Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
As you’re driving past the most impressive looking high school campus in the state, you can see the physical renovation underway at Carmel’s football stadium. What you perhaps can’t glean from the construction vehicles and metal scaffolding is the rapid rebuild the football program has undergone in just the past few months.
A rebuild at Carmel? A nine-time state champion with a mega enrollment to draw from? The same high school with resources and athletic facilities that would make most non-FBS colleges jealous? That Carmel?
That Carmel went 3-7 last season, but 2024 was merely a rock bottom to conclude a three-year stretch without a postseason victory—an eternity for a program used to not only winning sectional games but also playing Lucas Oil Stadium on Thanksgiving weekend.
In January, Carmel brought back four-time state champion Kevin Wright, who coached the high school to a 54-11 record and one state championship in the 2010s. An inductee to the Indiana Football Hall of Fame in 2022, Wright was entrusted to bring the Greyhounds back to glory in his second stint.
Just 10 months later, sitting at 5-1 and ranked No. 4 in the latest statewide Associated Press poll for Class 6A, Carmel appears to have picked the right architect to execute that blueprint.
Wilderness years
The return of a coach with the stature of Wright’s to a program the stature of Carmel’s might seem self-explanatory. But if not for serendipitous timing, this reunion likely would not have taken place.
After going 159-28 during tenures at Noblesville, Warren Central and Carmel, Wright moved on to bigger stages. He spent five terrific seasons as head coach of the vaunted IMG Academy in Florida, a national powerhouse that has produced dozens of NFL players. He then joined Tom Allen’s staff at Indiana University as tight ends coach for four more years.
Following some early success, things went south for Allen in Bloomington, leaving Wright looking for his next destination at the conclusion of the 2023 season.
While looking, he returned to the very first step in his football career: Sheridan High School.
Wright’s tiny Class A alma mater tucked away in the northwest corner of Hamilton County was a far cry from working at the top level of high school football or strolling the sidelines at The Big House or Beaver Stadium. But spending last season helping out his father, the legendary Larry “Bud” Wright, allowed the younger Wright to softly reset his career.
“I hadn’t been to Clinton Prairie for a long time, so that was truly going back to your roots,” said Wright about Sheridan, where he played from 1979 to 1982. “It was fulfilling to be back at home and see how important football still is at Sheridan and be with my dad for his last go-around.”
Simultaneously, Carmel football was facing an uncertain future. After going the independent route following a messy divorce from the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference and attempted entry into the Hoosier Crossroads Conference, the Greyhounds slogged through three mediocre seasons (14-16 overall) as an independent, punctuated by back-to-back blowout losses to former MIC rivals Warren Central and Ben Davis last October, which ultimately resulted in a 3-7 record.
It was Carmel’s first losing season since 1997.
“We expect to be competing for state championships year in and year out,” said Jim Inskeep, director of athletics at Carmel High School. “The reality is, central Indiana football has gotten significantly better, and there are a lot more schools that are putting resources into having outstanding programs. The level of coaching has to continue to increase, as well. So, when you get to that point where you’re not [competing for championships], we wanted to make sure that we’re not forgotten and to get back to the top end of all of that.”
With doughnut county brethren Westfield and Center Grove maintaining their stature, along with Brownsburg emerging as a certified heavyweight, the Greyhounds couldn’t afford to yield any more ground. A change was needed.
The reunion
Luckily, Carmel’s need for a quick turnaround directly correlated with Wright’s desire to get back on the sidelines in a more permanent role. With Wright back from Bradenton and Bloomington, and just down the road from the football facility on Smoky Row, the process was seamless.
“When the opportunity was presented, I felt like it was right place, right time,” said Wright, who had led Carmel for five seasons (2010-2014) and won a 5A state title in 2011. “When we moved up [to Hamilton County], we were waiting for what that next opportunity might be, and it just happened to be four miles from where we were living. It was not a difficult decision.”
“Kevin knew exactly what he was walking into with our situation, and we knew exactly what we were getting [with him],” Inskeep said. “There’s no assimilation process, because you’ve already been there, done that. It’s like moving into a house you’ve lived in before. He already knows where the breaker box is.”
When Wright made his return in January, most of Carmel’s coaching staff stayed on board, as did a motivated group of upperclassmen eager to put the Greyhounds back in the football conversation again.
Still, Wright had to engineer a mental shift for everyone involved in the program, and it took more than just pointing to the championship banners on the wall and rah-rah speeches.
“They had to understand that the last couple of years was not who we are, and that’s not who we’re going to be,” Wright said. “We had to establish our expectations as, ‘We’re going to win football games—not hope to win football games.’”
Thanksgiving? No, thanks.
Any remaining doubt was quickly vanquished as Carmel stormed out of the gates in August, handily winning its first two games against a talented Fishers squad and Westfield, last year’s state runner-up. The Greyhounds are undefeated against teams within Indiana’s borders (4-0), with their lone loss coming to Trinity, a 29-time state champion that is again considered to be the best team in Kentucky.
“Somebody sent me an article where it picked us to win two games this year and had like every score,” Wright said. “We put that up on the screen for a team meeting and told them, ‘OK, this is what they think of us.’”
“You try to use all those things to get kids to open their eyes,” Wright continued, “and we’ve really gotten that buy-in from everyone.”
Senior quarterback Anthony Coellner has accounted for nearly 1,300 combined passing and rushing yards while scoring 16 touchdowns to lead a senior class tasting prolonged success for the first time. The program’s renaissance has also reignited a fan base that never apologizes for winning and rarely experiences losing in any sport.
“In my family, with my dad coaching and my brothers coaching, you hated to go to Thanksgiving dinner, because that means that you weren’t playing that weekend [in the state championship],” joked Wright.
“We have a long-term plan to get things back to that, but it doesn’t happen overnight. The landscape is different, and there are other programs that are hungry,” he said. “But I know the commitment is there from everyone to get back to winning championships. So, as long as we have that, [we’ve] got a chance.”
Wright’s chair might or might not be vacant this Thanksgiving, but he’s undoubtedly taking Carmel’s seat back at the Indiana football table.•
__________
From Peyton Manning’s peak with the Colts to the Pacers’ most recent roster makeover, Schultz has talked about it all as a sports personality in Indianapolis for more than 15 years. Besides his written work with IBJ, he’s active in podcasting and show hosting. You can follow him on X @Schultz975.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
