Mark McFarland takes over Perry Meridian basketball with goal of keeping players home
Mark McFarland played for Mark James, coached under him the past three seasons and has known him for more than three decades.
“He’s like a second father to me,” McFarland said.
After James stepped down as Perry Meridian boys basketball coach last month, the school officially turned to McFarland, 38, as its next coach Monday night as his hiring was approved by the school board.
McFarland, a 2002 Franklin Central graduate, coached the past three seasons with James at Perry Meridian after a year as an assistant at Warren Central. He has previous head coaching stops at Mississinewa (2011-14), Rensselaer Central (2014-17) and Madison (2017-19), compiling an 88-96 overall record but improving all three teams during his time there.
“Coach James has been a huge influence on me and it was a goal of mine to get back to Marion County, which is the hotbed of high school basketball across the country into the suburbs and around the 465 loop,” he said. “With the NBA players that come from here, it’s always been the best basketball in the state.”
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Taking over at Perry Meridian will be a challenge. The Falcons were 4-18 this season under James and posted just one winning season in his five years (12-9 in 2020-21). Perry Meridian will graduate almost its entire team going into next year, which will certainly be a rebuilding job.
“I think for me success is being able to get these guys to believe in themselves and play with confidence,” McFarland said. “We want them to be good basketball players and continue to improve but we also want them to be really good adults.”
One major issue McFarland sees as a building block to success is to keep Perry Meridian players in the district. He already has a head start there as he played a key role under James in the youth program.
“The biggest problem we ran into was kids leaving,” McFarland said. “So now we’ve developed good relationships with the kids in the youth program. We have to lock down this Perry Meridian district and not let them be influenced to leave. I’ve spent a lot of time with the current seventh and eighth graders and those kids know me really well. We’ve developed really positive relationships there.”
McFarland thanked superintendent Pat Mapes, principal Kert Boedicker and athletic director Emily Steinmetz for believing in him and allowing him the opportunity.
“I’m really thankful to our administration,” he said. “They were loyal through the whole thing. I can’t thank them enough for the job they’ve done to help take care of me and believe in me.”
McFarland, who also coached on staffs at New Castle and Pike as an assistant, will likely play a little faster tempo than the Falcons did under James. But the blueprint of building a program is largely based on what he learned from his former coach.
“Coaching with him again the last three years, I picked up a lot of stuff,” McFarland said. “As his right-hand man, I learned a lot about scouting reports, offensive and defensive game plans, watching film and watching his game plans and seeing his practice schedules. I can’t even say how much I learned from him.”
Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IHSAA basketball: Perry Meridian hires Mark McFarland as boys coach
