Doug Ogle said he enjoys pre-game conversations with opposing coaches.
The seventh-year Warsaw boys basketball coach, however, said he isn't anxious about Saturday's pre-game talk.
Saturday, Ogle's talented Tigers will host the Penn Kingsmen, a team now led by former Warsaw coach Al Rhodes."I don't know how I'll feel," Ogle said of coaching against the man he calls his mentor. "I know I'm not anxious about the pre-game talk. I enjoy the pre-game conversations with opposing coaches, but Saturday will be different. This isn't a situation I relish, and I don't think Al does either."
Multiple messages were left on Rhodes' voice mail at Penn High School this week, but the future Hall of Famer wasn't available for comment.
Rhodes coached Warsaw's varsity team for 22 years, posting an impressive record of 405-132.
He guided the Tigers to 14 sectional championships, seven regional titles, four semistate crowns and the 1984 state championship.
In his 22 seasons at Warsaw, Rhodes' teams posted 11 20-win seasons and won the Northern Lakes Conference championship 10 times.
"Al was very successful at Warsaw Community High School," said former WCHS Athletic Director Dave Fulkerson, who held that position during nearly all of Rhodes' coaching tenure with the Tigers. "Al was probably the best teacher at Warsaw, and that's what made him one of the best coaches in the state. He's such a good teacher. One of the things I'll always remember about Al is that Warsaw was the No. 1 program in the state the last 13 years he was our coach."
Through all of Rhodes' success at Warsaw there were a lot of constants, one of them was Ogle.
Ogle worked under Rhodes for 17 years, 15 of which were spent as Warsaw's junior varsity coach.
While serving as the Tigers' JV coach during the Rhodes years, Ogle guided his teams to a sparkling record of 270-30. Over a course of three seasons in the 1990s, Ogle's JV Tigers won 69 games in a row.
"He is the reason I came to Warsaw," Ogle said of Rhodes. "I couldn't have made a better selection."
Ogle said his first knowledge of Rhodes was when Ogle was a student at Purdue University. Ogle watched the 1984 state championship game on TV and was impressed with a number of things about the Tigers - how well they were coached, how well they played together as a team.
"I was very impressed with how well they played as a team," Ogle said of the 1984 state champion Tigers. "The team played smart basketball and they were very well-coached. Jeff Grose was a very good player. Marty Lehman was a very good player. The complimentary players did a great job. They were a very well-coached outfit. I knew right away Coach Rhodes was the guy I wanted to learn from."
The following year, Ogle met Scott Long, a member of the 1984 team, at Bethel College. Ogle and Long dated sisters, whom they are now married to, and Ogle asked Long about Warsaw and about Rhodes.
It just so happened that Bert Niles, a math teacher at what was then called Warsaw Middle School, was retiring.
Ogle interviewed for the position.
In a phone conversation earlier this week, Ogle recalled a certain memory about that interview.
"Near the end of the interview, they asked me if I had any questions," said Ogle. "I told them I didn't have any questions, but I had a request. I wanted to meet Al Rhodes. They made a couple phone calls and we met. He brought Hal Gunter with him. I was very impressed that he took the time to come talk to me."
And the rest, they say, is history.
Ironically, Ogle first interviewed for a teaching position at Penn, but he said he knew in his heart that Warsaw was the place he wanted to be.
He wanted to be mentored by Rhodes.
"I interviewed at Penn, but I told Penn I wanted to wait until I interviewed at Warsaw," said Ogle. "Warsaw, in my mind, was the place to be."
And so now things have come full-circle, in a way.
Rhodes is at Penn, the high school he graduated from, and Ogle will stand opposite the legendary coach he stood next to for so many years.
Saturday's game is believed to be the first time a former Warsaw coach has come back to Warsaw to coach against the Tigers in any sport.
Like Ogle will do Saturday, Rhodes has coached against a friend and coach that he had previously worked under.
And it wasn't something Rhodes was excited about, according to Ogle.
"I remember when I was the JV coach and we'd play Kokomo," said Ogle. "Al didn't like coaching against Basil (Mawbey). They were great friends. And Al doesn't like coaching against his friends. Al's first job as a JV coach was at Angola High School, and Basil was the varsity coach. Basil was his mentor, and he didn't like coaching against him. That's how I feel about Saturday. I think Al felt the same way about coaching under Jim Miller and then having to play Coach Miller after he left Warsaw and went to Huntington."
Rhodes is the winningest coach in Warsaw history with his 405 wins with the Tigers. Ogle is fourth on the wins list among Warsaw boys basketball coaches with his 82 victories.
Ogle wants to dismiss all the talk about himself and Rhodes, though.
"It's going to come down to the players on the court," said Ogle. "It's more about the Jimmys and the Joes than it is the Xs and Os. Just because they know what we're going to do, doesn't mean they can stop it. And the same for them. We might know what Al's teams like to do, but we have to stop them. The players are going to decide the game, not Al or I."
Penn enters tonight's home game with Mishawaka Marian with a 2-0 record. Senior point guard Tommy Kurth, a Valparaiso University recruit, leads the Kingsmen with 16 points per game.
Warsaw, which hosts Rochester tonight, enters this weekend with a 4-0 record.
The Tigers are led in scoring by sophomore Nic Moore (20 ppg), junior Andy Conrad (13 ppg) and senior Ryne Robinson (11 ppg).
Warsaw and Penn have played 15 times in boys basketball, with the Tigers owning a 10-5 record.
Warsaw won 59-49 last year at Penn when Dean Foster was coaching the Kingsmen.
