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Report: Georgia to promote Jonas Hayes to assistant coach

hayes

University of Georgia

After spending five seasons as an assistant coach at Belmont Abbey College, former Georgia Bulldog Jonas Hayes returned to his alma mater last spring to join Mark Fox’s staff as program coordinator.

According to a report by Dean Legge of DawgPost.com Hayes will receive a promotion, making the move to assistant coach. Hayes would move into the position vacated when Kwanza Johnson joined Trent Johnson’s staff at TCU earlier this spring.

“I can’t tell you how blessed I feel to be joining Coach Fox’s staff,” Hayes said last year after joining the program. “Georgia holds a special place in my heart. I’m just ready to get started, ready to do whatever I can to help build the program.”

That will be the difficult task for Hayes, who is expected to do much of the heavy lifting in the recruiting game for Fox. The Bulldogs are trying to steady the ship after a third losing season in four years – and the 2013-14 recruiting class in state and beyond is seen as a critical building block for the future of the program under Fox.


Georgia has just two seniors on this coming season’s roster in forwards Marcus Thornton and Donte Williams, so there shouldn’t be turnover of major proportions in 2014.

From a recruiting standpoint, there are in-state players such as power forward JaKeenan Grant (Springfield, Ga.) and center Trayvon Reed (Snellville, Ga.) within the state lines who can help the program in the future if the Bulldogs can land them.

Hayes has college coaching experience, so it isn’t as if he hasn’t been through the ringer before. With the Bulldogs entering year three of the Fox era, fans are hopeful that the Bulldogs can reach the postseason in the near future.

Raphielle can be followed on Twitter at @raphiellej.