With aspirations of winning immediately, Wallace Community College-Selma

Assistant Athletic Director Raji Gourdine announced Thursday the hiring of two new basketball coaches.

The women’s team will be headed by former Southside High and WCCS standout Antoinette Blevins, while the men’s team will be coached by Johnny McCalpine, formerly of East Perry High School.

Both coaches have been hired on a part-time basis.

“We intend to win this year,” Gourdine said following the coaches’ introductions. “We believe that the hiring of these two coaches will lay a solid foundation for recruiting throughout Dallas County.”

Blevins is the first female head basketball coach in the school’s history. She replaces Henry Norris, who resigned after the Lady Patriots went winless last season.

Blevins most recently was an assistant coach at Chicago State University. She also has a coaching stint for the Chicago Blaze of the National Women’s Basketball League, a branch of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).

During her two-year tenure with the Blaze, Blevins coached such superstars as Sheryl Swoopes, now with the Houston Comets

and Tamika Catchings of the Indiana

Fever, both from the WNBA.

“I’m bringing to the team a winning attitude,” Blevins said. “I want the players to know that they have to work harder to get what they want.”

As a player for Wallace from 1996-’98, Blevins was remembered by Gourdine as “strong-willed and determined.”

“I remember (Blevins) played one game with a concussion,” Gourdine said. “She refused to leave the game. “It’s that kind of tenacity she brings to the game that we were looking for in a new coach.”

McCalpine takes over the WCCS program that won just five games during the 2003-’04 campaign. He replaces Jeff Hines who, like Norris, resigned following last season.

McCalpine was the head coach at East Perry High School in for 15 seasons in the 1970s and ’80s. He led his team to three championship berths, including a state title in 1973.