A Coaching Pioneer

Not that he really wants to, but Randy Carpenter has a few stories to tell.

The humble, unassuming former girls basketball coach at Lexington High School has been out of the game for 13 seasons now. The times have surely changed since he stepped on the floor with a girls basketball team on December 10, 1974.

In a tote, in his basement he still has the scorebook from that history-making 1974-75 basketball season in Lexington. The very first for girls in the state of Nebraska; there would be no state tournament until two years later.

Lexington 38, Grand Island 23. 

And so his journey went, a total of 768 games – he has every scorebook -- in those 37 seasons. Two state championships and two more state finals appearances; 13 state tournament appearances and 12 Southwest Conference titles. 

He won 492 games, a career worthy of his induction into the Nebraska High School Hall of Fame. We caught up last Friday and earlier this week after he was honored on December 15^th with the John Wooden Legacy Award by the Nebraska Basketball Coaches Association between games when Lexington hosted Northwest. 

“I suppose when I started, it was just going to be a few years and then I’d find a good boys head coaching job,” Carpenter said. “But with each year it just got to be in my blood.”

He arrived in Lexington after a bit of disappointment. 

A Dawson County kid, Carpenter graduated from Overton in 1966 after leading the Eagles to the Class D state tournament that season. They lost in the semifinals to Elgin St. Boniface. He went to school at Nebraska-Lincoln and signed up for pre-dentistry. 

“I knew my heart wasn’t in it (to be a dentist),” he said. 

So, he pursued teaching and coaching and landed in Elm Creek after graduation. After the 1972-73 season, he thought he may earn the head coaching job there after the head coach retired to farming, but it didn’t work out. 

Then Lexington principal Ray Ehlers called. He wanted to build a girls basketball program at the school; though the sport was still not sanctioned by the Nebraska School Activities Association.

“I wasn’t real sure what to expect, but I liked the idea of being able to be a head coach and having my own program,” Carpenter said. “And Ray was way ahead of the curve; our program was immediately ahead of other schools.”

You can’t build a program like Carpenter did anymore – with all the skills coaches and summer select ball – in Lexington. In 1974, it was just hard work that started with some intramurals to gauge interest and then practices sometimes before and after school. 

That first year, the Minutemaids were 9-2. By the time the NSAA started district and state tournament play in 1976-77, Carpenter had a program most envied.

In the first two years of the state tournament era, Carpenter’s teams were 41-2. They were 19-0 heading into the first Class B state title game before being upset by York, 39-38. In 1978, they blitzed through the Class B field winning three state tournament games by 23, 26 and 15 points and finished 22-1.

In Lexington, Carpenter did it the old fashioned way. Introduce the game in fifth or sixth grade PE class, build a junior high program with good coaching of fundamentals and then have kids “work up the ranks” by playing junior varsity before they get to the varsity team. 

“We tried some clinics and camps for kids,” he said, “but even that didn’t really work out. I wanted the kids to be three-sport athletes and we’d take them and work with them to be basketball players.” In today’s age of specialization, those words come off as a breath of fresh air. 

The state tournaments came in spurts. 

There was a three-year run from 1986-88, losing a heartbreaking semifinal in 1986 to Hartington Cedar Catholic before reversing the same decision in the 1987 state title game. Another year three-streak from 1991-93, losing in the state finals to Lincoln Pius in 1991. In his final 20 seasons, as the game changed, there would be only nine more state tournament games and two more wins.

“I think our early success contributed to my enthusiasm for the game,” he says. “We just always had great kids and parents all the way to the end. They listened well and were very coachable. We couldn’t always do everything we wanted, but our kids were easy to teach.”

In that mid-1980s run, Carpenter coached through two monumental changes in the girls game – the advent of the 28.5 inch small ball and the three-point line. He believes they changed the game in so many positive ways.

“Kids were able to handle the ball so much better (with the small ball),” he said. “And, they could shoot it with better form which made the three-point shot an exciting thing as well.”

It was just before this that Carpenter worked to perfect his swarming man-to-man defense that the Maids became known for.

“We had played some zone for a while,” the coach said, “but we wanted to be known for good, pressure defense. We liked to create some offense out of it as well. We just wanted to play great defense, not turn the ball over and take good shots.”

Basketball has certainly changed since Carpenter left after the end of the 2011 season. He knows from watching the state tournament each season. As a whole, he believes it for the better, but he’s not sure if he could coach in today’s environment.

“I think we are damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario anymore,” he said. “The skill that the players today have is just amazing; the understanding of the game is so much better. 

“But, we are playing so much more, too. And with club and summer ball it seems like we decide who is going to play in fifth grade. I am not sure I like that, I think it’s why participation is down so much. No one works their way up through junior varsity anymore.”

As Carpenter’s career continued, younger coaches looked to his Lexington program as a model for how to build a team that was built around the town. Current York coach Matt Kern was trying to do the same near the end of Carpenter’s Lexington career. He called the five minutes during warmups against the Maids “my favorite part of the season.”

“I looked forward to our trips to Lexington every year,” Kern said. “I picked his brain for years and still talk to him and his wife every year at the state tournament. I would have loved to have seen one of his practices.”

Near the end of his career, Carpenter worked with the Daubert / Pinnacle Bank girls all-star team that traveled nationally. A pre-cursor to today’s summer basketball world.

Yes, Randy Carpenter has seen it all in girls basketball. But his legacy was evident last Friday when scores of former players came back to his court to see “coach” honored. 

He coached moms and then their daughters. College players. State champions. And everything in between. He has paid the game forward for players today. 

“I think the best thing about being a coach is that when you see your players years later,” he said, “and they tell you that you had an impact on them.”

Yes, sometimes basketball is about so much more than wins and losses. It’s about the lessons learned; on and off the court. In Lexington, the man they still call coach, has all the scorebooks to prove it. 

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