Prelude - Who is A.C.Read?
A.C. Read is from Minor High School in Adamsville, Alabama. Since starring as a 6'0" SG in high school, he received a full scholarship to Auburn University where he spent five seasons having been redshirted his Freshman year. Playing very sparingly his first three seasons after his redshirt freshman year he did see more playing time his senior season as the sixth man. This limited time awarded him the opportunity to sit and learn. Upon graduating in May of 2009, he immediately fell into an open chance to remain at Auburn as a graduate assistant for the 2009-10 season.
Late summer of 2010 he landed the job of third assistant for the University of South Alabama. With USA hiring of a new young coach, Read received the unprecedented opportunity at the young age of 24 to join the staff. While the first season was a rough road for USA finishing 12-16, the second season found more success going 17-12 and vast offensive improvements overall for the team. This awarded an opportunity for the teams first assistant to move on to greener pastures opening the door for Read to advance to the second assistant at the age of 26. During the 2012-13 season, in an injury plagued year for the team, they continued to show marked improvement from the bench and rallied late in the season to finish 17-13.
With the strong improvements in a short period of time and the dedication to practice with a youthful team, Read developed the reputation to being a "players coach" and with this came a good opportunity to fill first assistant on a very bad team across the state at Troy University. The previous year Troy finished 5-25, last in conference in all offensive categories. In Read's first season as first assistant there was slight improvements in the teams shooting, but a more notable one in team wins going 12-19. It was the second and third years that marked the great strides in not only the teams shooting, but a hard nosed defense that saw Troy climb to the top of the conference by the 2015-16 season. Read had been an integral part in helping Troy to turn around spinning off seasons finishing 12-19, 19-13, and 20-13 respectively.
With the noted successes and improvements to the two programs that Read was associated with helped land him on the coaches "hot list" for many mid-major programs by the end of the 2015-16 season. At the young age of 30 and the experience of six seasons going through the ranks, Read is poised to very likely become a head coach somewhere at the mid-major level.