Coach Lane McCarter
Lane McCarter has been coaching at Houston High School since 1998, leading the junior
varsity to back to back titles in '98 and '99. He took over as head coach
of the varsity team in 2000. The mustangs have won 179 games under him
during his first six varsity seasons with two regular season district titles
(2000 and 2003), one district tournament title (2001), two region championships
(2003 and 2005) and two appearances in the state tournament (2003 and 2005),
winning it all in 2005 as state champions.
In 2005, Lane was named regional Coach of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches
Association. The country is divided into eight regions. Houston High
School is in ABCA Region 4 and consists of the states of Mississippi, Tennessee,
Missouri, Arkansas and Alabama.
The team has been nationally ranked by BaseballAmerica three times. In 2002 they were
no. 32 and in 2004 they were ranked as high as no. 14 in the country. In
the 2005 championship season, they ended the year ranked no. 43 and reached no.
27 earlier.
Since Coach McCarter's tenure began, he has been very fortunate to have more
than thirty kids sign college baseball scholarships and have seven players
drafted by major league baseball.
Four are currently playing professionally:
Matt Cain with the San Francisco Giants,
Stuart Pomeranz with the St. Louis Cardinals organization, Kelly Edmundson with
the Cleveland Indians organization and Brent Dlugach with
the Detroit Tigers organization.
For Lane, the biggest thrill in coaching isn't in the winning of games but in developing
the players. The goal of the Mustang coaching staff is to make each player
that enters the program better than he was the year before. Not every
player reaches his full potential, but hopefully each one will have an
opportunity to do so at the next level.
Born and raised in McMinnville, Tennessee, McCarter prepped at Warren County Senior High.
He lettered in football, basketball and baseball. As a senior, he was
named All-District in both football and baseball. After high school, Lane
played at Shelby State for two seasons and then moved on to the University of
Memphis. His Tiger teammates honored him with the Sportsmanship/Leadership
award in his junior and senior seasons. Following his graduation from
college, he spent the summer overseas in Germany as an instructor for Major
League Baseball International.
Lane has been happily married to the former Kimberly Cox since June 29 of 2002. She
is a registered dietician at Atrium of Memphis, the pom pon coach at
Collierville High School and a co-owner of Studio 413, a dance studio in
Collierville. Kimberly is also a graduate of the University of Memphis and
was a member of its national champion pom pon squad.
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Coach McCarter
Running it the Mustang way
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