Mangas, Harter To Represent Warsaw One Last Time
June 6, 2017 at 3:02 p.m.
By Roger Grossman-
The All-Stars take to the court tonight for the first of two exhibition games against the Indiana Junior All-Stars at New Albany. Warsaw boys star Kyle Mangas will be there, as will former Lady Tigers head coach Michelle Harter, who is an assistant for the girls All-Stars.
The All-Stars will play their counterparts from Kentucky Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, and then in the Bluegrass State Sunday at the Civic Center in Frankfort.
Mangas led the Tigers to a regional championship in 2016 and to a regional final in March.
Harter led the lady Tigers to a 20-win season before losing to eventual regional champ and NLC rival Northridge in the sectional. She also led them to just their second 4A Final Four in 2013.
Their experiences this week will have many similarities.
For both, it will be their last time officially representing Warsaw Community High School. Mangas will graduate this weekend and then take his talents to Marion to play for Indiana Wesleyan University. He graduates as the No. 4 scorer in program history with 1,450 points. He led the Tigers to back-to-back 4A sectional championships and an unprecedented three straight unbeaten Northern Lakes Conference championships.
Harter ended a quarter-of-a-century of coaching excellence in March by announcing that she was leaving Warsaw to pursue college coaching opportunities. After 16 years as a JV coach and nine leading the varsity, she said her time in Warsaw was over.
We all assumed that something was in the pipeline for her. We concluded that someone must have already contacted her about a college coaching position and that she would be shifting quickly into her new role at the next level.
But that didn’t happen.
There was no job waiting for her after Warsaw. There were phone conversations, but no offers – except for one.
A call came from the organizers of the Indiana All-Star teams asking Harter if she would like to be an assistant on this year’s squad. Of course she said yes. Who wouldn’t?
But it was awkward. She was like a coach without a country. The All-Star game program will list her as representing Warsaw, but until Monday night when the school board in Evansville hired her to be the new head girls basketball coach at Evansville Central, you could just have easily put question marks next to her name.
It’s a very odd ending to an excellent coaching career at Warsaw.
She deserved a better ending than that.
Mangas will do what he does – adapt his game to those he is playing with, take over the game when it seems his team needs it, and walk away having earned the full respect of everyone he’s played with.
I mean, look at him. His physical appearance is not going to intimidate anyone. I am not sure he ever talked trash in four years of varsity basketball here at WCHS. He just played, and when he played his opponents took him for granted a lot and he made almost every single one of them pay for that mistake.
And when Sunday’s game at Frankfort Civic Center is over, you will find Mangas standing next to his mom and dad, Tim and Ann, and his brother Jake, talking it over as they did almost 100 times after Warsaw games. And then they will leave, with little or no pomp or fanfare … because that is their style, and it’s pretty cool.
Mangas will then depart for his new life at IWU, and Harter will begin packing for Evansville.
Warsaw will miss them both very much.
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The All-Stars take to the court tonight for the first of two exhibition games against the Indiana Junior All-Stars at New Albany. Warsaw boys star Kyle Mangas will be there, as will former Lady Tigers head coach Michelle Harter, who is an assistant for the girls All-Stars.
The All-Stars will play their counterparts from Kentucky Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, and then in the Bluegrass State Sunday at the Civic Center in Frankfort.
Mangas led the Tigers to a regional championship in 2016 and to a regional final in March.
Harter led the lady Tigers to a 20-win season before losing to eventual regional champ and NLC rival Northridge in the sectional. She also led them to just their second 4A Final Four in 2013.
Their experiences this week will have many similarities.
For both, it will be their last time officially representing Warsaw Community High School. Mangas will graduate this weekend and then take his talents to Marion to play for Indiana Wesleyan University. He graduates as the No. 4 scorer in program history with 1,450 points. He led the Tigers to back-to-back 4A sectional championships and an unprecedented three straight unbeaten Northern Lakes Conference championships.
Harter ended a quarter-of-a-century of coaching excellence in March by announcing that she was leaving Warsaw to pursue college coaching opportunities. After 16 years as a JV coach and nine leading the varsity, she said her time in Warsaw was over.
We all assumed that something was in the pipeline for her. We concluded that someone must have already contacted her about a college coaching position and that she would be shifting quickly into her new role at the next level.
But that didn’t happen.
There was no job waiting for her after Warsaw. There were phone conversations, but no offers – except for one.
A call came from the organizers of the Indiana All-Star teams asking Harter if she would like to be an assistant on this year’s squad. Of course she said yes. Who wouldn’t?
But it was awkward. She was like a coach without a country. The All-Star game program will list her as representing Warsaw, but until Monday night when the school board in Evansville hired her to be the new head girls basketball coach at Evansville Central, you could just have easily put question marks next to her name.
It’s a very odd ending to an excellent coaching career at Warsaw.
She deserved a better ending than that.
Mangas will do what he does – adapt his game to those he is playing with, take over the game when it seems his team needs it, and walk away having earned the full respect of everyone he’s played with.
I mean, look at him. His physical appearance is not going to intimidate anyone. I am not sure he ever talked trash in four years of varsity basketball here at WCHS. He just played, and when he played his opponents took him for granted a lot and he made almost every single one of them pay for that mistake.
And when Sunday’s game at Frankfort Civic Center is over, you will find Mangas standing next to his mom and dad, Tim and Ann, and his brother Jake, talking it over as they did almost 100 times after Warsaw games. And then they will leave, with little or no pomp or fanfare … because that is their style, and it’s pretty cool.
Mangas will then depart for his new life at IWU, and Harter will begin packing for Evansville.
Warsaw will miss them both very much.
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