BENNETT'S MINUTES: Windlan perfect replacement for Key with Cubs

Tuesday, June 26, 2018
New Greencastle girls’ basketball coach Tod Windlan shows senior center Claire Gillen where to move in one of the team’s sets.
Banner Graphic/JOEY BENNETT

Greencastle High School athletic director Doug Greenlee asked the returning players in his girls’ basketball program what they wanted in a head coach.

They quickly and unanimously told him, “We want someone who will push us.”

Wish, and you shall receive.

“That was their number one priority,” Greenlee said on Monday night after hiring former Carmel coach Tod Windlan to replace Bradley Key, now at Greenfield-Central. “They’ve been used to that, and they’ve been used to success. Kids want to be coached and pushed.

“Coach Windlan was the best candidate in the state available, and we’re just happy he’s here.”

Greenlee understandably talked with several people at Carmel to make sure the firing was as bogus as it appeared, and he was satisfied with the results.

“We checked references,” he said. “If I didn’t like what I heard, he wouldn’t be standing here. From the moment I met him, I knew he was the right man for the job.

Greenlee admits that when he first picked up the phone to make the call to Windlan that he wasn’t incredibly optimistic.

“To be honest, I thought we’d have to be very fortunate to land coach Windlan at Greencastle,” he said. “The more we talked about the situation here, about what the program has been and can continue to be, I think both of us were very interested. I was just hoping ‘let’s hope this can happen’.

“Once he expressed interest, my search was over.”

Windlan is a native of Anderson, which also happens to be the home ground of Key — an Alexandria native.

“I knew Bradley a little bit, being a Madison County guy himself,” Windlan said. “Any time a player plays under coach [Garth] Cone in Madison County, you know they’ve been taught the right way how to play and think the game.”

While Key and Windlan have several things in common, there is one huge difference.

Key played a 2-3 zone almost exclusively, while Windlan prefers a man-to-man defensive approach. That transition would understandably be the toughest for the Cub players.

During a practice session on Monday at Greencastle Middle School, Windlan taught his team several in-bounds plays to run when taking the ball out of bounds under its own basket — ones that will produce numerous points this season.

This marriage is a perfect one for both sides. Windlan could have easily stayed out of coaching for a year to perhaps land a more high-profile job, but he genuinely likes his new situation.

The fact that the Tiger Cub players, and their parents, are used to similar “tough love” conditions under Key will make the transition easier. These are smart girls he is inheriting, and they know you can’t get something for nothing.

“I’m not going to change because society and the world have become soft,” Windlan said. “The great players want to be pushed and coached. I’m going to bring the same passion and intensity wherever I am. That’s just in my DNA.

“I’ve done this for 15 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever had any type of qualms from anybody,” he added. “I hate it that the world of parents is all about entitlement — trophies, unicorns and rainbows.”

He looks at coaching as being about far more than baskets.

“I prepare my kids to play the game of basketball, and also to prepare them for life,” he said. “Many past players have sent me letters thanking me for pushing them and making them employable adults in the world that we live in.”

Someday, Windlan will have similar letters to arrive in his mailbox with a Greencastle postmark.