POINTED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

1/27/2013 12:51:00 AM POINTED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION Duckett finds coaching success

Acting Ninety Six High School girls basketball coach Anarie Duckett calls out orders to her team during a Jan. 18 game against Abbeville. Duckett is acting as the Wildcats’ coach while normal coach John Coster awaits deployment to Afghanistan. (Matt Walsh | Index-Journal) By JORDAN ANDERS NINETY SIX -- Anarie Duckett isn't one to talk about herself. The former Emerald High School girls basketball coach and current acting coach at Ninety Six High School has won more than 250 games as a varsity girls basketball coach, but she isn't interested in the attention. When you combine that with her years coaching at the junior high level, the number of victories rises to 448, but she has no desire to have that recognized or have her own achievements heralded. Just ask Gary Gillion. "When we were still at Emerald and she was closing in on her 200th win, we were going to try and get the girls to sign a basketball and give it to her and that kind of thing," said Gillion, who was Duckett's assistant coach at Emerald for more than a decade and is now the football coach at Greenwood Christian. "Man, did she get mad. She would have none of it, saying, 'That's not important.' That's just the kind of person she is." But the problem with that is, whether she likes it or not, Duckett has had a career in the Lakelands worth talking about. Duckett's roots in athletics can be traced all the way back to her childhood, growing up in Greenwood in the late 1950s. SEE MORE IN TODAY'S INDEX-JOURNAL.