The Pineville Mountain Lions have a new head football coach. Arthur Carter was introduced last Wednesday by Principal Dr. Jarryd Boster and Superintendent Russell Thompson first to an assembly of middle and high school boys and then in a press conference in the lobby of the Lion’s Den gymnasium.

“I’m really excited to be here and I think through that excitement and the support these men and the community is already showing everything will speak for itself in the coming months. You’ll see action behind that, everything will be much cleaner and much sharper,” Carter said. “I’m excited. My wife is excited. This administration is excited. When something starts going forward and these kids see positivity and that they’ve got support every day, that momentum is going to be like a giant snowball that wipes out everything.”

Carter grew up in Arjay and was a standout for the Bell County Bobcats before playing at Union College. He returned to Log Mountain to help coach the Bobcats under Dudley Hilton through the team’s 2008 state championship season. Carter then served as the head coach at Jackson County from 2009 through 2011 before moving to Florida to help coach at a large school down there. He returned to Kentucky in 2022 and took over a Marion County program that had only won one game the two previous years. He built the Knights into a competitive program in Class 3A District 4 that won five games each of the last two seasons.

Thompson commended Dr. Boster for handling the search for a new coach.

“It’s been a long process because we had so many candidates. We had over 20 applicants and we interviewed 12 of them looking for the best fit for our town and our community and our kids,” he said.

Boster said the process started after the season when former coach Allen Harris decided to move in a different direction in the school’s athletic department as assistant AD.

“Finding a new coach for our Mountain Lions was something that we took very seriously. It was important to find a man of high character to lead other high character men and to build young men of character and that’s what we set out to do,” Boster said. “We had applicants from literally all over the country and some great people here in Pineville. I can tell you honestly that it was a prayerful process and at the conclusion of that it was obvious that we had found our man.”

He said Carter was someone that had taken a program that had struggled and not only changed the number of wins and losses but changed the caliber of athlete.

“He changed their stature and how they carried themselves in the community. Not just their physical build, but changed who they are, changed lives and that’s what we were looking for,” Boster said. “We wanted somebody who recognizes that you can be from Pineville, Kentucky and be somebody. That’s who we found, somebody who picked himself up from here in Bell County and went and did something. He played football in college, he’s coached high level football in Florida, he’s coached in Kentucky and built programs. That’s the kind of man we needed.

“The Lord put him in our path and we are proud and honored and grateful to tell you that Arthur Carter is our new head football coach here at Pineville.We’re behind him 100-percent and we’re ready to work.”

Carter said the Pineville job was appealing because of the school’s winning tradition.

“It’s not every day that you get an opportunity like this. I look at it as a fresh opportunity because there have been a lot of good things done here in the past. There’s a lot of tradition to fall back on,” Carter said. “Great men have come from this program all the way back into the ‘60s and ‘70s. When you have that kind of tradition to build back into, you can do great things. The culture of a program is one of the hardest things to build, but you can tap into that tradition as a coach and teach them how to believe again and work toward that.”

Carter was joined by his new wife, Shaunnah, and happy to be back home. He added that the enthusiasm he’s heard from the community made the decision a “slam dunk.”

“I was recently married to this beautiful lady and everything has come together supernaturally. I can only thank God for that. I just feel like I’m a lucky man right now sitting here before you,” he said. “I think I’m in a good position with this program to come in and affect the lives of young men. That’s what we get paid to do, build character and integrity and be a vehicle for these kids to get them to the next stage in life so they can outperform what’s happened in the past.”

Thompson shared that when he was a freshman in high school at Pineville, Carter was a senior at Bell County.

“He was an intimidating figure and people knew who he was, especially when he hit that football field,” he said.

Thompson saw Carter again when he visited Union College after Tuck Woolum had offered him a partial scholarship as a receiver. After seeing the size of the players Thompson decided basketball was his best route for college sports. But he continued to follow Carter’s career, even when he took on a risky job at Jackson County.

“I’ve got good friends at Jackson County and they all spoke very highly of the job that was done there,” he said. “When you hire a coach, not everything is measured in wins on the schedule. You’re measured by what kind of effort you give those young men, what kind of character you develop in those young men.”

Thompson said all of those boxes were checked when he looked into the work Carter did in Florida and Marion County while dealing with different cultures of kids.

“To bring that knowledge, success and that work ethic here for our kids is exactly what we were looking for. We’re very thankful that Coach Carter was interested in the job,” Thompson said. “He really did shine above the other candidates and I feel like he’s going to bring good things not only to our school but to our community.”

One thing Carter takes pride in on the field is his teams’ ability to run the ball. He pointed out that Marion County was a top five rushing team in 2023 and top eight last year. He said he would have to see exactly what kind of offense fits his personnel at Pineville before committing to any certain formation.

“I think if you say you’re going to be this or that, you kind of back yourself into a corner. I think we’ve got to see exactly what kind of talent we have, where we’re going to be at come August and that will dictate what kind of sets you see,” Carter said. “We could be a pro I team, we could be a flexbone team or we could be a wishbone team. If I had my druthers, I’m going to line five linemen up, put a tight end down there and I’m going to kick your tail all over the field.

“If we don’t have that and we can pass the ball then we’ll be in twins open or have a spread formation. I don’t know what kind of lockerroom we’re going to have in August.”

To that end, he wants every potential athlete in Pineville to know that his doors are open

“I want them to know that there’s a man here running the program now — not that Coach Harris or anybody else wasn’t— but I’m going to be vested in their future, vested in their now and in them being a student athlete,” he said. “We want to make sure that lockerroom is full of people that are ready to invest in being the best Pineville Mountain Lion that they can possibly be.”

Carter said that first and foremost his teams will be disciplined. He also emphasizes the student in student athlete and has a goal of the team having a cumulative GPA of 3.1 or better.

“Football only lasts so long — you’ve got to be in the top 1.7 percent to go to the next level. I want to make sure our guys know that every kid that walks in that building has an opportunity to go to college, has an opportunity to be successful and has an opportunity to better themselves,” Carter said. “If I don’t do anything else, we’re going to be a team of discipline and character. They’re going to know how to act at all times.”