By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SPENCER — As a West Rowan track and field senior in the spring of 1999, Ron Bost ran the 200 meters in 25.74 seconds and placed sixth in the 3A State Championships.
Bost is still moving quickly. He’s become a head coach in a high-profile sport more suddenly than he ever expected. He’s been named as the replacement for Brian Lytton as the head of the North Rowan girls basketball program.
“Even though I’ve been helping out as an assistant coach at North for a while (six seasons), I just came into the school system about a year ago,” Bost said. “One of my dreams was to become a head coach, and it’s happened quickly for me. I lucked up.”
Bost’s roots are at West Rowan. His nephew, West graduate and Winston-Salem State freshman J.T. Sanders, was the Rowan County Male Athlete of the Year for the 2015-16 school year. But his coaching opportunities have come at North.
Lytton’s departure for West Forsyth High in Clemmons came as July was melting into August and caught just about everyone by surprise.
Lytton was a solid coach. In his four seasons, the Cavaliers were 13-12, 18-5, 14-7 and 19-8. They were third once and second three times in a Central Carolina Conference ruled by state power East Davidson. The county’s smallest public school, North also racked up two Christmas tournament championships and added a runner-up finish in his four seasons.
No coach is a good coach without good players, and Lytton had some — Demeria Robinson, Aliyah Farmer, Special Washington, and so on.
Lytton also had capable assistants. Bost was part of that nice run as a jayvee coach and varsity assistant coach. He knows the school, knows the girls, knows the conference.
“Ron has a lot of experience,” North AD Ben Hampton said. “It was important for us to hire someone in house, who was on staff. It’s important to have a coach who can communicate with the girls every school day, who can interact with them academically as well as athletically.”
Bost was not a basketball player in high school. He was a good defensive back at West Rowan and played at the very start of the Scott Young Era. Track was where he excelled most.
“Track and football are what I did in school, but I always liked basketball,” Bost said. “Then as I got older, I got interested in learning the ins and outs of the game.”
Bost hasn’t been able to do a great deal on the hardwood so far. He’s a football assistant coach, working with defensive backs, and many of his potential players are involved with the North volleyball team.
Bost does know his team will have springy senior Brianna White, one of the county’s best athletes in track, volleyball and basketball, as well as returning starter Aundrea Godfrey. Godfrey showed flashes of brilliance last season and was all-tournament at the Dale’s Sporting Goods Sam Moir Christmas Classic.
Bost expects the Cavaliers to win their share and to keep playing the same uptempo style.
North usually isn’t tall and the outside shooting comes and goes, but the Cavaliers are almost always fast and quick. That’s been their ticket. Pressuring opponents into mistakes and letting tenacious defense lead to easy offense.
“I’m a big track guy and I love to run and speed up the game, and that’s how North has typically played in the past,” Bost said. “We’ve got girls who can play that style.”
Bost said his coaching style will, by necessity, become more forceful as a head coach.
“I’ve never yelled a lot, and I’m a soft-spoken guy by nature,” Bost said. “But as an assistant coach when I did raise my voice, the girls always listened. They knew if I was talking that I had something to say.”
Bost will be taking over for North’s last season in the 2A classification before it heads back to 1A for four years, and he’s excited about the challenge in front of him.
“We’ve got a chance to have a strong program,” he said. “We’ve got good girls now and our eighth-graders are very good.”
The season isn’t that far away. North is scheduled to play at South Rowan on Nov. 15.