JOHNSTON CITY - Southern Illinois Miners sales and marketing director Brad Grenoble was named the new boys basketball coach in a unanimous decision by the Johnston City school board Monday.

Grenoble will take over for Mike Stallings, who led the Indians to one victory in 2007-08.

"My first plan is to meet with all the kids," Grenoble. "The bottom line is to meet with them and try to get them to come out for basketball."

It's a virtual clean slate for Grenoble, who has coached softball and football at the high school level and basketball at the junior high level. One of his first priorities is to pick a staff.

"I'm looking around for assistants," Grenoble said. "(Johnston City) wants to turn the whole program around with a clean slate from varsity on down.

"Any coach would love to walk into this situation right now where they can build a program from scratch and it's an exciting task."

Grenoble, who will retain his position with the Miners in the offseason, is also hoping to sell athletes on his fresh perspective.

"I'm a different individual," Grenoble said. "I don't believe you have to be 6-foot-5 and really fast to play basketball. They can only go up from where they were last year."

Grenoble is also running out of time this summer, with few contact days left before the Aug. 3 deadline.

"Football camps start next week and I don't want to interfere with that," Grenoble said.