PICKENS — The Pickens High School athletic department announced recently that Austin Reid has been hired as the head varsity coach of the Blue Flame basketball program.

Reid is a native of Easley and graduated from Easley High School. He is a 2013 graduate of Clemson University, where he earned his B.A. in history. While at Clemson, Reid was the head manager for coach Brad Brownell’s Tigers for four years and worked directly with all facets of the men’s basketball program at Clemson. For the past three years, he has been the assistant varsity boys’ basketball coach at Berea High School under head coach Jeff Maness.

“Austin is a great young coach with a tremendous upside,” Maness said. “His passion for basketball contributed to the success of Berea High School program for the last three years. His work ethic is unparalleled, and he will do a great job at Pickens High School.”

Reid is also the head coach for the Upward Stars Southeast AAU organization.

“Coach Reid’s desire is to be a head coach,” former PHS athletic director and head boys’ basketball coach Steve Corn said. “In his career, he has done everything needed to prepare himself for this responsibility: working camps, serving as manager under Coach Brownell, coaching summer leagues and being a gym rat. He will do an outstanding job and will work well with the entire athletic department at PHS to make basketball and other athletics as successful as possible.”

“We are very excited about the hiring of Austin Reid as our men’s basketball coach,” current Pickens athletic director Stan Butler said. “Coach Reid brings a wealth of knowledge to our program from his combined experiences at the collegiate and high school levels. I feel that Coach Reid will be a perfect fit at PHS because of his passion for basketball and his stellar work ethic.”