By Sean Giggy
Herald Press Sports Editor

Five regular-season conference championships, five conference-tourney championships, seven national tournament appearances, two trips to the final four, 23 all-Americans, eight conference players of the year and one national player of the year. 

That makes up just a small portion of former Huntington University men’s basketball coach Steve Platt’s resume. 

Platt retired as coach of the Foresters following last season, compiling a school-record 329 wins in 14 seasons. 

His shoes are certainly big ones to fill, but his replacement knows a little something about Forester basketball.  

Not only has new head coach Ty Platt been on the Huntington bench for three years, but also, as Steve Platt’s son, he knows how the system works. 

“I’m not a rookie at this,” says Ty Platt. “I’ve spent 12 years as a high school coach and three years here with Dad and he gave me a lot of responsibilities.” 

Although Steve Platt didn’t make a return trip to the national tournament in his final year, he was named Mid-Central Conference Coach of the Year after compiling a 22-10 record with a team that had lost two of the best players in school history in Alex Kock and Kyle Ganton. 

Kock was the MCC and NAIA National Player of the Year in 2007 and Ganton finished second in the MCC voting behind Kock and was a Second Team All-American. 

With the success Steve Platt brought to the Huntington program, the expectations of Forester fans remain high for Ty Platt. 

“Nobody is going to put more pressure on me than I’m going to put on myself,” Ty Platt says. “It’s a thing where I know it’s going to be easy to judge ‘how’s the new guy doing compared to the old guy’? Hopefully there will be a lot of similarities in our wins and losses and how we do things.” 

Ty Platt will have a good opportunity to pick up wins early and often, as the Foresters return four of five starters from a year ago. 

The only starter gone due to graduation is reigning MCC Player of the Year and First Team All-American Doug Sheckler. 

“Obviously, Doug being MCC-Conference Player of the Year, an All-American, he was just a great, great player for all four years here at Huntington University,” says Ty Platt. “His ability to score, his athleticism and all the things he could do, we’re certainly going to miss those things.” 

Sheckler led the Foresters in scoring at 18.2 points per game, was second on the team in rebounding (7.3 per game), first in blocks (45), second in steals (31) and third in assists (80). 

Sheckler missed the final three games of the year due to a broken wrist suffered in a game against Goshen College. David Lash saw increased playing time due to Sheckler’s injury and Lash finished the season averaging three points per game.

Lash has accepted an internship and will not return to the Foresters this season.

David reached a point in his life where he had to make a choice about some dreams he has for some internships and so forth,” Ty Platt says. “He’s a very bright man and a quality guy and we would have loved to have him on the team, but he had to make some decisions.”

Even though the Foresters lost some size inside, Ty Platt knows that good players leave and teams must move on. 

"Every year since Dad took over as coach at HU, people have said 'how are you going to replace this player or that player, how are we going to win without those guys'; this year is no different. I am very confident that we have players ready to step up and take the reins of the program and put their stamp on it."

“Are they like Doug Sheckler? No, but each player has his own abilities and his own talents and we’re going to go at it as hard as we can. We can’t rest on the fact we don’t have this guy anymore or that guy anymore. It has to be about what we do have and what we do have are some pretty special players.” 

Leading the way for those players will be 6’1” senior Kyle Benge.  Benge averaged 13.7 points per game last season and was second in assists with 90. 

“He (Benge) is a young man who is a 1000 point scorer for us and has played in some big time games throughout his entire career as a basketball player,” says Ty Platt. “I know that he wants to have a special, special senior year and he’s working hard to make that happen. 

The top player returning in the post is 6’7” junior Kevin Kyle.  Kyle averaged 13.7 points a game and led the team in rebounding with 7.4 per contest. 

“I think Kevin’s got the ability to be a real dominate player the next two years and somebody who can not only score and rebound, but works his tail off defensively, so he’s our inside presence to start off with,” says Ty Platt. 

The Foresters also return five players who appeared in 30 or more games last season. 

“We have a lot of depth,” Ty Platt says. “People like Tyler Shively and Luke Smith are going to be called upon to score. I could see Kellen Zawadzki having a really good, breakout year. I’d like to think Neil Stoffel is going to contribute in a major way for us. It’s time for Luke (Smith) to breakout and have a junior year that he’s capable of.  Andrew (Mock) does a great job running the show. Every player we have, I would feel confident putting any number of those guys in, even guys who haven’t gotten a lot of playing time to this point.” 

With this year’s recruiting class, the Foresters also add some replacements to help fill the void left by Sheckler graduation. 

Bobby Jolliff joins the Foresters after playing two years at NCAA division-one Eastern Illinois. 

