A coach’s belief brings wins to the court, the community, and the Kingdom.
“You don’t go to Riverside if you want to win.”
This was a common belief among many residents of Kanawha County, West Virginia, when it came to high school sports. Jacob Billanti knew all too well of the school’s reputation when he applied for the head basketball coach position. After all, he’d played on the team when he was a student, and the results bore the popular sentiment out.
Located in the south-central part of the state, the small coal-mining area hasn’t always struggled when it comes to athletics. In the mid-1950s, the legendary Jerry West got his start only a few miles away from where Riverside stands today. Four decades later, future superstars like the NFL’s Randy Moss and the NBA’s Jason Williams also excelled in high school sports here. They both attended DuPont High, one of several schools that were consolidated into what is now Riverside.
But that was over 30 years ago, and many locals had given up hope of ever winning again.
“I grew up always hearing about how great those glory days were in our community,” Jacob said. These stories inspired the then 29-year-old hometown man, and gave him a burden for the area. A burden which God used to birth a vision.
“I just knew I was meant to be the basketball coach at Riverside one day, because God had placed that desire on my heart. I saw the plan and knew what would come from it before it ever took off.”
The plan wasn’t just to run the Warriors’ basketball program, though. As a Young Life volunteer leader, Jacob had a love for kids, and longed for them to know the Lord the way he did. He would be their coach, but he would also be their friend. He was excited to mentor them and point them to the very Lord who had placed this vision on his heart.
Hang Time
Jacob’s wife, Chelsey, also a Young Life leader and Riverside grad, said, “Jacob has always been a ‘vision guy,’ and many things he’s said sound outlandishly crazy! Before he even interviewed for the basketball job, before the position ever opened up, Jacob shared with me this vision of how he knew Christ was going to do something in our valley that would make the community proud.
“He didn’t know exactly what that was going to look like, but he knew it was going to happen. I’m not as forward thinking as Jacob. I’m in the here and now, so I would call him crazy sometimes. But the job finally came open and he kept saying, ‘Something great is going to happen. Something great is going to happen.’”
As with any bold undertaking, however, the results didn’t happen overnight. Jacob’s first two seasons at the helm didn’t fare much better than the previous ones. The losses still far outnumbered the wins. To the casual observer, nothing seemed to be changing.
And yet, as is often his way, the Lord was doing a slow, steady work behind the scenes.
Jacob wasn’t just coaching the players, he was also hanging out with them, and with so many other kids outside the team. He’d been a volunteer leader for a few years, and patiently forging these relationships over time earned him the trust with kids to invite them to Young Life club, and even summer camp.
Sam Scott, the Young Life area director of Kanawha Valley, recalled Jacob’s first experience with camp at Lake Champion, in New York. “I remember Jacob saying that week, ‘Man, why would you want to do anything else? Why would you want to be anywhere else than here with these kids?’”
This wasn’t just talk. “On some of these kids’ camp forms,” Sam explained, “Jacob is listed as the parent/guardian. Some of these guys come from extremely broken home situations, and Jacob and Chelsey are there for them.
“Young Life is caring Christian adults investing in the lives of kids. And that’s Jacob and Chelsey to a T. They’re this really exciting couple doubling down in this community, where they work, raise their family, shop for groceries. People see them and know them. They’re the face of Young Life here, and we’re blessed to have them.”
As the Billantis continued to bring kids to weekend and summer camps, they could see change coming. The countless hours invested in kids back home began to show spiritual results. Chelsey said, “You could even say the team bonded at Young Life camp. I mean, three of Jacob’s starters went to camp in 2025.”
And speaking of those three — each young man began a relationship with the Lord on that trip, the summer before their senior year. The team was indeed changing right before their eyes.
Rebounding
That fall, as the school year began, Jacob sensed this third season would be different, so he raised the bar with his team.
“At the very first practice of the season,” Chelsey explained, “the boys walked into the locker room to find a photo of the Charleston Coliseum [the site where the state tournament would be held] on each of their lockers. From day one, they knew making the state tournament was the goal.”
To some it may have sounded absurd. The team had finished last in the region the previous season, and were seeded to be last again this year. Riverside going to state? With the same players again this year?
Yet, the players bought into the vision, because they’d already bought into the visionary. The coach and the players trusted each other deeply, and out of that trust was born a genuine love.
Like a fast break, the relationship between coach and players was now in full sprint, and the results began showing up in the box scores. The Warriors won three of their first five games, survived a rocky middle part of their schedule, and closed out the season with four straight wins.
The final game was a double overtime thriller that sent them, you guessed it, to the state tournament — the school’s first appearance since 2002. Jacob’s vision had been realized.
“It was beautiful. You know, we go to the state tournament, and in West Virginia, going to the tournament is basically winning the state championship, especially if you’re Riverside which hasn’t been in 24 years, and only ever had three winning records, with this year being one of them.”
Jacob’s efforts were recognized outside the Riverside community, too. He was named co-winner of the Coach of the Year Award in the Mountain State Athletic Conference.
Bigger than awards or records, though, was the shot in the arm this gave the Riverside community. Sam said, “What was special about this basketball season was it felt like such a culmination, an exclamation point on this awesome couple’s efforts to present Jesus in a community that’s been kind of forgotten and overlooked in a lot of ways. The success really put a spotlight on the faith component of it all, because Jacob was acknowledging his faith and the kids were talking about it, too.
Passing the Rock
Eight days after their regional victory, the Warriors arrived at Charleston Coliseum, and despite a valiant effort, lost to a team with twice as many players on their roster. But that’s not what Jacob, nor his players, will take away from that night.
In a local TV interview after the game, the players shared what “Coach B” means to them. One senior, Bryer, said, “Coach B. He’s not just our coach. He’s family and one of our friends. Anything we can say in our locker room, we can say around him, without him looking at us a different way. He brought faith into me. I’ve always had faith in God, but once I got here it became way stronger than what it was.”
In that same interview, a freshman also summed up his feelings for Coach B: “He teaches us about God every day. God is the only way. God is the true way.”
“That’s the inspiration. This freshman having the opportunity to say that is exactly why I believe God put this on my heart to do this. And it’s just the beginning, really. We’re looking to make our community proud, and then show the community that it’s happening from a God-fearing man with a team of young men who are also becoming God-fearing.
“And Young Life, actually, is what God used to make it possible.”
