As part of a championship celebration last week, Spring Garden Principal Mike Welsh and the Lady Panthers unveiled to the audience that the court inside Dale Welsh Gym would named in honor of Coach Ricky Austin.

His career at The Garden includes five Class 1A Girls State Basketball Championships, one 1A Volleyball State Championship, 562 victories with the girls, 130 victories with the boys and numerous county and area titles. On Tuesday the Cherokee County Board of Education adopted the official resolution naming the court inside Dale Welsh Gymnasium as “Ricky Austin Court”. 

We sat down with Coach Austin on Wednesday afternoon to get his thoughts on such a coveted accomplishment in his career

Coach Austin offered his thanks to his entire coaching staff, players, faculty & staff and Spring Garden School and members of the Cherokee County School Board for the honor.

Coach Austin said that an accomplishment like this is usually comes during the twilight of a career, “I’m not finished yet”. Austin said that it motivates him to live up to having a court with his namesake the rest of his career.

Austin closed by saying “this doesn’t change anything. We still have a lot more practices in this gym, a lot more games to win, a lot more hard work to do and this won’t change any of that.”