by
Richie Hall
Sports Editor
Hamilton County Reporter
The Hamilton Southeastern athletic department announced on Wednesday that Brian Satterfield has been approved as the Royals’ new girls basketball head coach.
Satterfield succeeds Chris Huppenthal, who retired this past season after 16 seasons as head coach of the Southeastern girls. While Satterfield will be a new coach for the girls, he is a longtime Royal: Satterfield coached the HSE boys basketball team for the past 20 seasons, where he had tremendous success over the years, with a 322-151 record, three sectional championships and nine Hoosier Crossroads Conference titles.
Satterfield is looking forward to this new opportunity, as he told the Reporter Wednesday night.
“It’s a great opportunity,” said Satterfield. “The biggest thing is Coach Huppenthal has done a tremendous job with the girls program. Going to be moving into a situation where they’ve got a great foundation. They’ve got four starters coming back, so from that standpoint it’s exciting.”
Just as important, if not more so, Satterfield said that moving to the girls program was a family decision. He said that he “was about 50/50 whether I wanted to do it or not,” but then his daughter made a comment to him about “how she loved when I was coaching her, the interaction we had and that type of stuff,” and that was a big factor in his decision.
“When she just said that to me out of the blue, that to me was a little sign,” said Satterfield. He also thought back to his high school days, when he and his brother played at Plainfield. Satterfield’s father was the principal at Tri-West, which made for situations where he didn’t always get to see his sons play – “he has to go up to Lebanon to watch sectionals,” Satterfield said.
“We are excited to have Coach Satterfield as our next head girls’ basketball coach,” said Southeastern athletic director Jim Self in a statement on the HSE Royals Athletic website. “Brian is a Royal, in the process of hiring a new coach it was clear his passion for Hamilton Southeastern and for coaching basketball. We spend a great deal of time in the athletic department talking about Family First. I believe Brian has made a decision that focused on what is best for his family. Brian is excited for the new challenge and we are excited for our program.”
Also on the website, HSE principal Jamie Ulmer said, “A great coach is organized, prepared, knowledgeable, self-aware, and committed to the development of individual players and the success of the overall team. Starting with the 21-22 season, our girls basketball program will be led by a coach who has a proven history of exhibiting all of these qualities and more, and that coach is Brian Satterfield. We are excited for our players, our families, and our community as we begin the next chapter in HSE Girls Basketball. We have a winning tradition with the Program, both on the court and off, with a State Championship in 2019 and countless success stories involving the young women who have come through the Program. With his demonstrated success with the HSE Boys’ Basketball Program since 2001, we feel confident that Coach Brian Satterfield is the right person to continue the tradition of excellence in Royals’ Girls’ Basketball. We look forward to watching Coach Satterfield bring his many talents to the Girls’ Program as he builds on the foundation of success established by Coach Chris Huppenthal and his predecessors.”
The hiring of Satterfield as the girls basketball coach became official at the Hamilton Southeastern school board meeting Wednesday evening. Satterfield said that today will be the first time he will “really touch base” with the girls on the team, as they have an open gym.
Prior to coming to Southeastern, Satterfield was an assistant at Madison, Triton Central and Avon, then assisted former Royals coach Larry Bullington for two seasons before becoming the head coach. Satterfield has twice been named IBCA District Coach of the Year, and coached back-to-back Mr. Basketballs: Gary Harris, who was recently traded to the Orlando Magic after seven successful seasons with the Denver Nuggets, and Zak Irvin, who is currently playing in the Super Basketball League with the Bank of Taiwan.
Satterfield also coached two NFL players: Retired Indianapolis Colts player Joe Reitz and current Dallas Cowboys defensive end Randy Gregory.