This post was provided by News Now Warsaw

By Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw

I am not one to make predictions.

I am in the high school sports business, and any parent will tell you they can’t predict what one teenager is going to do at any given moment. So how foolish is it to try to predict what five teenagers will do? Or 10? Or 20?

But there are a lot of things to be excited about as we begin our journey through the 2025-2026 school year, and I’d like to share a few of mine.

How does the Warsaw football respond to last season?

The Tigers turned a 3-3 season into a historic trip to the state championship game in 5A in 2024. But a huge chunk of that team graduated last spring, and replacing them is going to be difficult.

Their skilled people on offense will be the strength of the team, but the starting offensive line and several of their backups have moved on.

Defensively, the Tigers lost eight starters to graduation, and one of their most highly thought of younger players will miss the season after shoulder surgery.

The junior varsity team was 4-4 last season, and that group and a sophomore class that had a good freshman season last year will be counted on to play a lot early — ready or not.

But Bart Curtis is still the coach, and he’s not interested in hearing about “rebuilding seasons.”

How will the Indiana Northern State Conference look this year compared to last year?
That question is a little complicated, since last year was the first year of the new league and no one really knew what to expect last year.

I would expect this year to be better, and I would expect it to get better and better with each passing year. The 2026-27 school year will be a big year, since everyone will have played everywhere in the conference at least once. It will start to settle down and we will wait to see where the rivalries will start to pop up.

Maybe more than the results and outcomes this season, I am wondering if there will be a school or two that might look at the makeup of the conference and see themselves being part of it moving forward.

Right now, there are six schools in the NISC and the perfect number is eight.

I have some ideas of schools that may want to make that leap, but I will not mention any school names here. I think that it would be incredibly irresponsible of me to do that.

The big challenge here is the invisible line that exists between Eastern Time and Central Time. How high can Jordan Randall jump?

The Warsaw senior won the state championship in the high jump as a junior this summer and has already cemented his place in Warsaw athletics lore by what he’s done so far.

He’s regularly posted jumps over 7 feet high. That’s a big deal in high school track and field in any state, but when you consider he’s only 5-feet 7-inches tall, it makes his work even more impressive.

If you need a mental picture of what that’s like, take a measuring tape and measure any door frame in your home.

Chances are, they are 7 feet high.

That means JR is getting his entire body higher than that!

He was a star running back and a wonderful point guard through elementary and middle school, but we all totally understand why he’s focused on one sport.

You do that when the Olympics could be in your future.

Can the Warsaw girls basketball team get back to the state finals in February?

They lost Indiana All-Star Brooke Winchester to Ball State, and that is significant. She was a double-double machine last season and seemed to be the player who took and made the biggest shots of the season when he team needed it most.

They also lost their best leader in Abbey Peterson and their best role player in Braylie Chastain.

But there are two almost guaranteed Indiana All-Stars still on this roster — Brooke Zartman and Joslyn Bricker — and plenty of supporting cast to have another big season.
The schedule is more difficult, and the Hall of Fame Tournament is waiting for them during Christmas week.

We’ll see if they are up for the challenge.

Can Whitko repeat its feat from last year?

I think they could, if things come together right.

How much are local families using the new IHSAA transfer rules?

I predicted that it would be slow at first, and I am sticking by that prediction.

I predicted that it would be used more in the metro areas of Indianapolis and Hamilton County, Fort Wayne and South Bend, and I am sticking by that, also.

I am wondering how much will coaches be forced to work to “recruit” the players already on their own teams to keep them from transferring somewhere else?

I am wondering how just that thought alone will empower parents to become even more like agents and try to leverage their coaches and athletic departments for more playing time or for coaching changes.

There are a lot of other things to look forward to, but not enough room here to talk about them all.

Be ready … it’s about to crank up again!

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