DRAFFENVILLE – Marshall County High School announced today the hiring of Terry Birdsong as Head Coach of the men’s basketball program. A 1987 graduate of Marshall County, Birdsong was a player on the 1987 Regional Championship team and after graduating went on to play at Western Kentucky University and Murray State University, graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in History.
Just completing his 21st season as a head coach, Birdsong has a career record of 430-213 and has guided his teams to the regional finals in eight of those seasons, advancing to the KHSAA Sweet 16 four times in 2003, 2009, 2013 and 2015. In 2013 and 2015, his teams advanced to the Elite 8 in the KHSAA State Tournament.
He has won nine district championships and 49 total post-season games and was named KABC Coach of the Year in 2001 and 2015 as well as an All Purchase Coach of the Year in 2002, 2005 and 2015. Birdsong is one of 40 coaches in KHSAA history to lead two or more different programs to the Sweet 16 and the only men’s coach to win a regional championship at Calloway County in the program’s 57 year history.
Birdsong has been Head Coach at Calloway County the last three seasons and seven seasons before that at Graves County. Before the Graves County position he was at Calloway County for eight seasons until the 2006-07 season.
Birdsong said his mom told him this was an opportunity he needed to take and that it was the first time she has ever done that saying, “my mom has been a chair seat season ticket holder since the gym was built.”
“This is home for me and I’m very thrilled”, Birdsong said. “I think about my basketball journey, about 40 years ago this is where it all started as a student and I look around and see a lot of guys I went to school with. As a young boy, my roots are here, my childhood’s here, some of the best years of my life were spent here and I have my family here, which is the most important thing.”
He is a top ten career scorer as a player at Marshall County during the 1984-87 seasons with 1,328 points and was inducted into the Marshall County Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016.
“We’re going to work our tails off to create that toughness, that sense of pride that I felt as a player”, said Birdsong. “It’s not about me, this program is 1,000% about these young men sitting in this cafeteria tonight and I pledged to them when I met with them earlier, I promised them that we will get every ounce of effort that my coaching staff can give them, every amount of focus and effort that we can pour into these guys, we will do that.”
“We’re going to treat these guys special because I feel like they are special. And I told them this, and I really feel this way, I felt this way when I was competing against them that no other kids in this region play under the expectations that they play under. I’ve been there. I know that feeling. The expectations here are very high and sometimes these kids feel that pressure and we’re going to embrace it, we’re going to talk about it every day, we’re not going to run away from it.”
“Starting today our main priority is to give them the very best chance we can to get to Rupp Arena. That’s my goal, I know that’s their goal, and today it starts.”
Coach Birdsong is married to Melissa and they have one daughter, Hastings.
