KHS grad Fred Garmon's 'healthy obsession' for basketball brings him home to coach Kennett hoops

KENNETT – Former Kennett High School basketball standout Fred Garmon may have graduated in 2011, but in the years since he competed on the same black and gold court on which he will now coach, he never walked away from the game.

Having touched the lives and built up the athletic skills of many student athletes around Southeast Missouri in the meantime, Garmon has now been named the new KHS boys basketball head coach, taking over for Noll Billings.

“When I was 15 years old, I wrote a letter to myself with some goals that I had in mind,” Garmon said. “Playing Division 1 basketball was high up there, and also in there was becoming the head basketball coach at Kennett High School. To say that it means everything to me would actually be an understatement.”

The two-time Indian All-State athlete and former Bootheel Conference Player of the Year has now marked both things off his list of goals.

Garmon went on to play in junior college at Mineral Area College, and then he played D-1 basketball at Austin Peay State University. While both of those experiences proved valuable in the trajectory of his ongoing commitment to the game, much of his knack for training came later.

He went on to teach and coach in Kennett after college, teaching physical education at kindergarten and then at Kennett Middle School for six years in total. Eventually, however, it was time for a change.

Enter: Stephon Martinez, the founder of DigDeep Basketball. Garmon reconnected with Martinez, a North County graduate who Garmon competed against in high school, and the rest is history.

“It was really refreshing, and it was actually needed, to get out of education for a while and just do basketball full time,” Garmon said. “I have this healthy obsession with the game of basketball, and just giving all my time and energy to that was amazing. I can't get enough of it.”

Since the duo's collaboration began, Garmon has traversed this corner of the state and a little extra, “from Hillsboro down to Jonesboro, Arkansas, all the way up 55 and up 412,” for the last three years.

He's been steadily coaching some of the most dedicated area players privately from some familiar schools like Notre Dame, Sikeston, New Madrid, Charleston and Jackson.

“I've always naturally wanted to help youth athletes, whether it was mentorship or basketball,” Garmon said. “It was a lot. A ton of driving, and ton of everything, but it was refreshing to gain relationships with so many coaches, athletic directors and so many athletes. It broadened my horizons being around so many cultures, ethnicities, and these last two years have been so beneficial for me personally.”

Kennett basketball coach Fred Garmon runs drills with kids during the Bootheel Basketball Skills Camp on Thursday, June 22, 2023. Christian Johnson, Delta Dunklin Democrat

After spending many hours in gyms across the region, he relented that “it will be different,” helping to train some of the very players the Indians will be competing against, but whenever time allows, he has no plans of completely stepping away from DigDeep.

As Garmon prepares to take on his first official school year since his departure from education, his aspirations for the program are clear.

“My main goal is to graduate leaders,” Garmon said. “There are a lot of followers walking through our hallways, and I want to get our athletes to be better citizens in their community. Once you take care of the streets, it'll spill over to the classroom. Once we get on the court, we'll have the recipe. We'll just have to do the work.”

Garmon coached Kennett's upcoming junior class from the time they were in fourth grade through seventh grade. He explained that the majority of them know him already, and they know how high his expectations will be.

“Those are my guys, for sure,” he described of the junior class. “There are plenty of reasons why I came back to Kennett, but those core group of now juniors, they have a special place in my heart. At this moment, I need my guys as much as they may need me, but we have bigger issues in Kennett than being bad at basketball. We need to be better sons, friends and have better character all around.”

In order to accomplish that goal, one word sums up the road forward: accountability.

“If you go into the locker room, there's a board that says 'you can either win with us, or you can watch us win,'” Garmon said. “That's our word of the summer, and probably our word for the year. You have to hold the guys accountable, hold each other accountable, and hold that guy in the mirror accountable.”

Garmon said that he believes Billings did a great job of teaching his players to play hard. “He loved his guys, and they still love him to this day,” he added.

Along with a new crew of assistants including Jack Walls, John Patton and Kevin McCaig, Garmon wants to see his players and the turnaround of the KHS basketball program through to the end.

Garmon, his staff and athletes concluded the three-day Bootheel Basketball Skills Camp on Wednesday to set the groundwork for future generations of students to learn the game.

“The guys have been showing up and they've been working hard, and in the summer that's all I'm asking for,” Garmon explained. “I believe in them, I love them all, and I really believe we're going to do this thing together.”