Jolliff, 6’8”, 215 pounds, battled injuries during his two years at EIU, averaging 1.8 points and 1.6 rebounds per game. In high school, Jolliff led Hauser to an Indiana class 1A state title in his senior year. In the championship game, he recorded a triple double including a state record 11 blocks. 

“He (Jolliff) had some success at the D-I level and in high school he was a state champion, so he’s a guy that’s had a lot of success in his basketball career,” says Platt. “He’s a big guy and he’s good in and around the basket, a guy that can rebound and intimidate defensively. With his height, we think he can have a special two years with us.” 

Caleb Kennedy, 6’6”, 215 pounds, from Eastern Hancock High School will also be battling for time in the Forester frontcourt. 

Kennedy averaged 21 points and 14.8 rebounds per game during his senior year for the Royals. He finished the year second in rebounding in the stat of Indiana and had double digit rebounds in every game during his final high school season.

“He (Kennedy) has got a knack for having his hand on the ball and getting boards,” says Ty Platt. “He’s another guy that can score inside. We think we added some real size to our team this year.”

The final newcomer to the Foresters is redshirt freshman Nathan Jennings. Jennings, a 6’5”, 215 pound forward from Delta High School, made a personal decision to sit out this year and learn the Huntington system a little better. 

“Nathan wanted another year of maturity, physical maturity,” says Platt. “He wanted to do it, we wanted him to do it. He’s going to get the benefit of having five years of college basketball.” 

The Foresters also added a newcomer on the sidelines. Chase Verba, a 2006 Huntington graduate, will join the coaching staff this season.  Verba played on the Forester squad that finished runner-up at the 2006 NAIA national tournament. 

“Chase will be a good connection between past players and now,” says Ty Platt. “With the transition of me taking over, I want all of Dad’s players that played and graduated for him to know that they are still a part of this program in a major way. I think a good link to that is Chase Verba.” 

The Foresters will once again be looking to be one of the dominant teams in the MCC. In the MCC preseason rankings, they were picked to finish third. 

“I don’t know what preseason rankings do for you other than let you know the season’s coming,” says Platt. “It’s really how you finish, not how you begin. In this conference you better come to play no matter who you’re playing because there is no weak sister. The ninth team in our conference can beat the first team in our conference just as easily as number two can beat number one.” 

In fact, last season the Foresters were picked to finish fourth in the MCC, but ended in a tie with Grace College for second behind champion Bethel.  The Pilots are the preseason favorites to win the MCC again this year and Indiana Wesleyan was to finish second. 

Although the Foresters missed out on the NAIA national tournament in 2008, only the second time that’s happened in the last nine years, they have their sights set on getting back to Branson. 

“We want to compete for a conference title,” says Ty Platt. “We want to compete for a conference tournament title and we want to make the national tournament. We want to go to Branson. People will say, ‘you lost Doug or what about this, what about that’ but we feel we can be a pretty good basketball team.” 

With the depth of this year’s team, fans could see a different lineup many times throughout the season. 

“We’ve got about seven or eight guys who could start, so finding the five that are going to be in there could vary from game to game,” says Ty Platt. “Our practices might be as good as some games just for the fact that we have some guys that are going to battle each other to see who gets the minutes.” 

Although there have been slight changes including a new coach and some new players, Ty Platt expects fans to see the same Forester basketball they’ve come to know the last 14 seasons. 

“As far as changes, there probably won’t be a lot of noticeable things that people say ‘wow, this is different,’ because I want to keep it going,” Ty Platt says. “There’s going to be little things, maybe how we run practice, what comes from me on a daily basis, how I interact with the players, little tendencies that might be different, but as far as what we’re going to be running, it’s still going to be an opportunity for players to use their talents.” 

As for Steve Platt? He’ll still be around to help whenever called upon, but for the most part, he’s just a fan now. 

“We’ve got such a great fan base and support group and he (Steve Platt) is the reason for that, so I want him involved as much as I can,” says Ty Platt. “He has a wealth of knowledge and will still be at practice a lot and will be helping players on an individual basis." 

That means those seven national tourney appearances, five MCC regular season and tournament titles, two Coach of the Year awards and national runner-up will be in the crowd, cheering on the Foresters like the many fans that have come to support Huntington University basketball the last 14 years. 

But everyone, fans included, knows that despite the awards, records and trophies, this team will continue to grow and move forward beginning with this year’s squad. 

“It is time for these players to make their mark on Forester basketball history,” says Ty Platt. "Everybody is a year older, gotten stronger, improved their game, and they are ready for the challenges of making 2008-2009 a great season.” 

Expectations are high, tradition is strong and starting now, the Foresters are 0-0.