Collinsville’s girls basketball team has a new head coach. It’s a familiar face.
An assistant coach with the Collinsville High School girls basketball program for the past seven years, Colin Moore is the new leader of the Kahoks.
A 2002 graduate of Belleville East and the head boys golf coach at Collinsville for the past seven years, Moore, 36, was officially hired to take over the Kahoks on Monday at the Collinsville Community School District 10 School Board meeting.
Moore, who has also coached the Kahoks freshmen and junior varsity teams in addition to being a varsity assistant, takes over for Lori Billy who resigned last month after 10 years.
The Kahoks were 130-142 under Billy.
“I’m excited for this opportunity to be the head girls basketball coach at Collinsville High School. I’ve known for a couple of days and I’ve had friends ask me about it. But I couldn’t say anything until I was approved by the board,” Moore said Monday. “I’m very grateful for this opportunity.
“Coach (Lori) Billy did a great job here and she gave me the opportunity to do a lot of different things within the program. I’m familiar with the players and what we have coming back. We have good, hard-working student-athletes and I’m excited about the future.”
A special education teacher at Collinsville High School, Moore attended Southwestern Illinois College and Missouri S@T before getting his degree at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. In addition to coaching at Collinsville, Moore also previously coached at Belleville West.
“I know the Southwestern Conference, having gone to Belleville East and having worked with (Belleville West) coach Clayton Fisher. It’s a great basketball conference,” Moore said. “It will be different with (Lori) Blade no longer coaching at Edwardsville.”
Blade announced her resignation as girls basketball coach at Edwardsville on Friday.
Moore takes over a Collinsville program which finished 16-14 a year ago, but will have to replace its three top players, including senior standout Caite Knutson. A first team all-Southwestern Conference and News-Democrat all-area selection, Knutson has signed to attend and play college basketball at SIUE.
“We have two starters back who did a good job for us last year and we have a very strong underclass group which includes four freshmen who will be sophomores next year that we’re high on,” Moore said. “As I said, I think we have a group of hard-working athletes who are very coachable and want to be successful.
“I’m a coach who believes in playing good defense and getting good shots each time down the floor and being patient on offense. But I also think we have athletes who can run the floor and put pressure on the opposition as well.”
Moore and his wife Kerri have three sons.
