It doesn’t take AP Calculus to understand Cullman High’s surprising coaching switch Tuesday night.

It does help, however, that Josh Hembree teaches it.

After nearly two decades away in Georgia, Hembree is heading back to Cullman County as the Lady Bearcats’ varsity basketball leader. The 1999 Vinemont grad’s hire was approved at Tuesday’s city schools board meeting, where he was joined by his wife, Amber, and daughters, Alli Grace, 9, and Annaka, 6.

“The more that we continued to pray about it, I feel like the Lord just opened the door for us to be there,” said Hembree, who’s leaving his post at Darlington (Ga.) after nine seasons. “It was one of those things where Dr. (Elton) Bouldin had told me they may have an AP Calculus job open this coming year. That’s what I teach. That’s what I really love.

“I’m just very excited about the opportunity to be back home, to be close to family. But also to be at Cullman High School, that just has a very rich history of excellence in academics and athletics.”

Hembree is the Lady Bearcats’ third head coach in as many years. Jessica Posey took over for Jonathan Hayes last winter after four seasons as an assistant and guided Cullman to four wins in a down year following the loss of Baylee Johnson, who’s since taken her sharpshooting talents to UAH.

But the Black and Gold chose to go a different direction as they seek a quick bounceback. It’s only been a season since the program annually reached, surpassed or flirted with 20 wins and was a regional tourney fixture for a four-year stretch.

It won’t be Hembree’s first rebuilding project.

He turned a 1-22 Darlington program into a 13-13 team his first season on campus and never missed a state tournament the remainder of his tenure. Five of those eight appearances were ended by Georgia powerhouse Wesleyan, which, as winners of 11 state titles in the last 13 years, Hembree compared to Lauderdale County.

The state tourney in Georgia is open to the last 32 teams in each classification, the same as Alabama’s sub-regional stage.

Hembree will transition from the smallest school in Georgia’s Class AA — he said Darlington, a private school, has about 470 students — to a Class 6A Cullman with nearly 700 students enrolled according to the AHSAA’s most recent reclassification numbers.

The Bearcats’ new basketball area for 2016-18 includes Albertville, Brewer and Fort Payne, a welcome change after two seasons spent with Austin, Decatur and Hartselle.

“To come and compete at a 6A level and have that opportunity is something I’m really looking forward to,” he said. “I know it will be a challenge, but I also know it’s something I want. It’s something that I desire.”

Hembree closed his high school career as a Class 3A Player of the Year finalist, an All-State first-teamer, Vinemont’s valedictorian and the recipient of the county’s Joe Shults Award. He cashed in those accolades for a four-year scholarship at Berry College in Rome, Georgia, where he worked as an assistant before fulfilling the same role at nearby Model High.

In between, Hembree married his high school sweetheart, Amber, who’s also from Vinemont. She’s been a counselor for about three years and is hoping to eventually secure a similar position in Cullman.

“We kind of stepped out on faith. We feel like the Lord’s going to provide something for her,” Hembree said. “It’s obviously been a bittersweet thing. We are very thrilled and excited about coming home, but we’ve developed some incredible relationships here in Rome.”

Hembree also has one he’s already fostered at Cullman High. Before stepping into his current role with the Bearcats’ boys, Bobby Meyer was an assistant at Vinemont during Hembree’s playing days and head coached Hembree’s younger brothers, Jared and Jay. He also opened up Cullman’s gym this past fall for a youth basketball camp benefiting his diabetic nephew, Lucas.

Hembree’s Darlington squad made a quick stop in Holly Pond last season as part of a quick Alabama road trip. The Tigers defeated Scott Adams — Hembree’s middle school coach and biggest coaching influence — and the Lady Broncos 53-47 in an electric environment.

With that experience and many others as a Vinemont alum, Hembree admitted it’s “kind of weird” to be a county product switching over to city life.

Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of the job swap.

“I know the stereotypes when I was there about city school versus county school,” Hembree said. “It is what it is. You can’t really change peoples’ minds on that. All I can do is take the hand that I’ve been dealt and do the best I can with those young ladies.”

Hembree will finish out the school year at Darlington and head west to Cullman the second week of June after acting as a reader for the AP Calculus exam. Once back home, he plans to evaluate the Lady Bearcats’ roster situation and start laying the blueprints for a bright future.

“They’ve got some athleticism and some talent,” he said. “Hopefully we can build on that and take their talents and use them to the best of their ability and get them back to those years. I was looking on MaxPreps and saw where it was just three or four years ago they were winning 25, 26 games every year. That’s my goal, to get them back to that level of excellence.”