Sports Lechlitner still loves to coach

Phil Lechlitner loves the game of basketball.

Lechlitner graduated from NorthWood High School in 1972. He is currently an assistant coach for the Class 3A No.1 NorthWood Panthers. His son, Zac, is the junior varsity head coach at NorthWood.

Lechlitner grew up on a farm. He had an older brother who played college basketball at Anderson. After his high school basketball career was over, Lechlitner walked on for a year at Ball State. After college, he coached at Greensburg and Fairfield and was the freshman coach at NorthWood. In 1983, he took over as the varsity head coach at NorthWood.

“Dick Campbell, who played for John Wooden at Indiana State, was an influence. At NorthWood, we really had some great kids. I coached against Jim Hahn at Concord. When I was relieved from coaching in 1989, he asked me to come coach at Concord,” said Lechlitner.

Lechlitner spoke fondly about his time at Concord.

“In 1990, we played against Bedford North Lawrence and Damon Bailey in the state cham- pionship game. At semistate, it was so loud, you had a hard time even hearing the kids in the huddle,” he said.

The 1990 state championship game was held in the old Hoosier Dome and was the largest crowd ever for a high school basketball game with 41,046 fans. “You could often hear a huge roar coming from the distance. I’m probably one of the few people who think Bailey shouldn’t have won a state championship,” he said, laughing.

Lechlitner reminisced in amazement about the atmosphere at that game.

“I’ve shared with our kids now what that’s like. You’ll never have another feeling like it. Indiana single-class basketball was so tough back then.”

Lechlitner still keeps in touch with Jeff Massey, who played on that state runner-up Concord team and is currently the associate head coach at The University of Toledo.

“Hahn left coaching in 1995. I was enjoying teaching shop and thought I had a good run. NorthWood girls basketball coach Steve Neff asked if I wanted to help with the girls program. Aaron Wolfe also helped with the girls program at that time. The next year [1999] our girls won state,” he said.

After helping coach the girls team, Lechlitner became an assistant coach on the NorthWood boys team under coach Dan Gunn.

“We had great kids. We were able to have some good success. My son was coming up at that time. I stuck around until 2006. Coach Gunn wanted me to stick around at least one more year and we went to semistate in 2007.

“I was on my way to spring break and I get a call. Wolfe asked if I would help him out if he got the NorthWood job. He came over and was standing at my garage door and asked if I would stick around for just one year. So we’ve had one-year contracts since 2009,” he said, laughing.

He spoke about the blessing of being a coach. “It’s the kids who always draw you back. The magic is in the players. The magic is also in the community. All of those things make it what it is.”

Speaking about some of the coaches he’s had the pleasure of working with over the years, he said, “I was also blessed in that —they always say in teaching, it’s the company that keeps you there. It’s the same in coaching.

“Wolfe’s communication and organization is second to none. Hahn was charismatic. Hahn was a guy who could talk to a kid and that kid would go through a wall to accomplish it.

“When I coached with Gunn, we were aggressive, physical and he was really demanding.

“Larry Thompson [former mayor of Nappanee] and I played for Dick Campbell. We had these gloves we would use in practice for ball handling. Those were some great memories we had through the years. Campbell was a fundamental guy and very detail oriented. I’ve been very fortunate with the coaches I’ve been around. They’ve all probably been better people than coaches.

“After we [NorthWood] played Ben Davis this year, we were doing a great job against them. They beat us by shooting threes and holding the ball. It was really nice hearing all the compliments from their coaching staff after the game as well. It really helped give our kids even more confidence. I’m still on a oneyear contract,” said Lechlitner, laughing.

It was 50 years ago —