Sam Weaver

Sam Weaver, who has coached for more than 40 years at the college and high school level, will be the next head boys basketball coach at Longview High School.

Weaver will take over the position vacated by Don Newton, who this past week was hired as athletic director at Whitehouse High School.

Weaver, who has been at Arkansas High since 2016, also coached at the high school level in Clarksville, Arkansas, and Kennett, Missouri.

His first coaching job was as an assistant at Southeast Missouri State, followed by assistant jobs at Drake University, Missouri Southern and SIU-Carbondale before landing the head coaching job at Alcorn State University from 1993-96.

He was also head assistant coach at Northern Iowa, assistant coach at Mississippi State and head coach at Henderson State and Philander Smith.

He was named the Texarkana Gazette’s All-Area Coach of the Year in 2017 after inheriting a program that had finished 9-15 the previous season and turning things around to the tune of a 23-8 record.

A native of McNeil, Arkansas, Weaver played at Three Rivers Community College and helped lead the 1979-79 Raiders to the national championship with a 37-3 record. He scored career-high 34 points in a double-overtime win in the national semifinals, and was named the MVP of the 1979 NJCAA Tournament.

He played two seasons at Henderson State, helping lead the team to the 1981 AIC Championship and an NAIA District 17 title.

Newton spent five seasons at Longview, and the Lobos were 102-54 during his time on the bench – including a 15-14 record this past season.