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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

ALABASTER – Thompson High School announced Major Deacon as its new varsity boys basketball head coach on Wednesday, April 10.

“Coach Deacon brings great energy and enthusiasm and wants to win,” THS athletic director Vincent Pitts said. “Our players and coaches look forward to working with him. Coach Deacon is an award-winning coach who knows what it takes to be successful.”

Deacon most recently led Albertville for one season in 2023-24. During this past season, he was named the Marshall County Coach of the Year after a 24-9 season that saw the Aggies fall to Grissom in the area semifinals.

That role came after a a year at Pleasant Home and a three-year stint at the helm of Austin, also in Class 7A, where he had a pair of Sweet 16 runs and winning records in 2019-20 and 2021-22.

Before he returned to be a Class 7A head coach, though, Deacon was an assistant coach at Thompson under former coach Dru Powell during the 2018-19 season.

His appointment brings him back to Alabaster after earning more than 100 wins and multiple area championships in his coaching career, which also saw him coach at Northwestern State University in Louisiana as well as UMS-Wright and both the girls and boys basketball teams at his alma mater of Baker.

Deacon replaces DJ Black, who served as the Warriors coach for two seasons after Powell left to become an assistant coach at Saraland in 2022 before being named the head coach of the Spartans in 2023.

Black led Thompson to its first Elite Eight appearance since 2013 after beating James Clemens in the Sweet 16 and finishing as the runner-up in Class 7A, Area 5 behind Hoover.

Now, the Warriors will turn to Deacon to lead their program forward as they hope to reach the Final Four for the first time in Class 7A with much of the Elite Eight roster from this past season returning in 2024-25.