During her time playing basketball at Highlands, Jamie Richey, high school and middle school teacher,  helped win 3 regional championships and during her sophomore year at Highlands High School, her team was state runner up. In 1996, during her senior year, she was named the national player of the year. After graduating, she was the #1 recruit and played at Western Kentucky University on a scholarship where she was also a 1000 point scorer. Last month, Mrs. Richey won the Coach of the Year award for Division II basketball, sponsored and given by the Northern Kentucky Basketball Coaches Association.

The award, given because of Richey’s dedication to coaching the girl’s basketball team, is one of two given out every year. The other award winner was Tim Sullivan from Cooper High school.

Mrs. Richey is the president of the Association, and she stated that “It is a nice award but a lot of the credit goes to my players. They are the ones who have to score the points and things like that. I’m just out there helping them get those points…they are the ones actually doing it, so I just have a small role.”

During Richey’s time at Highlands, she was coached by Jim Hickens, whom she describes as being a strict coach, but one that treated all the girls on the team like they were his daughters. He would do anything for any of the girls, both on the court and off, something that Richey does with her players.

Senior Chloe Janson has been a member of the Highlands basketball team since 6th grade. She commented on Coach Richey.

“Mrs. Richey is an outstanding coach…I think she is very deserving of the award..she puts everything into this team and pushes every player to get better and loves what she does. Every year she makes the program better and raises the expectations higher and higher. She treats everyone in the program like one of her daughters.”

The ultimate goal for the girls’ team is to win the regional championship, and the team has been practicing non-stop to win.

Richey stated, “this year all the girls understand their roles and what we have to do as a team to get there.”

Bert Richey, the boys’ golf coach for Highlands and husband to Mrs. Richey, was awarded the 8th region Northern Kentucky Golf Coach of the Year for every division. He was also named the Enquirer coach of the year.

The golf season ended with the team placing 8th in the Regional Tournament, and in the state tournament, they placed 8 out of 24 teams.

Richey stated about the team, “This group likes to have fun but knows when it’s time to
get serious and compete.”

Richey revealed what its like to win such a big award.

“It’s great to be recognized but the kids are the ones that really won the award for me. Their performance throughout the year in consistency getting us back on top of the region and their hard work.  The coaches win coach of the year based on team performances so I’m very happy I won but I’m really happy with the way the players performed this year.”

Richey is excited about next season, and can’t wait to get back on the green with his players.

Coaches Richey and Richey both won the Coach of the Year award and attributed it to their players. Though golf is over, Girls Basketball is still going on, and the next game the girls play is against Dixie at 12 in Northern Kentucky’s BB&T arena.