Seymour head coach Kirk Manns pumps his fist alongside Marcus Brooks after an Owls victory this past season. Manns was named IBCA District 3 Coach of the Year.
Jennifer Regruth | For The Tribune
Six Indiana high school boys basketball coaches were voted as 2022 Bob King Coaches of the Year by their peers in the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association on Tuesday afternoon, and Seymour’s Kirk Manns was one of them.
IBCA Executive Director Steve Witty said voting occurred from late January through early March. Honors were awarded according to Indiana High School Athletic Association district boundaries, and two coaches from each district were recipients.
Travis Hannah of John Glenn and Marc Urban of Chesterton were selected in District 1, Ben Rhoades of Mt. Vernon (Fortville) and Justin Ullom of Monroe Central were selected in District 2 and Manns and Brent Dalrymple of North Daviess were selected in District 3.
Manns won IBCA District 3 Coach of the Year after guiding Seymour to a 15-7 season that included a runner-up finish in the Hoosier Hills Conference. It was the Owls’ first winning season in 15 years.
Manns is now 33-34 in three seasons as the Seymour coach and his sixth year at the school after moving there initially as only the Owls’ athletic director. He has an overall high school coaching record of 161-122, including a 128-88 mark in 10 seasons at Fredericktown High School in Ohio.
Before becoming a coach, Manns had an impressive playing career. A 1986 graduate of North Judson, he totaled 1,962 career points and led the state in scoring as a junior and senior with respective 33.0 and 34.2 averages. He was first-team all-state in both basketball and football as a senior.
He then attended Michigan State, scoring 1,212 points for the Spartans, helping the team to a Big Ten title and the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament as a senior. After college, Manns played professionally in Sweden for two years and then was a college assistant to Bob Donewald at Western Michigan for seven seasons, including a 21-8 squad in 1997-98 that won the Mid-American Conference Tournament and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Manns served as boys basketball coach and athletic director at Fredericktown from 2001 to 2011, then was athletic director at Mansfield (Ohio) Madison from 2011 to 2016 prior to moving to Seymour for the 2016-17 school year.
Manns is the first Seymour head coach to win this award since it began in 1972-73.