GALLIPOLIS — After 40 years as head boys basketball coach at Gallia Academy High School, Jim Osborne is moving on. Moving on to the new Gallia Academy High School gymnasium that will officially open this upcoming fall.

After speculation that Osborne might be asked to step down or be relieved of his duties Thursday night at a special session of the Gallipolis City Board of Education, the Board unanimously voted to offer Osborne a supplemental contract to coach his 41st season of boys basketball at GAHS next winter during the inaugural campaign at the new high school.

Osborne — who took over the Blue Devils’ program in the winter of 1969 — has amassed a 524-345 record over that 40-year span, a stretch that includes eight different U.S. Presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. Osborne has also won 11 SEOAL titles with a 309-185 mark during that timeline and finished second in league play nine times.

Under Osborne, GAHS has won 14 sectionals, two district tournament crowns, and appeared in the regionals twice. The Blue Devils have been district runner-up four times and a district semifinalist 21 times. Osborne has been named SEOAL and district basketball coach of the year 12 times.

Besides coaching basketball, Osborne has spent 22 years as a tennis coach (with three SEOAL crowns), 11 years as a baseball coach, recording more than 100 wins with a district runner-up effort in 1971, and coached a Blue Devil golf match in the state golf tournament in the early 2000s. He was an assistant coach of the track and field team when GAHS won the 1970 SEOAL title.

Known around southern Ohio as “Coach Oz” or “The Wizard,” Osborne has coached in the Ohio North-South All-Star game, Ohio-Kentucky and Ohio-West Virginia All-Star games.

Osborne has served as president of the District 13 Basketball Coaches Association, which started with 13 members and now has more than 300 in a district that has the smallest number of schools in the state. Osborne is also a charter member of the GAHS Athletic Hall of Fame committee. Both committees are active in generating scholarship money for worthy student athletes.

Osborne also won the 2009 Paul Walker Award, which is presented annually by the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association to an active member of the association in honor of the late Paul Walker, longtime coach of Middletown.

The recipient must be an active coach, have been a varsity coach five years in the state of Ohio, have been in high school coaching for a total of 15 years in Ohio, be a current member of the OHSBCA, have been active in both the local and state level of the OHSBCA, and be considered based on a career coaching performance.

A two-sport MVP (basketball and baseball) and an athletic hall of fame member of Geneva High School and Wittenberg University, he led his American Legion team (Ashtabula Rubber) to a state championship as a pitcher and Wittenberg to a Division II regional title.

Around 40 people appeared at the special meeting to voice their support for Osborne, from former players to fellow teachers. Osborne’s renewal is a one-year deal.