Coach Austin is in his 3rd year as the SVHS Head Basketball Coach, and the program continues to see vast improvement under his leadership. In their innaugural campaign of 2010, the Bears won 7 games, and then in 2011 they stormed their way to a 17-12 record and a berth in the AHSAA Sub-Regional Playoffs.

     Coach Austin is a 1981 graduate of Shaw High School in Mobile, and a 1986 graduate of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He has coached basketball at the high school, junior high, and middle school level for the past 27 years. His former players have appeared in NBA and major college games throughout the nation.

     He is married to the former Kim Holmes of Buhl, and they have 2 wonderful children. Ashlee (16) is a junior at Sipsey Valley, and a member of the SVHS Cheerleading squad and tennis team. John Robert (10) is a fifth-grader at Faucett-Vestavia Elementary School in Northport and participates in basketball, baseball, and football.