Even now, Steve Bennett says some of the best basketball games he witnessed inside New Castle’s Chrysler Fieldhouse were in the offseason and involved one of his former players.
If Zach Hahn was on the court and score was being kept, things always got interesting.
“A normal pickup game could become a world war,” remembered Bennett, the New Castle head coach for 16 seasons (1997-2013). “It was worth the price of admission.”
Only there was none. Just Hahn and some buddies, sweating and screening — and yes, sometimes screaming — their way toward self-improvement, their words and the sounds of squeaking high-tops echoing inside the cavernous facility.
Fast forward a few years. The same desire to compete places a 25-year-old Hahn in the uncommon position of being named boys basketball head coach at one of the state’s largest high schools.
It might seem like yesterday Hahn took over the Center Grove program, but it was actually more than seven years and 99 victories ago.
Hahn, who turns 33 in May, approaches the 100-win milestone having guided three Trojan squads to Class 4A sectional titles, four Johnson County tournament championships and a semistate berth in 2018-19. He’s gone toe to toe with surefire Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame coaches decades his senior, relishing the challenge and becoming better as a result.
“I think that’s part of the allure for me,” said Hahn, who takes a 99-70 career record into Center Grove’s game at Lawrence Central on Friday. “I’ve always wanted to play in the best league and be on the best team. That’s kind of my competitiveness and nature. That’s what made me want to be here was the fact I saw the schedule.”
There are no surefire victories in the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference, arguably the state’s premier league in most sports. Formed in 1996, the MIC has crowned 11 state boys basketball champions in Class 4A, including the last three.
Hahn relishes the challenge, though admits his coaching style has gradually changed, albeit slightly, since he took the job prior to the 2014-15 season. Among the reasons is that Hahn and his wife Lindsey are now parents to two young children — son Kamden, 6, and daughter Riley, 3.
“I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is my purpose in life is not to be a basketball coach,” Hahn said. “It’s to impact people, and when you have kids that becomes so much more of a reality. When you first get hired and you don’t have kids, you think it’s about winning championships, and that’s a byproduct of doing things the right way.
“For me, once I had kids, it’s not about me anymore. Your life has to be about helping your kids and getting them to achieve their goals. Some of those things I’ve learned to be less stressed or worried about. I understand the bigger picture now, and maybe I didn’t when I was a first-year or second-year coach.”
New Castle won 77 percent of its games during Hahn’s varsity career. When he was a guard at Butler University, it was 83 percent, including consecutive trips to the NCAA championship game his final two seasons. Furthermore, when you’ve taken the court in front of Final Four crowds of more than 70,000 spectators, not to mention millions more watching on television, one likely views pressure differently.
Hahn’s three-man weave of coaching influences starts with Bennett and extends to former Butler and current Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens. His three seasons prior to taking the Center Grove job had Hahn seated next to former Ben Davis coach Mark James as the Giants’ varsity assistant.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be around some of the best basketball minds this state has seen,” Hahn said. “My high school coach, Steve Bennett, was phenomenal. Mark James is obviously one of the most respected coaches, and then Brad is one of the best coaches in the world. I’ve seen three different coaching styles, and I’ve tried to morph it into my own.
“But coaching is not about winning to me. It’s more about teaching kids to hate to lose. We talk about having the fire and the energy hating to lose and doing everything you can to prepare.”
Hahn’s coaching indoctrination was rapid as James entrusted the then-22-year-old with everything from breaking down film to scouting reports to conducting individual workouts with Ben Davis players.
”When Zach came in as an assistant, he wanted to emphasize fundamentals and do things the right way,” said James, 66, who is in his third season at Perry Meridian and seventh in wins among current head coaches in Indiana with 585. “It’s much more about work ethic, attitude and having relationships with kids, and Zach had all of that.
“Zach’s got an old soul, but he’s a good one. I’m proud of him.”
James never once thought Hahn was too young to surface as a viable candidate for the Center Grove job. Nor did he believe his protégé should start at a Class A or 2A program, achieve success and then attempt to work his way up the coaching ladder. The coach was noticing traits that Bennett had detected years earlier when Hahn was a player coming up through the New Castle system.
“You can tell little things,” said Bennett, 67, who first met Hahn when the future Trojan guard was 8. “Zach was kind of an organizer who had the ability to lead and give his teams confidence. He didn’t rely on other people to get things moving, let’s put it that way,” said Bennett, who racked up a 265-102 record at New Castle, including a 3A state championship in 2006 (Hahn, a junior, scored 29 points and nabbed seven rebounds in the finale).
“Zach has been successful in everything he’s done. He’s real competitive and wills himself to success. It creates a respect, and that’s why people around him get better.”
