Allatoona Coach Is Student of Game

Allatoona High School head basketball coach, Markus Hood, says he thinks the secret to a good team is chemistry and selflessness.

“They have to care about each other more than they care about themselves,” said Hood on a recent rainy afternoon in his office.

His belief in those ingredients has served him well through the years. Hood recently won his 200th game.

And the Allatoona Buccaneers advanced Wednesday to the state tournament with a 60 to 37 win over Ringgold High School.

This year, the team has six seniors that have gone to school at Allatoona all four years. The school didn’t open until 2008.

Hood says his seniors, some of whom will go on to college ball, have set high standards for the younger players. They all genuinely care about each other.

A player’s grandfather was killed recently, and Hood thinks the whole team showed up for the funeral. Several of them, along with the coaches, went over to the player's house soon after the accident happened.

Hood and his wife, Alyssa, have one son, Daniel, who is 19 months old. Hood grew up in Marietta and played basketball and baseball at McEachern High School.

Though the two are not related, he remembers playing against former, legendary head coach, Charlie Hood, at Marietta High School.

He laughs remembering his college career as spread out over six or seven years.

Hood, 37, played one year at Atlanta Christian College. After his freshman year, he says laughing, "I realized I had to go to class." He graduated from Georgia Southwestern State University in 2005 with a degree in health and physical education.

Hood's coaching career began at his high school alma mater. He was an assistant there, and at Dodge County High School while he was in college—one of several he attended.

Hood would go on to get a masters degree at the University of Alabama, and a special certificate from Cambridge University in Augusta.

"There were a lot of long nights and early mornings," Hood said.

After college, Hood went on to Paulding County High School, followed by stints at Hiram High School and now his job at Allatoona.

These days, he or one of his assistants starts casing out a team weeks before a game. They study game footage and watch several games in person.

“Most players are creatures of habit,” Hood said. “If there is two minutes left in the game, you know what they are going to do.”

Assistant Nicholas Estes, who has been with Hood for nine years, said the best man in his wedding is a "student of the game."

"He doesn't pretend to know it all," Estes said. "He takes input from others."

Senior Point Guard Dylan Nsiah says Hood puts his all in for the team.

“I've learned character and how I carry myself, Nsiah said.

But Hood has a simpler version of that, saying he doesn’t do anything by himself.

“We need to help them learn from our mistakes,” Hood said. “We were all hard-headed once too.”