St. Clair County CC hires Dion Cox to lead women's basketball

St. Clair County Community College turned back to a familiar name in naming Dion Cox its new head women’s basketball coach, leaning on a coach whose connection to the program stretches back nearly 25 years. Cox, a Detroit native and now 44, returns to SC4 after serving as an assistant with the men’s basketball program and replaces Mike Groulx, who recently stepped down.

That history is the point of the hire. SC4 described Cox as someone with deep roots in the Skippers basketball tradition, and the timing suggests the college wanted more than a new voice. In NJCAA women’s basketball, where rosters can change quickly and recruiting windows move fast, a coach who already knows the campus, the athletic department and the local basketball landscape can start building immediately instead of spending months learning the terrain.

Cox’s path back to Port Huron runs through the same court where his relationship with the college began. WGRT reported that he first stepped onto the St. Clair County Community College floor as a recruit nearly 25 years ago, a detail that gives the hire extra weight inside a program looking for continuity. The Times Herald noted that Cox brings 15 years of coaching experience, another piece of the profile SC4 appears to have prioritized as it reshapes the women’s side of the program.

The appointment has also been formalized on SC4’s athletics site, where Cox is listed as head coach on the women’s basketball staff page with a college email address and phone number. His name also appears on the women’s basketball top-stories page, signaling that the school is treating the move as part of the program’s current identity, not just a personnel update.

For SC4, the appeal is straightforward: Cox already knows the expectations around Skippers basketball, and he arrives with a built-in sense of what the job demands in St. Clair County. That can matter in recruiting, where relationships in Detroit, Port Huron and surrounding Michigan basketball circles often decide which players come to campus and how quickly a roster takes shape. It can also matter in the locker room, where a coach with program history can set standards fast and give the women’s team a clear identity from day one.