For all of his six years as Greenwood Christian Academy’s athletics director, Dan Carmichael has been hoping that his school’s teams would one day be able to take part in the Johnson County tournaments.
That day will arrive soon.
Beginning with the 2017-18 school year, the Cougars will be a part of the field for county championships in basketball, golf, baseball, softball, cross-country and track and field. Greenwood Christian also is considering adding tennis in the near future, which would have the school competing in every Johnson County tourney except for wrestling and boys swimming.
The invitation was officially extended Friday by Center Grove assistant athletics director Scott Knapp, the president of the Johnson County Athletic Directors. According to Knapp, there was unanimous approval for the invitation when the group met Thursday.
Carmichael had made a pitch for Greenwood Christian to join two years ago, but at that time the Cougars were only really interested in competing in the basketball tournaments, which was not acceptable to the other county schools. With the school adding more sports in recent years and becoming more competitive across the board, though, everyone agreed that it’s a far better fit now.
“That’s a credit to Dan and their athletic staff and coaches for building up the numbers and getting the interest,” Knapp said.
Greenwood Christian is competing at the IHSAA level across the board in all of its 14 sports now and has won seven sectional championships in four sports over the past 3 1/2 school years.
“It’s baby steps,” Carmichael said. “Each year we’ve tried to progress and get stronger, get better, get more competitive, and I think we’ve done that in the last two or three years.”
The improvement has been noticed — and it has earned Greenwood Christian the respect of the other athletics programs in the area. The Cougars are now officially becoming a part of the club.
“Now it’s a true Johnson County tournament,” Knapp said.
