After a semi-successful seven-year stint on the boys side, longtime area head coach Gary Andrews is officially back as a girls head varsity basketball coach. The rumored news became fully official Monday that Andrews will take over the Huntington North girls basketball program.
Andrews spent seven years leading the North Side boys, taking over the program just a year after they made a state finals appearance in Class 4A. The exit of several players to graduation and transfer heading into Andrews’ first season leading North Side forced the Legends into a bit of a rebuild early; Andrews’ teams were 2-20 and 1-21 in first two seasons, but flourished after that.
North Side had three winning seasons in the past five under Andrews after the rebuild start. During those winning seasons, the Legends won two Sectional titles in 2022-23 and 2023-24, marking the first time that North Side had won back-to-back Sectionals since 2016-17/2017-18 and just the eighth time in the history of the program that dates back to the late 1920’s.
“I am not sure it was the right time to leave North Side, but it was just a great time to come to Huntington,” Andrews said. “I have been wanting to get to a community where I could control the feeder system
“I really didn’t think I would ever go back to coaching girls, but Huntington is a big basketball community and their administration did a great job selling their school and community.”
Prior to coming to North Side, Andrews had monster success on the girls side, mostly in Fort Wayne. He spent nine seasons leading the girls basketball program at Bishop Luers, culminating in a state title in Class 2A in 2001 that completed a perfect 28-0 season for the Knights. It was the third straight title for Andrews and Bishop Luers, who went 81-3 over that stretch of state titles. Andrews spent nine seasons with the Knights.
After leaving Luers, he went on to spend 14 years as the head women’s basketball coach at Saint Franics. While leading the Cougars, Andrews led them to a National title in 2014 with a win over the College of the Ozarks. That season, Andrews was also the winner of the Phyllis Holmes Coach of the Year Award. He left Saint Francis and Indiana behind to take the head coaching job at Roberts Wesleyan college in New York for two seasons before returning to Fort Wayne to take over the North Side boys.
(Heading to Huntington) was attractive because of the feeder system, the community and I will love the teaching job I will have,” Andrews said.
Huntington North went 14-10 last season under Matt Hinds, including a seven game winning streak mid season. The Vikings were led by Hinds for six seasons, during which the program had just one losing season, going 11-12 in 2023-24. They return a few key players, highlighted by star sophomore-to-be Lucy Reich.
The Vikings’ last postseason title came in 2005-2006 under Don Burton, when they won a Sectional but lost in the Regional title game; that season they went 17-7.
Andrews becomes Huntington North’s sixth different girls basketball coach in the past 25 years.
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