Jags hire new golf coach

Spain Park has won a boys golf state championship in four of the last five years under the direction of coach Brian Carter, including the 2016 Class 7A title.

If the Jags are to repeat as state champs, they will have to do so under new leadership.

With Carter accepting a job with the Alabama State Department of Education, Spain Park High School has hired Keat Litton, a move made official by the school board Monday night.

“Obviously, it’s tough to replace a quality coach like Brian Carter,” said Spain Park athletic director Patrick Kellogg. “He did a great job with the football side of it and he did an excellent job with the golf side as well.”

Carter served as a driver education teacher, assistant football coach, and golf coach during his time at Spain Park, the same responsibilities that Litton will inherit.

Litton comes from Homewood High School, where the Patriots won their first golf state championship in 2016 at the Class 6A level.

“I didn’t necessarily want to leave Homewood, but the opportunity to change (my day-to-day responsibilities) was appealing to me,” Litton said. “To go to a program like Spain Park, whether it’s football or golf, was very attractive.

Success was no stranger to Litton at Homewood, a place that he could only speak highly of.

He said, “I hate to leave those guys, and most of them are coming back too, but it was a good opportunity to move to a program that has a great history in golf.”

He helped build a program at Homewood that could compete with the strong 7A schools in the area, as he rattled off names like Mountain Brook, Hoover, and Vestavia Hills among others that he will now go head-to-head against with the Jags.

“That’s what we were trying to build,” he said. “We were trying to build it to where we could compete with those teams in any of those tournaments.”

Litton grew up in Homewood and is thankful for the opportunity the school gave him after he was out of teaching for eight years. At Spain Park, he sees a community that loves golf. Kellogg emphasized this fact and wanted to find a coach that could keep the program at its current caliber.

“Coach Litton understands the time and the preparation that it’ll take to continue winning state championships here at Spain Park High School. I just think he’s a natural fit and we’ll be able to continue to compete,” Kellogg said.