Criss Beyers of Warren Central and Kathie Layden of Northwestern have been chosen as Indiana’s nominees for the National Federation of State High School Associations national basketball coaches of the year.
Beyers guided the Warren Central boys to a 32-0 season in 2017-18, including a 54-48 victory over Carmel for the Class 4A state championship. He has a 63-15 record in three seasons with the Warriors and a 76-25 mark in four years as a boys’ basketball head coach.
Beyers served 27 seasons as a boys’ basketball assistant over four stints – 1979-80, 1982-95, 2001-12 and 2013-15. In between, he was a men’s basketball graduate assistant for one season at Indiana University (1981-82), the girls’ varsity coach for five seasons at Bloomington South (1995-2000) and the boys’ varsity head coach for one season at Martinsville (2012-13).
His teams have won three sectional championships – one with the Bloomington South girls (1996), one with the Martinsville boys (2013) and one with the Warren Central boys (2018). His teams have won the past two Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference championships and claimed the 2018 Marion County Tournament. Overall, Beyers has been in coaching for 37 of the past 38 years. He was voted the Marion County Coach of the Year in 2017 and 2018.
Beyers is a 1975 graduate of Bloomington High School North. He earned his bachelor’s degree in physical education from Indiana University in 1982 and a master’s degree in education from Indiana Wesleyan in 1994.
He and his wife, Debbie, have two children – daughter, Dara, and son, Crisstopher.
Layden directed the Northwestern girls to a 29-1 campaign that included a 63-42 triumph over Greensburg for the Class 3A crown. She has compiled a 98-45 slate in six seasons with the Tigers and holds a career record of 280-145 over 18 seasons as a varsity coach. She went 171-90 in 11 seasons at Tri-Central and 11-10 in one season at Western before taking over the Northwestern program.
Layden is a 1994 graduate of Taylor High School, where she played four years each of varsity basketball, volleyball and tennis. She received a basketball scholarship to the University of Evansville, playing four years of basketball and one year of tennis for the Purple Aces.
She began her coaching career in 1998-99 at Tri-Central as an assistant coach before becoming head coach at that school in 1999-2000, guiding the Trojans to Class A state championships in 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Layden was a coach in the North-South Indiana All-Star Classic in 2004, and she was an assistant coach for the Indiana All-Stars in 2006. She was inducted into the Howard County Hall of Fame in 2010 and currently teaches eighth-grade health and physical education at Northwestern Middle School.
Layden and her husband, Jeff, have two daughters – Madison, 16, and McKenna, 13.
