Hartwell takes over Lady Bear basketball program

If a guy was good enough to be offered “seven football, 10 baseball, and 150 scholarships” he definitely knows a thing or two about high school athletics.

Throw in a high school basketball coaching record of 348 wins and 132 losses and it becomes apparent why Albert Hartwell was named as the new head girls' basketball coach at Carencro High School.

Of those victories, 210 came during his time at Carroll from 1986-1997, where he led the Bulldogs to a state championship (1992-93), two state runner-up finishes (1987-88, 90-91) and three district championships.

Hartwell will use that experience to maintain and supersede the success of the Lady Bear program under long-time CHS coach Rhonda McCullough, who resigned from CHS at the end of the 2004-2005 school year to become the new head girls' coach at Abbeville High School.

Hartwell graduated from Crawford High school in Arcadia, La. He then attended Grambling State University and matriculated with a degree in Physical Education and Recreation hoping one day to become a coach.

Hartwell, has been the boys head coach at Jonesboro High, Carroll, Vinton, DeQuincy and the head girls coach at Ball Senior High in Galveston, he was an assistant girls basketball coach at Grambling State University for one year.

He is not married, but has one daughter who is 13 years old and would like all the student body and faculty to know that he is here for them in any kind of way.

As a teacher, Hartwell says that he is trying to develop his students to be the best way they can be.

Hartwell's goals for the team this year is to make it to the play-offs and have the teams that they play have fear of the Carencro Lady Bears' basketball team.

“More playing time for more players” will be something he would like to change in the program, Hartwell said. He added that he wants a very “competitive team” and he wants his girls to be recognized as having “basketball power.”

Lacy Johnson