Published: September 10, 2009 11:23 pm      

Tipton grad takes over Blue Devils

1999 graduate Comer named girls basketball coach

Nick Comer has long dreamed of being a varsity basketball coach and he feels he’s walked into the perfect situation at Tipton High School.

Earlier this week, the 1999 Tipton graduate was named head girls basketball coach, replacing Evan Beauchamp who directed the program for two seasons.

“I’ve always had ambitions of being a head coach and this seems to be the right time,” Comer said. “To have this experience in my hometown with a great group of girls coming back is special for me. It’s a group that is eager to learn and ready to improve.”

It’s also one that shows considerable promise.

Last year the entire Tipton girls program consisted of 12 freshmen and sophomores. There was no freshman team and the JV squad played only a partial schedule. Despite the numbers problem, the young varsity carved out an 11-8 won-lost record — the program’s first winning season since 2001-02.

“We were young and inexperienced last year but we knew we had a really good freshman class that was used to winning,” Comer said. “The girls were 35-0 as seventh and eighth graders.”

This coming season, Comer expects to have those 12 sophomores and juniors back in uniform, but he knows he needs to strengthen the entire program, numbers-wise.

“The numbers — that’s our biggest concern right now,” he said. “We have to get more players in the program. [Tipton girls] were very successful when I was in high school but they got used to losing. That’s something that can be turned around, but we only have 48 days until the start of the season and there’s a lot of work to do.”

Comer said a priority this coming season is to improve the team’s defense.

“My philosophy goes back with working with coach [Travis] Daugherty’s program,” Comer said. “Defense has to be a priority because it was a weakness last year. We have athletes gifted enough with the talent to play defense, it’s just a mindset. Offensively, I’m a motion guy, but regardless of what we play, we must have the skill set and that’s what we’ll be working on first.”

Comer played one year of varsity basketball at Tipton before graduating from Ball State University. He coached two seasons of boys middle school basketball at Tipton, spent two seasons as Daugherty’s boys varsity assistant, one as freshman boys coach at Elkhart Central and the last two as Tipton’s boys JV coach.

Comer is in his third year at Tipton High School teaching world history.