Rising Sun High School hired Rick Scholl as its new boys varsity basketball coach last week which happened to be the annual IHSAA moratorium week where no contact was allowed with athletes.
Scholl made his debut in Rising Sun on Monday when he got to practice this year’s crop of players before getting a chance to meet parents afterwards.
The coach of 16 years (mostly reserve) comes to Rising Sun after being an assistant coach to Louis Lefevre at Tipton where he coached the reserve squad.
Scholl is from Mitchell and went on to Indiana State. His coaching started with five years at West Washington and five years at his alma mater. He served at reserve basketball and coached in the football programs as well.
He went to Springs Valley where he was reserve coach two years before his first varsity coaching job. He was 6-17 his first year (2014-15) and 11-12 in 2015-16.
Coaching at the home of Larry Bird, Scholl says everybody was always looking for the next Larry Bird (an unlikely chance regarding the NBA Hall of Famer).
During the 2016-2017 season, his wife Theresia accepted a new job in Indianapolis. He accepted a job Greenwood High School through his educational engineering license through Project Lead the Way.
He moved onto Tipton for the opportunity to coach under Lefevre to learn about his defense which averaged allowing less than 40 points a game. He has seen a lot of different styles from Springs Valley to the intercity schools like Ben Davis.
Coming from Tipton, he called it a “breath of fresh air. We’ll be still blue and white but the floors are 10 times better.”
Coming to Rising Sun, the father of two has one son Jeremy (a sophomore at IUPUI) and Justin or JJ who will be a freshman at Hanover College this fall.
Scholl will teach high school special education.
After just one day of practice, he told parents “I was very impressed with their work ethic.
“It’s all about team. I’ve found in my years that I had to teach or coach effort. That’s why I put together competitions.”
One of those was seen in practice when the last person off the court to the huddle had to sprint to the wall and back.
The Scholl family is looking to rent or buy in the area.
You’ll know his truck when you see it. The personalized license plate reads YEAHYOU.
“It’s what my (late) uncle used to say,” he said, (i.e. Doing okay? Yeah. You?)
Tim Phelps is Rising Sun’s reserve basketball coach and has kept the program going during the summer where the Shiners played in 20 games against schools of all sizes.
