After two seasons at Morton, former Newton County assistant baseball coach Matt Boone is returning to MHSAA Region 5-4A. This time, though, it’ll be as the head coach at his alma mater. Boone, a 2002 graduate of Quitman High School, announced Friday he was heading back home to take over the Panthers program. Boone was an assistant coach at Newton County for eight years prior to taking over Morton after the 2016 season, and he compiled a 31-29 in two seasons at Morton, including going 13-6 in divisional play over that span. This year’s Morton team finished in first place in Region 5-3A and made it to the third round of the Class 3A playoffs. As Quitman’s new baseball coach, Boone is stepping in after a bit of a coaching carousel. Following Brian Goodman stepped down after the 2017 season, Quitman softball coach and athletic director Brian Jordan ended up coaching the team after two separate coaches stepped down during the school year. For a team looking for some stability, Boone said he feels he was the right man for the job. “This is a dream job for me,” Boone explained. “People will think that’s silly, but having played here and graduated from here, I’ve always wanted this job. They haven’t been good for quite a while, but there’s no excuse not to be good in baseball.” In fact, reviving the Panthers program is a matter of pride for Boone. “In 2002 when I was here, we won the division and had the most wins in school history,” Boone said. “Over the past 10 to 12 years, the program hasn’t been great, but it’s just a pride thing for me. I wanted to come back home and turn it around. I’m not coming to boost my resume or climb the ladder, I’m trying to get the program back on track.” Working for Wyatt Tullos at Newton County for eight years helped prepare him to be a head coach, but Boone said there were still a few things that were new for him when he took over Morton two years ago. Now, he said he’s ready for his next challenge. “It’s been a little different than it was being an assistant,” Boone said. “I felt like I was prepared working under Tullos, but there are always some things as a head coach that you deal with that you never had to deal with as an assistant. I had a great time at Morton. We won a divisional title for the first time in 32 years. Now I’m moving to one of the toughest baseball divisions in the state, but we’ll see if we can get it done.” Boone’s sales pitch to Quitman was one of motivation. “I told them they would probably find some coaches who wanted to win just as much as me, but they would be doing it for different reasons: to build a name and then move on,” Boone said. “This isn’t somewhere I want to move on from, it’s where I want to be and live. I want to get the program back to where I think it should be.” Tryouts for the 2019 season will be next week, and Boone said he realizes it will be a building process that isn’t going to fully manifest in one year. The most important thing will be to encourage his players and stress the game’s fundamentals, as well as building the program up from the middle school level. “The main thing I ask for is hard work, attitude and effort,” Boone said. Rebuilding the Quitman program won’t be easy given the division in which it plays, with teams like Newton County, West Lauderdale, Northeast Lauderdale and Northeast Jones having made it to at least the third round of the playoffs over the past three seasons. “In my opinion, it’s the toughest division in 4A,” Boone said. “I know some in the South will argue with that, but it’s a tough division that has quality baseball coaches up and down with quality programs. One of the things I told Quitman was that, if we want to compete with these programs, we need to model ourselves after them. I know the coaches, how they operate and the programs they run, and we have to try to model that and get in there and get it going.” Coaching in Region 5-4A will mean going up against Tullos and Newton County as one of its divisional foes. Boone said it would be a little weird facing his former team, but he’s already a little used to it after facing Newton County at Morton the past two seasons, and he has nothing but good memories about his time in Decatur. “We still talk all the time,” Boone said. “I may have to change up my signs a little bit. It’ll be interesting, but I have a lot of respect for Coach Tullos, Coach (Robert) Westbrook and all those guys. That’s where I broke into coaching, and I have a lot of good friends and relationships over there.”