Nice to meet you, Joel Hines, new Osbourn boys basketball coach. Youre a 2001 Potomac (Va.) High grad? So you must have played for Kendall Hayes at Potomac then.

No, I didnt, actually.

(Courtesy Old Dominion/ODU Athletics) - Former Old Dominion director of basketball operations Joel Hines is the new boys' basketball coach at Osbourn.

But he was the coach when you were there.

I didnt play at Potomac. I just went there.

Oh.

Hines, 28, takes part in some version of that exchange on a regular basis. He never played a high school sport, let alone basketball, yet last month he took over an Osbourn program his second head coaching job that reached the past two Virginia AAA tournaments.

Hines is not the first coach to go from the bleachers to the bench, but it is a seldom-taken route, one that in his experience seems to demand an explanation. Because inevitably, the conversation will veer to his hoops background, or lack of.

Theres that assumption that at least you played high school basketball, Hines said with a laugh one recent afternoon over lunch at a sandwich shop near his home.

Hiness at times awkward position raises a question: Why should playing a high school sport be an assumed prerequisite for coaching a high school sport?

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Joel Hines takes an unconventional path to an Osbourn coaching job