BOYS BB: Winamac hires veteran coach Mike Springer to guide program

Jun. 14—Mike Springer feels rejuvenated and has found a new basketball home at Winamac.

The veteran coach was hired as the new basketball coach at Winamac last month. He takes over for Cameron Bennington, who took the job at Western.

Springer comes over from Eastern, where he coached the boys program for nine seasons before he took a year off this past year to take a little break.

"I got out of it a year ago and I missed it, so I said I want to get back in it," he said. "Winamac was a good place to start and I plan on finishing everything here at Winamac. But we'll see how that all goes because who knows with coaching, sometimes it gets a little crazy."

Springer, 63, will teach health and physical education at Winamac Community High School.

"I'm moving from Kokomo to Winamac at some point," he said. "My house is up for sale and I need to find something in Winamac."

He added he has no plans on retiring from coaching anytime soon.

"I don't really have any hobbies. Basketball has been my lifelong hobby," he said. "I've been coaching now this will be my 40th season when we start up in the fall. I'm looking forward to it, that's what I know, that's what I've always done is continue trying to help kids become better basketball players and better people."

Springer inherits a Winamac team that was a young team this past season that started 0-8 before going 9-8 over the final 17 games to finish 9-16.

The Warriors will return three players who were All-Loganland selections a year ago, including first teamer John Malchow (14 ppg), who will be a senior, and third teamers Jayse Bentle (8.5 ppg), who will be a senior, and Brendan Hines (9.4 ppg), who will be a junior.

"The boys seem to be very interested in basketball and there's a good group of kids returning," Springer said. "We will spread the floor a lot, use dribble-drive attacking the basket, look to get 3s but we'd love to get layups. That's something that we tried to do at Eastern is spread the floor because we weren't very big and just move the ball side to side. I'm not into taking time off the clock or anything like that, but we just want to spread the defense out, use our strength of being able to put the ball on the floor, find the open man. It worked well for us and I think it's something that kids enjoy playing because it kind gives them a little bit more freedom. I think it gives the kids freedom and they enjoy doing that."

Springer is the son of Hall of Fame coach Bill Springer. Mike Springer has had a long coaching career himself which included a stop at Logansport in the 1990s.

He was hired as an assistant coach for Dave Springer, no relation, in his first year at the helm in 1995-96 and helped coach Caleb Springer his final two years of high school. Mike Springer later coached another Indiana All-Star from Logansport, Kristen Lowry, when he was the Lady Berries head coach for two years.

"It was a lot of fun," Springer said. "Caleb could put the ball in the basket. We had some good memories there in the Berry Bowl. A lot of good kids came through there, kids who really liked to play basketball. It was a really good experience. I was able to coach the girls there for two years as well and I just enjoyed that. I'm familiar with the area. It's a good place to be coaching basketball at."

After his time at Logansport, Springer coached with the women's program at Marian University for three years.

"I ended up at Eastern, the assistant principal was a guy by the name of Keith Richie who followed Dave Springer at Logansport. So he and I worked together, so I got hired on as the girls basketball coach at Eastern and I did that for five years," Springer said. "After that I got out of it and I stayed teaching but I helped the Indiana Wesleyan women. They won a national championship in 2012, we won that. Then that spring I got the boys job at Eastern and put in nine good years there. We were able to win us a sectional championship for the first time in over 60 years and a couple of years later we were able to win us a conference championship for the first time in 50 years, so we were trying to get the program going and we were able to do that.

"It's been a great experience to coach young kids. Basketball has been something that's been really good to me and I've been able to give back to the kids not just in basketball but the things I've learned in life through many ups and downs, just trying to help them navigate through their teenage years. If I can help them in any way that's part of why I do what I do."

Springer added he was looking north to get a new job and applied for the Winamac job.

"So when I was looking I said I was going to look in the northwestern corner of the state and it's worked out and I found a good job where the kids are excited about basketball and the administration is very supportive and hopefully we'll get us some good things going," he said.