Atkins announced the hiring of Kishon Bishop, a Triad basketball businessman, to be a high school boys basketball head coach for the first time since 2015.
Bishop, a former player at Piedmont International University (now Carolina University) Bishop has owned the Blue Chip Basketball Academy and non-profit Hope & Hope, Inc. since 2012 and has been a co-owner of the Winston-Salem Wolves professional team since 2018. The Blue Chip Basketball umbrella also covers the Triad High School All-Star Classic as well as the Triad High School Fall and Summer Leagues.
Bishop’s only previous head high school basketball coaching position was as boys coach for Caldwell for the 2014-15 season.
Bishop was an assistant under Rusty LaRue at West Forsyth from 2015-2018 and during that time, the Titans went 52-30 in three seasons. In the 2016-17 season, it went 27-3, 11-1 in conference, and reached the NCHSAA 4A regional semifinal.
He’s been the boys basketball coach at Walkertown Middle School since January 2016 and a health and physical education teacher there since July 2014. He will keep his Walkertown teaching role.
Before his stint at Caldwell, Bishop was an assistant under Howard West at Forsyth Country Day from 2012-2014.
Atkins athletics director Leslie Long said she was impressed with Bishop’s extensive knowledge of the game but also sees skills in Bishop that go beyond the sport. Also impressive were recommendations from LaRue and West.
“Obviously, what we are hiring someone to do is coach basketball, but we also need a good person and we need someone who is in it for the kids,” Long said. “We love to win, but we need someone who is there to help the kids and help the program grow and that sort of thing. Don’t get me wrong, we are in it to win, but we are also in it to make sure that these kids can come back to Atkins and have a good relationship with Coach Bishop. He has a lot of connections and he can help them get to college and then beyond with their careers and things like that.”
Bishop said his main priority isn’t winning games but using the sport as a vehicle. A theology major with a youth emphasis at Piedmont, he views coaching as a ministry. He said that a significant coaching influence has been Freddy Johnson, the boys coach at Greensboro Day who is the state’s winningest high school basketball coach.
“The first thing that I want to do is build a community within the school,” Bishop said. “We are an academic and technology school first, and that is one thing that attracted me to this job. We are not a ‘sports school,’ but sports is an extra-curricular activity that can enhance our students’ lives. So having excellent student-athletes is going to be key.”
Bishop also holds health and physical education degrees from Piedmont and High Point University.
