By STEVE KRAH
Kevin Hannon has a simple rule for his Knox High School baseball players.
Don’t do anything that would embarrass mom or grandma.
That’s the standard he went by as a student-athlete and then head coach and athletic director at Morgan Township and its the one he insists on as he heads into his eighth season as head coach of the Knox Redskins.
“You want to always think you’re parents are watching,” Hannon, a veteran of 17 head coaching seasons, said. “You don’t want to disgrace them. That really rings true for me.”
It’s about always doing the right thing.
So as Hannon looks to win games — Knox placed second in the first season of the Hoosier North Athletic Conference in 2016.
“I’m still a big believer in pitching and defense,” Hannon said.
But he is looking to accomplish more than that.
Hannon, who is second vice president in the Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association in 2016-17, has built his program on the foundation of discipline and hard work.
“We want to develop good people while getting life lessons across,” Hannon said. “I credit Matt Bush for discipline. He was my basketball coach at Morgan Township. He made sure we were trying to be good people when we were at school and in the community.”
While he misses the rivalries from the old Northern State Conference (Bremen, Jimtown, John Glenn and New Prairie went to the Northern Indiana Conference with Knox, Culver, LaVille and Triton going to the Hoosier North), Hannon is excited about Redskins’ opportunities in the new loop, which includes five Class 1A schools and four from 2A, including Knox.
“These are teams we compete a little better with,” Hannon said. “We have more natural rivals like North Judson, Winamac, Culver.”
A challenge Knox still faces is the time change. Knox and North Judson are the only conference members on Central Time. Knox gets out of school at 3:05 p.m., making it tough when road games are scheduled for 4:30.
Hannon, a Purdue University graduate, teaches at Knox Elementary, which dismisses at 2:30 and does his best to get the Redskins on the road in a timely manner.
Another wrinkle that is unique to Knox is a school calendar with two weeks for spring break — the last week of March and first week of April. Once the IHSAA allows full workouts, the Redskins go for two weeks, Hannon gives them the first full spring break week off and then they practice for a week before the first near the middle of April.
“Most schools have already played six games,” Hannon said. “We play five games a week. That’s just the way it is.”
Hannon got active in IHSBCA leadership after seeing what the older ones were doing when he was a young coach. He enjoys the camaraderie in the coaching fraternity and sharing of ideas.
“This has been an awesome experience,” Hannon said of being an association officer and getting a chance to help run the annual State Clinic in January in Indianapolis and the North/South All-Star Series and Junior Showcase in July (this year it’s July 14-16 at Ball State University in Muncie and in 2018 comes to South Bend). “Indiana is loaded with baseball talent. It’s unbelievable.”
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