When Selma High School takes the court for its first home basketball game of the year, Ronald Lane expects the memories to start flooding back.

Lane, the school’s new boys basketball coach, graduated from Selma High in 1983. He also served as a volunteer coach in 1994 when the Saints won the state championship and has a long history with the school.

Now, he’ll be leading the Saints’ team.

“That first home game is probably going to be pretty special. I know my mom never saw me play because she wasn’t here, she was in New York and she’ll be here. My grandmother is 93 years old, moved to Birmingham and will probably be here,” Lane said. “Guys I played with, guys from out of town said they’re coming.”

Lane can go up and down the trophy case at Selma High, naming all-time greats from the school and talking about memorable teams. He played a part in many of them.

During his senior season at Selma, the Saints were undefeated at home and had a chance to compete for the state title.

Lane had several scholarship offers, but they were states away and he was wary about going way off.

Instead, he went into the Air Force and spent eight years as an air traffic controller before returning to Selma.

“I just wanted to reach back… and wanted to come back after being in the service, traveling and playing ball, I had that inkling to come back and try to help some young folks,” Lane said.

Lane coached a year at Central Christian Academy, which is known at Ellwood Christian Academy now, and won a district championship in his only year there. He returned to government work for a few years after that, but also went back to school to earn his master’s degree.

Lane accepted the men’s head coaching position at Wallace Community College Selma in 2008. After several years coaching at Wallace, Lane moved on to R.B. Hudson Middle School and served as the head coach of the boys’ team there.

Now, he’s back in familiar territory — teaching business and coaching basketball at Selma High.

“I’m humbled and want to work hard to get us back to where we used to be,” Lane said.

He said he remembers when every seat in the gym was taken, regardless who the opponent was that night. His first goal is to get Saints’ fans excited about the team again.

“My job is to get it turned around,” Lane said. “Once we start winning the ballgames, the crowd is going to come anyways. After that happens, I think that Saint pride will start permeating throughout the building and then start permeating throughout the community.”

Lane said he wants to push the basketball and play an up-tempo style of game. He said that’s the style of basketball most people want to watch and that his players want to play in. He played for two disciplinarians in coaches Willie Maxey and A.A. Sewell, so he’s bringing that attitude toward the team this year. As of Monday, the team still hadn’t earned its practice jerseys.

“You wash away what you used to do and adjust to what you’ve got to do now,” Lane said.

Lane is married to his wife Janice and he has three kids. Curtis is a student at R.B. Hudson, Charlea is a freshman at Alabama A&M, and Hadiyyah is a sophomore at Wallace.

Lane will coach his first game when Selma opens its season at Keith on Nov. 11. The Saints will host Francis Marion Nov. 15 in their first home game of the year.