Eagle coaching job homecoming for Dean

South Putnam found the future of its boys' basketball program by looking to the past.

On Monday, the school board approved the hiring of Greg Dean as the new Eagle coach.

A 1999 South Putnam graduate, Dean has spent the last four years as the head coach at West Washington High School.

The coach said he is looking forward to the homecoming.

"I'm really excited about it. It's an opportunity to get closer to my family," Dean said, noting that other members of his family will also be moving closer to Putnam County in the near future.

"I'm certainly glad that my parents and my family don't have to travel so far to come to my games," he added. "I'm glad to be back home, where I grew up."

Greg's parents Max and Paula have spent the last decade or so crisscrossing the state to watch their son coach.

"I definitely think they're excited about it and they're happy about it," Dean said. "They're going to support the whole situation."

His head coaching stops have included West Washington, See-ger and Wes-Del, where he won a sectional in his first year as a head coach. He has an 89-87 record in eight seasons as a head coach.

Besides eight years of head coaching experience, the 2003 Wabash College graduate spent time as an assistant at Crawfordsville, Danville and Loogootee.

Dean was a four-year starter for the Eagles, playing for head coaches Kieth Puckett and Carl Coons. He said he values the time he has spent coaching at other schools and the experience he can now bring to South Putnam.

"I think I've had a great opportunity to learn from coaches, especially when I was an assistant and to learn from experiences as a head coach that I'm now able to bring to my home school," Dean said. "It's helped to build some things in me and has helped to build the kind of coach and teacher and the person that I am."

Dean takes over a South Putnam program that went 4-16 last year under coach Troy Burgess, who resigned to concentrate on family and his duties as assistant principal.

The new coach said his first goal is to start building the program from the ground up.

"From a basketball standpoint, we certainly want to develop the program from the very bottom, with the young kids," Dean said. "Ultimately, we want to win championships, whether that be sectional or county or conference.

"We want to play hard on the court and develop quality young men."

Dean hopes that playing hard will define Eagle teams more than any particular style of play.

"I want to win basketball games every way. I think good teams can do that. I think good programs can react in any way," Dean said. "Some nights we're going to score a little more and that's great. Other nights, we'll play a more defensive game, and that's fine too.

"We're going to anchor everything on the defensive end and we're going to be a hard-nosed defensive team," he added. "On offense we're going to be looking for the good shot and be as efficient as possible offensively."

In the classroom, Dean will likely be teaching a combination of English and Social Studies classes at South Putnam.