Basketball.......Coach

The varsity basketball coach at Henryville at this time in 1992 was John Bradley.  He was a great guy who had coached at our arch rival Silver Creek when I was playing at Henryville.  He remembered me, appreciated the support I had given him as coach and as I was standing there watching the guys play, he stopped and asked me what I was up to.  When I told him, he offered me the freshman coaching job...I was overwhelmed and didn't think I could do it.  He told me to take 24 hours and think about it and get back to him. 

I went home, thought, and got back with him and accepted the job.  And I was a complete nut...thinking I was my high school coach.  I messed up a ton that year, but we were successful, I sat on the bench with the varsity and it motivated me to get back into college.  I would get my teaching license so I could continue to coach.  Coach Bradley had given me an opportunity and I figured out what direction to point my life.

It wasn't long after I started coaching basketball at HHS that I got back into college.  I had started college right out of high school and thought I was semi intelligent, I wasn't ready for the demands of actually studying.  I flunked a couple of classes and I can still remember the day I got my big paper in a political science class...it was an "F" meaning that a class I had tried to re-take, I had flunked again.  I told my friend, Brian Seale, "I am finished".  I was not going back.  It wasn't until I started coaching that I had the motivation to get back to college and get a degree because I wanted to coach and to do that, you had to have a teaching license.  Plus, I had worked some really bad jobs, jobs I couldn't see myself doing for the rest of my life.  United Parcel Service gave me a steady income, health insurance, and a great experience, but it also gave me a bad back and too much stress that I didn't want to stay there forever.

I went back to college, worked at the YMCA and other places that had children involved so that I could build a resume, but I coached.  I have talked about coaching baseball, but basketball is where I started to get driven to be successful.  I was the freshman coach at HHS for three years from 1992 to 1995 and won more games than I lost and helped with the varsity.

In 1995 while working at the YMCA, New Washington HS needed a varsity baseball coach, so I applied, interviewed and got it, but I had to leave my alma mater and coach the freshman team as well.  I was told that it was part of the job.  So, I went to NW for two years and learned from Jim Matthews.  Coach Matthews and his wife Sug were very good to me while there and I learned a ton about basketball.  The most important thing I learned was that this was the 4th varsity coach I had been around and the 3rd different way I had seen things done.  It was starting to reinforce that there wasn't just one way to coach basketball.

(That's me to the far right as an assistant to Jim Matthews at New Washington High School)

 After 1997, I had graduated from IU Southeast and was looking for a teaching job.  I couldn't find one, but Brad Bastian from Eastern Pekin called and said they had a special needs Asst./P.E. Assistant/permanent sub position at his school.  Brad is from NW and I had known him for awhile.  I took that job and the best part was that I now had health insurance.  I coached 6th grade basketball there and coached them not much differently than I coach the varsity today and I helped with the varsity and seeing how Tom Cullen did things there.



(1998-99 season when I was the J.V. coach at Borden H.S. assisting Dennis Holt.  Holt was the varsity coach when I was a freshman at Henryville)

After that year, I took a special needs position at Borden HS with Dennis Holt as the varsity coach. Coach Holt was the varsity boys coach at HHS when I was a freshman and the girls varsity coach was Terry Rademacher, my coach at HHS. Borden was going to have a social studies job open and that was my degree, so I hoped that I could go there and be the JV basketball coach and baseball coach and that they would hire me.  We didn't win many games in either sport that year, but they did offer me the teaching job towards the end of the school year.  The only problem to that was that a job had opened at Henryville and a couple of highly influential people from my childhood had contacted me about taking that job.  I wasn't going to take it unless a good baseball coach was hired at Borden when I left which happened in Eric Stotts.

(I coached this group in 8th grade and we went 17-2.  They would go on as seniors to win the first boys' basketball sectional in Henryville High School history.)

Once I knew that I wasn't leaving them without a baseball coach, I took the teaching job at Henryville.  I would be the 8th grade/freshman coach again under John Bradley, then when he resigned, I moved up to the JV job under Jack Brooks.  During those year, we had pretty good teams and sometimes we didn't with the groups I was coaching.  My first two JV teams won 27 games in 2 years out of 40, but my last JV team won 4 games.  We weren't very good.  During that summer, I helped with the varsity and then something happened slightly unexpected, Coach Brooks resigned.  We can go into why some place else, but the varsity job was open.  I asked Coach Brooks if he minded if I applied and he said he didn't that it was wide open.  I know many people won't believe this, but if he had said no not to apply, I wouldn't have.



(This is the group as seniors that I had coached in 8th grade after HHS 1st boys' basketball sectional title)

So, finally, I was going to get the job I had wanted since starting to coach under John Bradley all those years ago.  What is funny is that I had all the answers when I was an assistant, suddenly I had the weight of the whole program on my shoulders and wondering if I were doing the right thing.


(08-09 team that went 15-8 and won part of the SAC championship)

 My first year, we overachieved going 10-11 with a group of kids that were all shorter than me (I am 6'1").  The second year we went 12-11 and was sectional runner up to a very good Lanesville team.  My third year, we struggled, but tied for the conference championship.  My 4th year we went 15-8 and won the conference.  In 2010, we probably overachieved with a winning record and sectional runner up.  Last year we went 5-16 and probably learned more about life that year than at any other time.

In coaching basketball, I have learned a lot, mostly from the kids.  But, I have learned from every coach I have been around, some as assistants and others from observing and talking with them.  I have learned some things that I want to do and also learned many things I would never do.  That learning has taken place both on and off the court.  It has dealt with both basketball and life.

Basketball has been very good to me.  It made me known enough to be offered coaching positions at two different schools; it made me aware of what I wanted to do with my life (teaching); it gave me something that I shared with my wife as she had played before too; it has given me the opportunity to meet many good people; it has allowed me to travel all over the state, country and parts of Europe; and it is now giving my children a place in the world with their gaining love of basketball or at least the periphery of basketball.  I could never give back enough to the great game that has given me so much.

(Working the Junior Camp in Lake Ohrid, Macedonia)



(Italian Luigi Gresta, Spaniard Israel Martin, Serbian Goran Miljevic, Maceodonian Borce Ilievski and me at the Tindastoll Camp in Saudrakrokur, Iceland)



(Tane Spasev of Macedonia, Simas Suzinskas of Lithuania and me at the Aleksandar Nikolic camp in Zlatibor, Serbia)