Former Boys Coach Returns To School 3 Years Later To Take Over Girls Program

The more Mark Cornelius thought about taking over as the girls basketball coach at Mountain Brook High School the more it made sense to him.

So, three years after leaving Mountain Brook as the boys basketball coach to coach the boys team at his alma mater, Gardendale, Cornelius recently returned to Mountain Brook as the Spartans girls coach.

“A lot of folks were surprised,” Cornelius said. “The first day I was approached about doing this — a friend of mine contacted me — I didn’t really know if I wanted to coach girls, but the more I thought about it the more it appealed to me. When I was at Mountain Brook before, I had coached girls soccer for three years and girls golf for seven, and when I was the boys basketball coach I had gotten along well with the girls basketball coaches and I’d seen how they worked and how they coached.”

Cornelius replaces Kevin Tubbs, who left Mountain Brook to become the athletics director for Homewood schools.

“We are very excited to be able to secure Coach Cornelius, bringing him back to Mountain Brook,” Spartans Athletics Director Terry Cooper said. “Mark has tremendous experience and is a proven winner. I think he’ll do a great job with our girls program and be able to build upon the foundation built over previous years, most recently by Coach Tubbs.”

When Cornelius was Mountain Brook’s boys basketball coach from 1998 to 2008, his teams averaged 20 wins per season and he led the Spartans to five regional appearances and a Final Four berth in 2001. His 2005 team won 28 games, which set a school record. Cornelius left as the Spartans’ winningest boys head coach.

His tenure at Gardendale, where he had been a star player in the late 1970s and earned All-State honors, produced mixed results. His first team went 19-10 in 2009, but the past two years the Rockets were 13-16 and 15-16.

“Gardendale was good to me for those three years, but I never felt like I connected with some of the kids,” Cornelius said. “They weren’t a bad group, but I really hadn’t connected.

“It was still a tough decision to leave, especially since I was already tenured at Gardendale.”

Since returning, Cornelius has spoken briefly with current Spartans boys coach Bucky McMillan, who played for Cornelius at Mountain Brook and was his successor.

“He told me he was happy I was back,” Cornelius said. “I knew he wouldn’t care. We’ve always had a good relationship.”

Cornelius is replacing a highly successful coach in Tubbs, who compiled an 89-23 record the past four seasons at Mountain Brook, including 24-6 this year.

Cornelius also will inherit a team that returns four starters, sophomores Collier Ogilvie and Mary Katherine Pinson and juniors Ellie Mouyal and Annabelle Friedman.

“One of the things that intrigued me is I’m going into a good situation,” Cornelius said. “We’re going to be extremely young and extremely talented. I watched them on tape eight times in my first week and I’ve met with the girls a couple of times. I’m really impressed the way they shoot, run and catch the ball.

“I’m excited about being back at Mountain Brook.”