Shadow Mountain High School has found them a girl’s high school coach. Athletic director Ron Safcik has been interviewing candidates all summer to replace Erica Farnsworth. Erica has been coaching at Shadow Mountain for nine years, winning the 4A state champion in 2019. Erica left the program to become the head coach for the girls at Pinnacle high school which is a 6A powerhouse.
James Singleton accepted the position on Thursday after it was approved by the district and athletic director Ron Safcik. This makes coach Singleton second head coaching job here in phoenix Az, Singleton last coach at Odyssey High school back in 2018. Shadow Mountain went 25-4 last year and lost in the semi-finals of the state playoffs to a good Sahuaro team with player of the year Alyssa Brown. Singleton lacks no confidence that he can continue to the success of the program that was vacated by Erica back in April, this is what attracted Safcik to Singleton. Singleton plan to rebuild the program after graduating most of the top players. The Matadors graduate 9 out of the 12 members that were on the team. This will not be an easy task to replace these members, however athletic director Safcik stated, “he has the confidence that Singleton can get the job done.”
Singleton has gained most of his coaching experience coaching his club basketball team Lady Nation which he is a co-owner with his partner Richard Rodgers. They founded the program three years ago and it is doing well. Singleton and Rodgers appointed Richie Willis club director who is a long-time friend of the two. The club Lady Nation has been very successful as helping young ladies achieve their dreams of playing basketball at the next level.
Also, Singleton is the father of Tyonna Singleton who is entering her junior year at Cal St. Bakersfield and Jasmine Singleton who signed her NLI to play basketball at UNLV. Both of his daughter played at Millennium high school in Goodyear. Jasmine Singleton was able to lead her team to back to back state championships and she is now the school all time leader in assist and steals.
“My plan is to build the program from bottom to top starting with the freshman team, then JV team, and then the varsity team.” Singleton stated, “he would like to get the community involved with the girl’s program at Shadow Mountain.” Lastly Singleton stated, “I want to make sure the culture is good here, I want the culture to take on the same Prasanna as the head coach.”
The Matadors return one of their best player Zhane Jordan 5’10 Forward. Singleton is going to be expecting the senior forward to lead the team on and off the court. Zhane was the team 3rd leading scorer behind The Republic’s two-time All-Arizona guard Senya Rabouin and one of the state bests all-around player Dyamond Butler-Worley. Zhane Jordan 2021 has all the tools to lead the matadors back to the state playoffs this year. The way she plays the game Is special, she works hard, and she is a team player what more can you ask from her as a coach.
