Keith Witty is, quite literally, heading for greener pastures.
After winning a pair of Class A sectional titles at Edinburgh, Witty is leaving the Lancers after six seasons to become the new head coach at Greenwood. The hire was approved by Greenwood’s school board on Tuesday night and finalized Wednesday after the completion of a background check.
He replaces Joe Bradburn, who left the Woodmen earlier this offseason to take the head coaching job at Mt. Vernon. Bradburn led Greenwood to a sectional championship in 2020 and a sectional final in 2021.
“As a coach, you’re always trying to look to take that next step, to challenge yourself a little bit,” Witty said. “At Edinburgh, I think I’d kind of proven myself and got the program into a good position, a good spot, and I just kind of wanted to take on a little bit bigger challenge personally and from a coaching perspective.
“Greenwood is a very tight-knit community, just like Edinburgh is, and finding another school in a much bigger setting that can have a similar home feel to it was interesting to me.”
After guiding the Lancers to a 17-9 mark and a sectional crown during his debut season in 2017-18, Witty waded through a pair of sub-.500 years with younger teams before again righting the ship. Edinburgh improved from 6-18 to 18-6 in the 2020-21 campaign, then followed that up with a 22-4 season and a sectional championship in 2021-22.
The Lancers also ascended to the top spot in the Class A state poll that season for the first time in school history. They did so again this past winter before finishing with a 13-10 mark.
Witty, who was 86-60 overall at Edinburgh, is the second consecutive boys basketball coach to leave the Lancers for another Johnson County job. His predecessor, Drew Glentzer, is entering his seventh season at Indian Creek.
Greenwood brings back a fairly inexperienced and undersized roster after an 8-15 season, but Witty plans to have his new squad ready to compete.
“I’ve looked at the roster and it doesn’t look like there’s really much size, but that’s okay,” he said. “I’m just going to look to bring some things I brought to Edinburgh and play a little quicker style. We will still get after it defensively; that’s one thing that Greenwood did really well under Joe, and that’s one thing at Edinburgh we’ve done a good job at.”
