montgomery, according to the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA).

The Hall of Fame is located at the AHSAA office in Montgomery.

“When I first started coaching, I set two goals,” Hunter said. “And believe it or not, it was the farthest idea I would accomplish either one of them at age 22.”

Hunter said when he started coaching, he wanted to win a state championship.

“I got two, and one as an assistant coach,” he said.

He also he wanted to be in the Hall of Fame. “I had no idea that both goals that I set when I was 22 that I would accomplish, especially the one at the Hall of Fame.”

Hunter coached football at Southern Normal, St. Jude and Calhoun High Schools and amassed an overall record of 98-144, according to the information he provided.

He was area champion three times, regional champion once, area runner-up four times and made the state playoffs six times.

He coached those same schools in basketball (as an assistant at St. Jude).

As a head basketball coach he amassed a 366-225 record, according to his records, winning two 3A state championships at Calhoun in 2001 and 2003 and a total of eight area championships.

According to the AHSAA, the 18-member Hall of Fame Committee made the selections from 46 nominations on the Hall of Fame ballot.

Sponsors of the Hall of Fame program are the Alabama High School Athletic Directors and Coaches Association (AHSADCA) and the AHSAA. The corporate sponsors are AL.com, Cadence Bank, Coca-Cola, Encore Rehabilitation, Farmers Insurance, Russell Athletic, TeamIP and Wilson Sporting Goods.

The AHSAA described Hunter as “an outstanding multi-sport prep athlete” at Billingsley High School, who has spent most of his teaching/coaching career at Calhoun High School in Lowndes County.

He began his basketball and football coaching career at Southern Normal High School in Brewton from 1978 to 1983, moved to St. Jude from 1984-85 and moved to Calhoun in 1986.

He was head football coach at Calhoun from 1986-2001 and has been head basketball coach since 1997.

He has also been the school’s athletic director during his entire tenure.

He coached in the 2003 Alabama-Mississippi All-Star Game and 2001 and 2007 North-South games. He was named 3A coach of the year in 2001 and 2003. “His teams have been recognized often for their outstanding sportsmanship,” according to the AHSAA. He graduated from Billingsley in 1973 and Tusculum College in 1978. He served as president of the AHSADCA in 2011-12.