Jeremy Williams has seen a lot from his seat on the bench. Now he gets a look from a different seat.

Call it the hot seat.

After seven seasons as an assistant coach, Williams will now take over as the head boys’ basketball coach at St. Joseph High School.

“I think I’ve coached under some pretty good coaches so far and I’ve learned a lot from each of them,” said Williams. “It’ll be more responsibility and more pressure. I definitely feel I’m ready.”

Williams was an assistant coach for two seasons under then-Ironton coach Chris Barnes before shifting over to be an assistant for three seasons under then-Ironton coach Amy Hughes.

His stint with the girls included the Lady Fighting Tigers postseason run to the state tournament.

He has served as an assistant coach at St. Joseph under Kevin Sheridan the past two seasons.

Having coached at Ironton and now at St. Joseph, Williams will be operating with a much smaller student population. The Flyers had just 24 boys in the high school last year.

“I understand the difference numbers-wise,” said Williams. “But our kids realize that and we have kids who are willing to play.

“At Ironton, our girls’ jayvees had six or seven kids and I had to learn to rotate them, so I’m used to it.”

The Flyers were 11-11 last season and lose five seniors including two-time All-Ohio guard and leading scorer Chad Harvey as well as leading rebounder Caleb Blackburn. Also gone are Pat Gagai, Joey Basedow and George McCown.

Williams knows he’s facing a rebuilding job. He plans to use the same type base offense and defense.

“Obviously don’t have ton of size, but we run the floor well. Defensively we like to get up and pressure the ball. Kevin and I have similar philosophies,” said Williams.

“We lost a lot of our scoring and rebounding and Joey (Basedow) was our defensive stopper, so someone has to step up into that role, but we have a lot of kids out there working.”