For the first time, the girls basketball coaches involved in the fourth annual Northeast Indiana Coaches vs. Cancer Golf Outing will assist one of their own. The previous three years, the event has helped raise money for a coach’s wife, a former official and a family that one of the coaches knew.
But on July 15 at Brookwood Golf Club, former Bellmont girls basketball coach Lou Koning will be on the receiving end of the annual fundraiser.
“Lou was an easy choice,” said Norwell girls basketball coach Eric Thornton, who is on the five-person committee which chooses the recipient of the funds along with Concordia’s Dave Miller, Bishop Dwenger’s Dave Scudder, New Haven’s Gary Cobb and former Columbia City coach Wayne Kreiger.
Koning stepped down as the Braves’ head coach four years ago and has been an assistant coach since then, but is retiring from teaching and coaching this year.
Koning, 63, has battled a couple of different forms of cancers over the past few years and has coached in the Coaches vs. Cancer outing in the past. Lou’s wife, Vicky, 55, is a breast cancer survivor.
“You want things to go well for Lou,” said Thornton, who has coached at Norwell for 15 years. “He has been a good friend to all of us. It has been a rivalry over the years when Lou coached that you really looked forward to. It’s not quite been the same since Lou hasn’t been there.”
Thornton’s Norwell teams played against Koning’s teams for years, and he always thought of Koning as a competitor – something Thornton sees Koning using in his fight against cancer.
“Many of them have had the same type of experience with Lou,” Thornton said of the other members on the committee. “He was the first to congratulate you, but he hated to lose. That’s what is going to help him fight through this. He took things head on, and that’s what he is doing right now.”
Thornton said Koning’s health situation is pretty stable these days and Koning even played nine holes of golf recently and mowed a couple of lawns.
Koning has raised thousands of dollars for the fight against cancer while coaching through his free-throw charity events.
“Here’s a guy who has given and given and given for this,” Thornton said. “Now Lou is in this situation where he is battling this. Now Lou is in need and hopefully people step up.”
For more information, contact Thornton at Norwell. The entry deadline is July 8. The shotgun start event begins at 1 p.m. and $240 gets a foursome green fees, cart and a meal. Other sponsorships are available.
