Northwestern State hires Rick Cabrera as new head coach

Northwestern State has a new head men’s basketball coach nearly one year to the day that they hired their last one. Tallahassee CC’s Rick Cabrera has been hired as the Demons’ head coach, the school announced on Wednesday.

“We are thrilled to bring Rick Cabrera to Northwestern State,” AD Kevin Bostian said in a statement. “After an exhaustive search, we settled on a quality group of finalists from a talented pool of applicants. Rick has a proven track record of producing winning programs on and off the court and two separate junior college programs and comes here with more than a decade of experience at similar Division I institutions. He has shown a knack for both recruiting and developing players in basketball and in life. His resume is lined with successful stop after successful stop, and his time in Natchitoches should be no different.”

While this will be Cabrera’s first D-I head coaching job, he has been the head coach of two different JUCO programs and has spent time as a D-I assistant coach. He had stints at Arkansas State (2019-21), Austin Peay (2017-19), Tennessee Tech (2012-17) and Chattanooga (2008-12) before taking the Tallahassee CC job two years ago.

“This is a dream job,” Cabrera said. “When you get an opportunity to be a Division I head coach, that is a dream job. You can’t pass that up. I’m forever blessed that the committee, Dr. Jones and Kevin Bostian believed in me and my vision to bring championships to Northwestern State University.”

Northwestern State was coached this past season by Corey Gipson, who led the Demons to 22 wins (13 more than the year before his arrival). He left earlier this month to take the head coaching job at his alma mater, Austin Peay.

credit to Northwestern State Athletics for the image