Max Goodin, to the right of his wife MacKenzie, will be the next head football coach at Indian Creek.
Submitted photo
Having gone through five coaches (including one interim) over the last eight seasons, Indian Creek was looking to find some stability for its football program. Max Goodin was looking for a place he could call home while he raises a young family.
Both sides are hoping it’s a match made in heaven.
Goodin, most recently the defensive coordinator at Class 5A state runner-up Decatur Central, was officially tabbed to lead the Braves on Thursday evening.
A 2015 Hanover graduate, Goodin got his coaching career started as a graduate assistant at Lindsey Wilson College before joining the staff at St. Xavier in Cincinnati, where he helped lead the way to a state title in 2016. He came back to the Indianapolis area as the safeties coach and defensive passing game coordinator at Decatur Central for one season, then accompanied colleague Brian Nay to Lafayette Central Catholic, where he served as the defensive coordinator on the 2019 Class A state championship team.
He came back to Decatur Central as the defensive coordinator in 2020, but after four years in that post — one that Goodin believed was one of the best assistant coaching jobs in Indiana — he believed he was ready to pursue a head coaching position. One opening stood out.
“You have certain jobs that you have circled where, hey, if this job ever comes open, I want to go for it,” Goodin said. “Coming off a state run and Indian Creek coming open, that was a job that my family has always had circled, a job that we always believed was a really good job in a town that loves football — and a strong community, a tight-knit community that really is proud of their football.”
A pre-existing relationship with Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson superintendent Matt Prusiecki, who had previously served in the same role at Decatur, certainly added to the lure, but Goodin is largely drawn to Trafalgar by what it could offer him and his wife MacKenzie, as well as their two young children.
“When I was at Hanover, I played with five or more guys that went to Indian Creek, and I felt that all of them just loved the football program, always spoke so highly of it, would go back to games — and were just good people. And I think that that is something that, with a young family, you want to be a part of.”
He’s hoping to bring more consistency to a place that hasn’t had a coach last more than three seasons since Mike Gillin departed for Goodin’s hometown of Mooresville after the 2016 season, having brought the Braves 139 victories in 16 years.
“Continuity and consistency in general can breed success in and of itself,” Goodin said, “and I think that being someone that intends or wants to be there for a long period of time, grow and commit to the program, can lead to long-term success. I’m not going to sit here and guarantee that, but I think that continuity and consistency can go a long way for any program, specifically in the game of football.”
He points to Center Grove’s Eric Moore and Whiteland’s Darrin Fisher as two shining local examples that he’d like to follow.
On the field, Goodin isn’t married to any one philosophy over the long haul — “We’re going to do whatever it takes to win; that’s number one” — but offensively, he expects to largely remain true to the spread-offense principles that have served Indian Creek well for much of this century under Gillin and his successors.
Defensively, he’s big on versatility, pointing out that a team needs to be able to stop different attacks each Friday.
“I think defense has evolved over the last decade, if not more, to where you’ve got to be able to be multiple and defend different types of looks,” Goodin said. “We’ll play Cascade in week number one, and they might have one receiver, and then we’ll play Greenwood in Week 2, and they may throw it 50 times. So we’ve got to be prepared for all of those different things.”
Change is to be expected week to week when it comes to game-planning on the gridiron, but to be successful over the long haul, it’s important to have a leader that can be counted on year to year.
The Braves hope they’ve finally found that in Goodin.
