New Samford Head Men’s Basketball Coach Bucky McMillan announced the first hires for his 2020-21 coaching staff.
Legendary former Birmingham-Southern head coach Duane Reboul will serve as special assistant to the head coach. Jake Headrick has been hired as associate head coach and recruiting coordinator. Gerald Gillion will serve as an assistant coach. Matthew Powell, the staff’s Director of Basketball Operations and Analytics, has been retained from the previous staff.
Reboul was one of the top basketball coaches in the nation during his 17 seasons as the head coach at Birmingham-Southern, where he was McMillan’s head coach. He led his teams to two NAIA National Championships, three NAIA Final 4 appearances and four NAIA Elite Eight runs. He was named the 1995 National Coach of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
Reboul earned Southern States Conference Coach of the Year honors in 1990, 1993 and 1995. He was named State of Alabama Coach of the Year in 1990 and 1997, and the TranSouth Conference Division Coach of the Year in 1998. He led the program through its transition from the NAIA to NCAA Division I, earning Big South Conference Coach of the Year honors in 2004 and 2006, and his 2004 team won the Big South Conference title.
In his time as the Panthers’ head coach, Reboul won 402 games, averaging nearly 24 wins per season. His teams posted an impressive nine consecutive 20-win seasons.
Reboul began his coaching career as the head coach at his alma mater, De La Salle High School in New Orleans, leading the school to the 1976 state title. He then served six seasons as the head coach at Jesuit High School before moving to the college ranks as an assistant coach at New Orleans and Mississippi State before being hired as the head coach at BSC. He graduated from the University of New Orleans in 1972 after captaining the basketball team to a No. 1 small college national ranking.
Headrick comes to Samford after working on the Missouri State staff for the last two seasons. He helped lead the team to its most conference wins and highest conference finish since 2011-12. He also recruited the Missouri Valley Conference Newcomer of the Year.
Headrick will be serving his second stint as an assistant coach at Samford, as he previously worked on the staff from 2012 to 2018. Headrick helped lead the program to its first 20-win season in over a decade in 2016-17. That same team set school records for points and assists, and it reached the second round of the CIT, the first national postseason appearance in 17 years.
Prior to the earlier stint at Samford, Headrick was the head coach at Chipola Junior College in Marianna, Fla. from 2009 to 2012. He was named the NJCAA National Coach of the Year in 2012, leading his team to a Panhandle Conference title and Region 8 runner-up finish.
Headrick also worked as an associate head coach at Chipola (2008-09), an operations assistant at Ole Miss (2007-08) an assistant coach at Chipola (2006-07) and as a student assistant at Montevallo (2005-06). Headrick earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Kinesiology from Montevallo in 2006.
Gillion is an elite recruiter with strong ties to the state of Florida. He comes to Samford after working as an assistant coach at Tennessee Tech from 2017 to 2019. He helped lead the 2017-18 Golden Eagles to a 19-12 record. He also helped raise the team’s grade-point average to an impressive 3.4. Gillion spent the 2019-20 academic year as a teacher at Northeast High School in Florida.
Gillion worked as a special assistant to the head coach at South Florida from 2014-17. He was the director of basketball operations at Florida International from 2013-14.
Gillion began his coaching career as the head coach at Northeast High School from 2008 to 2013. He transformed the boy’s program that was 10-87 over a four-year span, to winning over 20 games, and winning a district championship in his first season as head coach. He also coached the girls program, leading a dramatic turnaround in that program as well.
Gillion earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Social Science from Florida State University in 2008.
Powell has served on the Samford men’s basketball staff for the past six seasons, including the last two as director of basketball operations. As director of basketball operations, Powell has been responsible for the day-to-day operations of the men’s basketball program, travel planning, assisting in game scheduling, coordinating official visits, as well as additional duties. He has also overseen the team’s student managers and assisted with video scouting and game preparation.
Powell served as video coordinator during his first four seasons on staff, handling various duties including video scouting and analysis, preparation of scouting reports, game planning and other day-to-day activities.
Powell earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Sport Administration from Samford in 2014.
Samford Basketbal Staff Update
