Central girls basketball head coach Carolyn Wright fired despite Hall of Fame career
Seven victories away from 600 in her 32-year career, Carolyn Wright has been fired from her position as head coach of the Central High School girls basketball team.
Wright confirmed her dismissal Monday but didn’t have an explanation.
“I wish I did,” she said in a phone interview with the Ledger-Enquirer.
Central principal Kerry McDonald called her earlier this month and told her, “they decided to go in a different direction,” Wright said. “That was the only thing I’ve been told.”
Asked whether she requested an explanation from McDonald, Wright said, “He didn’t give me an answer.”
Wright said she isn’t aware of any complaints about her performance as coach.
“Nobody has brought it to my attention,” she said. “… People who are in control, they have to be the ones answering those questions.”
The Ledger-Enquirer didn’t reach McDonald, Central athletics director Matt Bell or Phenix City Schools public relations specialist Carol Ann Underwood for comment before publication.
Wright retains her position as a physical education teacher at Central Freshman Academy, she said.
Wright was inducted in 2019 into the Alabama High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame. Since 1991, she has led the Central girls basketball program to a record of 593-375, with 11 area titles and four appearances in the Final Four of the state’s highest classification, according to Mark Clark of the Citizen of East Alabama.
Her total of victories ranks 16th on the AHSAA”s list of career wins among girls basketball head coaches.
After leading Central to an 18-12 record last season, including the regular-season area championship and reaching the Class 7A Sweet 16, Wright went on medical leave in February.
Wright still is on medical leave, but she expects to be able to return to her teaching position when teachers come back to school from summer break next week to prepare for the Aug. 8 start of the semester.
“I’m not retiring,” she said. “I’ve got so much left in me, so much to give. I’m of the belief that it’s not over until God says it’s done.”
Wright said she wasn’t told who has replaced her as head coach, but she assumes assistant coach Rodgetta Williams continues to be in charge of the program in the interim capacity she took on when Wright went on medical leave.
Central girls basketball parent reacts to coach’s firing
Christopher Todd, the father of a Central girls basketball player who’s been on the varsity the past two seasons, told the Ledger-Enquirer on Tuesday that it was “shocking” when he heard Wright was fired for no publicly evident reason.
“Being a Hall of Fame coach, I would think she would have had some kind of explanation,” he said.
Todd works at the Central gym’s concession stand and video-records the games. The only complaint he has heard from folks about Wright is more about her husband, Bobby, who retired in 2021 as Central boys basketball head coach and also is in the AHSAA Hall of Fame.
“You hear people talking about her husband being on the sideline when she was coaching,” Todd said. “… They were saying he was helping coach.”
Todd, however, added such a situation wasn’t “to the level of her being dismissed. … . I would figure a letter of reprimand, a warning or something, not just — boom — you’re gone.”
In a subsequent interview Tuesday, Wright told the Ledger-Enquirer that her husband had permission from the administration to be her team’s volunteer assistant coach.
Sometime in February, then-interim superintendent Darrell Seldon told Wright, “Some folks were complaining about (her husband) coaching too hard,” she said. “… He didn’t explain what he meant.”
The Ledger-Enquirer didn’t reach Seldon for comment before publication.
For the rest of the season, about six games, Wright’s husband sat behind her instead of on the bench.
The next time she heard from the administration about the coaching of her team, Wright said, was when the principal called to remove her from the position five months later.
Todd’s daughter considers Wright to be a “hard but fair” coach, he said.
“I didn’t hear no players complain,” he said. “My daughter said they practice long, … but nothing abusive.”
Regardless of the reason, Todd said, he wishes the school administration informed the players and parents about the dismissal instead of learning the news through the media or word of mouth. He also wishes the rationale would be explained.
“I would think just out of respect,” he said, “there should be something as to what led to her being fired.”
This story was originally published July 24, 2023 at 5:26 PM.
