New Howard University coaches have local ties

A new coaching staff with a strong Prince George's County connection will try to reverse the fortunes of the downtrodden Howard University men's basketball program. The Washington, D.C., school, part of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, last month hired Kevin Nickelberry as its head coach. Last week, Nickelberry named former Laurel High School coach Keith Coutreyer and former DeMatha High star Travis Lyons to his coaching staff.

Coutreyer will be Howard's associate head coach after spending the past two seasons as an assistant at Hampton University. Prior to that, he spent 13 years at Laurel — five as an assistant and eight as the Spartans' head coach. He guided Laurel to the Class 4A state semifinals in 2008 before taking the job at Hampton that summer. "It's real exciting to have an opportunity to be back in the area you now, where you have your roots in terms of basketball," Coutreyer said. "You have ties in the basketball community that you've developed over time, and hopefully those ties can help get guys to come to Howard."

Coutreyer and Nickelberry have known one another for 20 years, going back to the early 1990s when Nickelberry was the head women's coach and assistant men's coach at Columbia Union College (now Washington Adventist University) in Takoma Park, while Coutreyer was playing there. Lyons, who grew up in Hyattsville, was one of the area's top players during his high school career. As a senior in 1993-94, the 6-foot-4 forward averaged 16 points, 8.7 rebounds and four assists per game. He went on to play at Manhattan College, where he had an experience his freshman year that has influenced his coaching career. He's spent the past 10 years as an assistant coach at Manhattan and Fordham University.

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