- December 28, 2024
Loading
Before accepting an offer from Matanzas High School to be the Pirates’ new head girls basketball coach, Travis Boone had a conversation with his daughter — rising senior Taylor Boone.
Travis asked her point blank: “How would you feel if I became your high school head coach?”
Taylor laughed.
“She said, ‘How would this be different from all the years I’ve been playing basketball?’” Travis said.
Travis Boone had been an assistant coach with the Pirates the past two years. After Brittany Marts resigned over the summer for personal reasons, Boone was offered the job. With his daughter’s blessing, he accepted.
“I have had the opportunity to watch him coach over the past two seasons, and it is evident that he is passionate about the same things we preach: the person, the student, and the player,” Matanzas athletic director Jordan Butler said. “He understands and embraces the core values of our code, and we are excited for him to get started.”
Boone is not a teacher at the school, or any school in Flagler County. He works for Edward Jones in IT quality assurance. He has been an AAU coach for 17 years, 12 in St. Louis and the past five in the Flagler-Volusia area.
“This is one of my life’s ministries, and I am honored to serve the Palm Coast community in this capacity,” Boone said.
The key to me is effort. I would like my players to give me 100% effort. I could never be mad, win or lose, if they gave me 100% effort."
— TRAVIS BOONE
He moved to Palm Coast five years ago with his wife of 21 years and their three children. His son, Travis Boone Jr., is a rising sophomore at Matanzas and plays on the Pirates’ boys JV basketball team. Boone’s youngest daughter, Lauryn, is a rising eighth grader who prefers volleyball.
The 6-foot-4 Boone played college basketball from 1999 to 2004 at Maryville University in St. Louis.
He takes over a team that won just one game last season.
He said the main thing he wants his players to understand is that it’s OK to make mistakes.
“It’s about building from your mistakes, to be courageous enough to go out there and play as hard and be as dedicated to the sport as possible,” he said. “The key to me is effort. I would like my players to give me 100% effort. I could never be mad, win or lose, if they gave me 100% effort. I want them to spend a lot of time in the gym, because I’m a gym rat. I love being in the gym.”
Flagler Palm Coast is in the process of hiring new coaches for the girls and boys basketball teams. New athletic director Scott Drabczyk did make his first coaching hire over the summer, naming Brooklynn Jimeson the Bulldogs’ new softball coach.
Jimeson served as an assistant coach last season for the Bulldogs, who went 13-5 and reached the playoffs for the first time in six years. Prior to FPC, Jimeson was the head softball coach at Fountain Lake High School in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
A graduate of Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, Jimeson was a four-year letter winner for the Reddies as a middle infielder.