
Senior staff writer
Newly hired Southport girls basketball coach Adam Morelock is anxious to coach his first home game in historic Southport Fieldhouse.
“It has to rank among the top five in all of high school basketball anywhere,” said Morelock. “And we’ll get to practice there all the time. Can’t wait to get the girls going.”
Morelock was announced last week as the coach with the approval of the Perry Township Board of Education. He met later with team members and parents in anticipation of the 2017-18 season.
An 11-year veteran, Morelock said he has studied video of the Cardinals, who relied on the one-two senior punch of guard Emma DeHart, 16.1 points, and 6-2 center Jaelencia Williams, 15.7 points and 9.3 rebounds. Eight Cards are expected to return.
Looking ahead to his first season at Southport, Morelock said, “We will have a lot of returning players who are talented. They will have the opportunity to step up into many roles. We are looking to develop leadership first and then working with the girls.”
The Cardinals will use the auxiliary gym for their offseason preparation because the fieldhouse floor will be replaced this summer.
Meanwhile, he and his family will be preparing to move to the Southside. He, and wife Delaney have two girls, Lucy, 7, and Emma, 3. He was putting the finishing touches on renovating their farmhouse when the Southport position opened.
“I am moving into a quality situation,” Morelock said. “Southport has a great basketball tradition and a high-level program that has won a state championship and is always competitive. They definitely have a top-end schedule.”
He moves from 3A Western to 4A Southport, which competes in the metro area and Conference Indiana.
“It’s a definite upgrade, and there isn’t any better basketball in the state than what is played in the Indianapolis area,” said Morelock, the team’s fifth coach in nine years.
A big jump
Morelock was an assistant on Western High School’s 3A state championship team in 2014. He served as head coach going 7-17 two years ago and 1-22 last year with a young team that scored only 23.7 points per game.
He did most of the scouting and game video breakdown as an assistant at Western.
Previously he served as an assistant coach at Greenfield, Southwestern (Shelby County) and Rushville high schools.
He is a 2002 graduate of Greenfield Central and has degrees from IUPUI and Indiana Wesleyan.
Morelock succeeds the successful one-year tenure of Bart Collins, who guided the Cardinals to their first winning season (15-7) since 2006-07 and the school’s first share of the Conference Indiana title.
Collins said he wants to get away from the politics of coaching and enjoy more family time with his wife and baby girl.