Shawn Russell has been thinking about the opportunity that awaits him for decades. He thought about it before he spent several years as an assistant to the Northwestern girls basketball program, before he started coaching middle school teams 16 years ago, even before he graduated from Pioneer in 2002.
Now, the opportunity is here. He’s got a varsity team to coach of his own after being named Western’s new girls basketball coach at the school’s board meeting Tuesday night.
He enters the Western job with plenty of familiarity with the Panthers after coaching against them and in the same conference. He first went up against the Panther varsity squad as an assistant to previous Northwestern coach Kathie Layden.
“When Kathie retired, I applied at Northwestern. I didn’t get that job obviously, but I was looking this year to get a head coaching job,” Russell said. “That’s always been kind of my dream since I was a little kid, to coach varsity basketball one day. I was just kind of looking and it opened up at the right time.”
Russell takes over at Western after the departure of coach Misty Oliver, whose team was 16-6 last season with an all-senior starting lineup. She had a two-year record of 31-15 at Western.
“It’s an exciting opportunity for me to be able to coach my own program,” Russell said. “It’s a clean slate for me and for the girls coming in. It was close to home, so we didn’t have to worry about relocating or anything, and I know the conference opponents already from being at Northwestern for several years. That definitely played a factor as well.”
Northwestern and Western were both in the Hoosier Conference since joining that league in the 2015-16 season. Next fall, Northwestern heads to the Three Rivers Conference, but Russell is staying put in the HC now that he’s taking over at Western. He expects the familiarity with the team and the league to help.
“It’s going to ease the nerves a little bit coming into something new,” Russell said. “Even though it’s a new program, a new system, I know some of the girls from coaching against them, watching them grow up through middle school and the high school level. The conference — the only thing that’s really changed is that Lewis Cass and Northwestern are not in it, but Logansport is, but at Northwestern we played Logansport every year so I’m very familiar with them as well.”
He’s already familiar with how the Panthers play from coaching against them.
“They hustle, they play hard, they never give up no matter what the score was,” Russell said. “Watching them play, you always knew they had intensity and wanted to play hard.”
Russell, who works at Orchard Software in Carmel, took the reins of the Northwestern JV program in 2019-20, the season the varsity was state runner-up in Class 4A. Similar to those Layden-coached Northwestern squads, he wants to employ a lot of set plays, and also wants to run when transition opportunities present themselves. He plans to tailor the team’s style in a given season to the strengths of the squad.
“We are thrilled to welcome Coach Russell to our Western Panthers coaching staff,” Western athletic director Aaron Hyman said. “Coach Russell brings a fresh perspective and a wealth of knowledge that will undoubtedly benefit our players and our overall program. We are excited about the positive impact he will have on our Lady Panthers.
“Coming from Northwestern, Coach Russell has a good understanding of our Hoosier Conference opponents and through competing against us over the years, he knows how hard our student-athletes at Western work.”
Russell got moving Wednesday night, holding a meeting to introduce himself to the team’s parents before open gym in the evening.
“I’m very excited,” Russell said. “I’ve met with all the assistant coaches from last year. I think they’re all going to stay onboard, which eases my anxiety a little bit because they already know the girls, they know the school. They can kind of guide me through the way, especially this first year.
“I’m just excited for this opportunity.”
