Wright wants to get Carmel High School football back on track • Latest release

For Kevin Wright, returning to Carmel High School as football coach made perfect sense.

Wright left CHS after the 2014 season to take the coaching job at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. After five seasons, he left CHS to accept a position as tight ends coach on former Indiana University coach Tom Allen’s staff from 2020 to 2023 when Allen and his staff were fired.

Wright moved back to Carmel that summer. He and his wife Elizabeth have family in the area. Her daughter, Trinity, 22, graduated from Indiana University and works in Indianapolis. Her son William, 19, attends IU.

“It was an opportunity to be in a good place where we could create a home base for both of us and be part of a great tradition,” Wright said. “It is a very good school system. It was exciting to have this opportunity. You are familiar with what you are getting into and with some of the people. It’s kind of come full circle.”

Wright replaces his former defensive coordinator John Hebert, who replaced Wright as head coach. Hebert won IHSAA Class 6A titles in 2016 and 2019, but the Greyhounds were 3-7 in 2024 and 5-5 in 2023.

Wright said he enjoyed his first stint at CHS, but the chance to go to IMG to take over a football program as a sophomore was hard to pass up.

“I learned so much not only about football, but about athletic performance and everything they did there,” he said. “That led to the opportunity to go to IU, coach in the Big Ten and really fulfill my dream of competing and coaching at that level.”

Wright said after the IU staff was laid off, he took time to think about his future.

“Whatever came next was going to feel right for us, and that’s exactly what happened in this situation,” Wright said.

Wright, a 1983 graduate of Sheridan High School, joined his father Bud Wright’s Sheridan High School staff as an assistant head coach last season. Bud, 83, recently retired after 59 seasons at Sheridan and is the state’s all-time leader in career football wins.

Kevin Wright won three Class 5A state titles at Warren Central and one at Carmel in 2011. His teams placed second in the first two Class 6A state finals in 2013 and 2014.

Wright will return as a CHS physical education teacher in January. Then he will begin to examine why the Greyhounds have been struggling recently.

“John (Hebert) is a good friend of mine and a great football coach and a great person,” Wright said. “I don’t think the number of kids at the high school level has gone down. It’s one of those things where it will take me three to six months to understand why things are going a certain way.”

Wright noted that 2024 was the first year since 6A’s inception in 2013 that Carmel, Center Grove, Ben Davis or Warren Central were not in the state title game.

“If you look at Westfield and Brownsburg, it’s become a very competitive field,” Wright said. “You have to fight for the kids, get them out (for football) and keep them out. The reality is how youth sports have evolved. Children are fixated on one sport or another. The older they get, the more football becomes an option. Because of this, numbers at the high school level may be higher than predicted at the Carmel Dads’ Club level.”

Wright said it was important to develop a plan to attract younger players to the team’s work at the high school level.

“You have to have depth,” he said. “One thing that hurt Carmel this year is that they had good strength in the beginning and then had a lot of injuries. It takes its toll on everyone.”