Mongar to coach Ooltewah softball
Ooltewah High School reported early last month some coaching changes but this week added details about those and revealed the decision to make new physical education teacher Kerilyn Mongar the softball head coach. A 2006 Ooltewah graduate who went on to play softball for Tennessee Tech, she coached the diamond sport and assisted with volleyball the last three years at East Ridge.
Two coaches with nearly 40 years of experience each, Lester Galyon and Les Boyum, have taken over the Ooltewah girls’ basketball and boys’ track and field programs, respectively. Boyum also will be the school’s weightlifting coach, according to the announcement release.
Alumnus James Manning is the Owls’ new wrestling head coach, and Junior ROTC instructor David Fleming will direct the cross country program.
Fleming is a runner and triathlete who has coached the JROTC drill team in his previous three years at the school. He maintained the Master Fitness level during his 25 years in the U.S. Army, according to the release.
Manning has assisted in football and wrestling the past two years at Ooltewah, where he graduated in 2011 before playing NCAA Division II football at Carson-Newman. He was a two-time region champion and three-time state qualifier on the mat, with a third-place state finish.
Boyum has 26 years of college football and track coaching experience — including at Arkansas, Austin Peay and Minnesota — and coached high school sports in Texas and Arkansas for seven years. He has also coached at South Gibson High in Medina, Tennessee, and at East Ridge, and last year he was an assistant football coach and the track head coach at Sequatchie County.
Mongar began her high school coaching career at Sequatchie in 2011, after a season as a softball assistant at Cleveland State, and her East Ridge softball teams were district regular-season runners-up all three years she was there.
Galyon was a boys’ basketball head coach for nine years, but his 36 years in the profession include 21 directing girls’ teams — most notably at Gordon Lee, where his Lady Trojans went 276-95 in 14 years with six region titles and a 2013 Georgia Class A state championship. At Ooltewah he succeeds new athletic director Jensen Morgan.