A Hancock County alum and current engineering teacher, Lisa Banta has been named the school’s girls’ basketball head coach. Banta has spent the last three years as an assistant coach to Kevin Husk and was very grateful for her time working with him.
“I am excited. It has been an honor to work under Husk for the last three years,” Banta said. “I appreciate all he has done for the program and for the girls. His diligence and hard work, and I certainly have enjoyed working for him and have learned a lot.”
Banta takes over the program with extensive coaching and teaching experience under her belt. She graduated from Hancock County in 1988 and played basketball and softball at Campbellsville University. In the 1992-93 season, she was a graduate assistant for the school before taking her first assistant coaching job at Hancock County in 1993.
From 1994-1998, she was a part of the Monroe County coaching staff as the assistant head coach, before moving to Shelby County from 1998-2001. She then took a hiatus from coaching to spend time with family, and after they moved to Florida in 2017, she returned to coaching until 2019. After moving back to Hancock County, Banta joined Husk’s coaching staff. Throughout her career even when she wasn’t coaching, she has been teaching math, before recently switching to engineering.,
This marks the first time Banta has become a head coach, a dream she has been working toward her entire career, but at one point, she didn’t know if she would ever fully realize it.
“I am excited about it and honored to be selected,” Banta said. “There is a lot of emotion that goes into it because I have a lot of love for Hancock County and have the history here. I am anxious about the opportunity, but we have a great group of girls with outstanding character and unlimited character. The future is bright for Hancock County.”
It also wasn’t lost on Banta that her first head coaching opportunity comes at her alma mater and acknowledged that it was tough to describe the emotions due to the unique perspective.
“Being able to be a part of this program, knowing what it has meant to us and so many others have made it exceptionally special,” Banta said. “For it to be my first opportunity as a head coach, even more so.”
