Waldron girls basketball head coach Anthony Thomas is one of six honored this season as a Bob King Coach of the Year. Thomas was chosen by his peers within the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association according to IBCA executive director Steve Witte. There are two honorees in each of the three districts.
Thomas, a District 3 selection, guided Waldron to a 24-2 campaign which included championships in the Shelby County Tournament, Mid-Hoosier Conference, Waldron Sectional and Southwestern (Shelby) Regional.
Thomas completed five seasons as the Lady Mohawks’ varsity coach and stepped down at the end of the season with an 82-37 career mark. His teams twice captured MHC titles (2021 and 2022). Thomas previously coached for 17 years at various grade levels, both boys and girls, before becoming the Waldron varsity girls’ coach in 2017-18. That experience included serving as the Lady Mohawks’ girls’ basketball varsity assistant in 2016-17.
Thomas is a 1992 graduate of Waldron, where he played two seasons of JV basketball. He later attended IUPUI for one year but left college to enter the work force. During his tenure as varsity coach, Thomas was named MHC Coach of the Year in 2019, 2021 and 2022, Shelbyville News Coach of the Year in 2019 and 2002, and HBCA District 3 Coach of the Year in 2022.
Other honorees include Joe Huppenthal of Lake Central and Bob Lapadot of Lake Central in District 1, Donna Buckley of Noblesville and Ginny Smith of Westfield in District to and Tony Hasenour of Forest Park joining Thomas in District 3.
The Coach of the Year award is named for the late Bob King, the IBCA executive director from 1984-94. King was a Lebanon native who coached at Sacred Heart and Shortridge high schools in Indianapolis before serving as an assistant basketball coach at Purdue University. He later also was as an assistant athletic director and associate athletic director at Purdue.
We thank the IBCA for the Coach of the Year information.