As a vital part of the Indiana high school basketball scene for nearly three decades, an inordinately successful Charlie Hall of Kokomo hopes to work his wizardly magic, beginning this summer, as game director of the Indiana High School All-Star basketball program, sponsored since 1939 by The Indianapolis Star. Jennifer Gomach, to whom Hall will report, made the announcement in August on behalf of The Star, which organizes the games with Kentucky for several Indiana charities.
Hall, 53, replaces Pete Smith, head basketball coach at Carmel’s Guerin High School. Smith resigned as game director last spring, shortly after taking over the program because he found it interfered with his coaching and teaching duties at Guerin and at Carmel High School. Previously he had been a successful boys' coach at North Manchester, Penn, and Carmel high schools.
Hall Spent the 2007-08 school years as women’s assistant coach at Ball State University in Muncie, IN, where he was an assistant to head coach Tracey Roller, herself an Indiana All-Star from Crown Point in 1988.
Halls coaching credentials are impeccable. Between 1997 and 2006, he lead the Kokomo Lady Wildkats to three Final Fours in the Indiana State High School tourneys-capturing the coveted 4A state championship in 2003.
For his multiple seasons of success leading the Kokomo Lady Wildkats, Hall was seven times named North Central Conference Coach of the Year. He was chosen by The Star in 2003 to direct the 2003 Indiana girls' All-Star team. He guided the All-Stars that year to a split in the two-game series with Kentucky’s girls. Hall’s team lost the opener to Kentucky 75-60 but bounced back in the return game in Indianapolis to nearly double the score on the Blue Grass girls, 112-58, the largest victory margin in the 32-year history of the girls' interstate rivalry.
Kentucky's girls reversed a definite Indiana winning steak this past summer, winning in Louisville 101-62 and broke an undefeated string on the Conseco Fieldhouse floor in Indy with a 76-59 win.The boy's 2008 series was a standoff, with Indiana winning the opener in Indy behind the 22 points and seven rebounds by Hoosier Mr. Basketball Tyler Zeller of Washington (IN) High School. Diminutive guard Larry Stone of Howe High School led the Hoosiers' in a 95-78 loss in Louisville Gardens with 12 points and three steals. Miss Basketball Brittany Rayburn of Attica paced the Indiana girls in their101-62 loss to the Kentuckians in Kentucky.
The Indiana head coaches this year were Rick Baumgartner of Muncie Southside (boys) and Kem Zolman (girls) from Wawasee.
Boys' Coaches
Girls' Coaches
