Cole Kessie

SOUTH WHITLEY – It is a curious time to be a fan of Whitko boys basketball.

After one of the more dismal seasons the program had ever faced last year, a rejuvenation of sorts, perhaps even a revival of a proud program has begun.

The catalyst? Meet coach Roger Fleetwood. A pedigree most down programs would not inherit, Fleetwood is 10 wins shy of 500 wins for his career and once led South Gwinnett High School near Atlanta to a national ranking and had two All-Americans on his roster, Mike Mercer and Lou Williams, of which Williams is now a star for the Toronto Raptors. Not to mention those Gwinnett teams beat the likes of Oak Hill Academy, which featured some guy named Kevin Durant.

Fleetwood isn’t a stranger to Indiana basketball, having first started coaching at Tippecanoe Valley in 1978 and also coached four years at Maconaquah among his stops in the Hoosier state.

“I ended up at Whitko because I retired from teaching in Brown County and in Georgia and wanted to get just a coaching job,” Fleetwood said. “Whitko had a basketball-only job open, and it fit well with what I was looking for. I can also be closer to my family that lives in Indiana.”

Fleetwood’s job getting Whitko back on the basketball map began right away. Working the halls, the lunchrooms and the gyms, generating interest in basketball wasn’t hard, but the trust had to be there for a program that had just 13 boys in the program last season.

“We had 32 kids come out for tryouts, and six or seven of them returned after not playing last year,” Fleetwood stated. “My aim was to get the kids to trust basketball again, and get numbers back out. I’ve had to get the names back in the program, and work on getting those kids to believe in each other again.”

One of the main names back in the program is senior Cole Kessie, who was one of the varsity members that skipped last year. Fleetwood has noticed his leadership already and has seen the senior class start to regain that confidence through early workouts. Derek Miller, another senior, is tabbed as a top athlete by Fleetwood, creating a solid senior duo.

Juniors Devon Adkins, Roger Helblig, Tanner Gaff and Garrett Smiley as well as freshmen Robby Owsley and River West will also find minutes in the early going.

Sources close to the program also have stated sophomore guard Nate Walpole will be returning to the team after a semester at Manchester.

“The bottom line is that I have to develop a relationship with each kid here,” Fleetwood said. “They have to buy into me as much as I have to buy into them. Number one, trust has to be developed. And two, then we work on the skill. Once I evaluate the skill, then we can develop a game plan.

“I’ve been a head coach for 37 years, and basketball is the same in every state,” continued Fleetwood. “There are good players everywhere. I will learn the coaches and the styles up here in time. We just need to be the best we can be. We get thrown into the fire right away with Columbia City the first night. Then we’ll have 22 games to get this thing figured out.”