After a five-month wait, Warren Central has a new boys basketball coach.

The Vicksburg Warren Board of Trustees gave unanimous consent at its July meeting Thursday evening to hire Brandon High School assistant coach Chareck Cable.

The hiring ends a long search to replace Jesse Johnson, who was fired following a 9-17 season at Warren Central. Two prominent coaches, Thomas Billups of Lanier and Robert Byrd of New Hope, were initially offered the position and then backed out at the last minute.

Cable was not in the Warren Central search committee’s top three, but was among the top seven who interviewed.

He had a long wait until being hired, but didn’t mind after being introduced Thursday evening.

“I’m thankful for the Vicksburg Warren School District for giving me this great opportunity,” Cable said. “The search has been resolved and now it’s about coaching basketball.”

Vicksburg Warren superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Duran Swinford was relieved to fill the position with Cable, who’s been an assistant for five years under Fredrick Barnes.

“I think we’ve been rewarded by getting an excellent individual who has shown a great deal of professionalism when in comes to coaching basketball,” Swinford said at the conclusion of the Board of Trustees meeting.

“He might not have a state championship on his record, but we feel he has sufficient experience and he can lead an emerging program like Warren Central. We also feel he has an excellent mentor in Coach Dellie C. Robinson and we hope he can build the same kind of camaraderie that Vicksburg has to the other side at Warren Central.”

Cable is engaged to Robinson’s daughter, Dedra, a teacher at Vicksburg High School. Robinson has been the Vicksburg High basketball coach for 19 years and last March took the Gators to the Class 6A boys state championship game. Robinson said he was elated his future son-in-law will get to be a head coach at the 6A level.

“It’s a great opportunity for him,” Robinson said. “I know it was a tough decision, given we will find ourselves on opposite sides. He’s had a lot of success coaching at Brandon and he played for coach Richard Duesse at Madison Ridgeland Academy, so he’s gotten to work with some great basketball minds.”

Besides Cable’s hiring, the Board of Trustees also approved the hiring of a new volleyball coach for Vicksburg High. Charity Gomez was named to build the new program at VHS.

“She’s had experience building volleyball teams from scratch and that’s what we need,” Swinford said.