.jpg)
Following two years as head coach of the Rockbridge County High School girls basketball and girls tennis teams, Andrew Bellairs is headed south to be closer to family.
Bellairs, 31, announced his resignation with a Facebook post on May 16 after he shared the news with his players.
In addition to coaching, Bellairs taught Algebra I at RC for the past two years. He’s accepted a job teaching eighth grade math in Greenville, S.C, with hopes of getting a coaching gig down there, either at the high school or college level.
“I am so thankful for everything this community has provided for me,” said Bellairs in his post. “There are so many great people I’ve met or enjoyed getting to know through coaching and teaching. RCHS has been such a great place for me to learn how to do both of those things.”
“I am forever thankful to the parents and coworkers who have supported me the last couple years,” added Bellairs. “I would not have been able to grow as a teacher and coach if it wasn’t for you all. I cannot put into words how much I will miss my players. They truly are the best, and it kills me to have to tell them goodbye.”
Bellairs, a 2010 RCHS graduate who played basketball for Jason Buzzard in high school, was named the RC girls head basketball coach in October 2021, replacing Misty Armstrong, who had coached the Wildcats the previous three years. He wasn’t the first Bellairs to coach the RC girls. In the 2014-15 season, his father, Bart, coached the girls to their only winning season in program history. Bart was the head men’s basketball coach at Virginia Military Institute previously.
After working in real estate and coaching in Oregon and then with his father in Kentucky, the younger Bellairs took the job at RC.
Wins were hard to come by, as the Wildcats went 3-19 in 2021-22, Bellairs’s first year, before going 2-20 this past winter, when there were seven lacrosse players on the team. Most of the players on the 2022-23 team were new to basketball.
One of the players Bellairs coached in basketball and tennis, 2022 RC graduate Emily Mahood, is playing both sports for Division III school Ferrum College.
In girls tennis, the Wildcats went 7-9 last year, making a Region 3C tournament appearance, and went 3-12 this year.
Reflecting more on his time at RC, Bellairs said, “I am super honored and feel really blessed to have gotten to coach at the school I also played at. Honestly, there is no better feeling than when you’re on the court coaching a game.”
“I am so thankful for my girls,” added Bellairs. “They are hardworking and great kids all-around. They made it easier to handle losses and made it even more exciting when we got the wins. Obviously, I wish our record would have been better, but hopefully they learn from our experiences together the same way I learned from them as a coach.”
Praising Bellairs for his impact on both programs, RC athletic director Adam Haynes said, “I think Coach Bellairs is going to be missed as a teacher and a coach at the high school. … He was a good influence for our kids. He worked extremely hard to try to put our kids in good positions. “
“I don’t think the win/loss record speaks to how good of a job he did,” added Haynes.
Haynes said the search for a new head girls basketball coach has started, noting that the job opening has been posted, and the school plans to start the interview process early in the summer.
