Kalsto lands Lions hoop job

LAMOILLE — Brent Kalsto landed the P.E. teaching job at LaMoille High School in July. On Monday night, he added to his job description.

Kalsto was named as the new varsity boys’ basketball coach for the LaMoille/Ohio Lions co-op at Monday’s LaMoille school board meeting. He succeeds Terry Nelson, who departed after four years to take over as head coach at St. Bede Academy.

Kalsto, 33, coached eighth grade boys’ basketball the past four years at Putnam County Junior High School in McNabb. He said he is excited to come to LaMoille and get his first taste of varsity basketball and the atmosphere that comes with it.

“Being my first (varsity job) and being up at the next level, I’m just excited for the Friday nights,” Kalsto told the BCR Monday afternoon. “We had a pretty good following at junior high at our place. Brent (LHS athletic director Ziegler) talked about how they filled the place there. I’m looking forward to that.

“I don’t know much about the team I’m going have there. I’ll do the best I can to get them ready fundamentally. We’ll play hard and see how far that takes us.”

Kalsto, a graduate of Serena High School and Northern Illinois University, said his junior high teams had some “decent success and held their own” in the Little Tri-County Conference. He worked summer camps with former Putnam County High School coach John Slingsby, whom he calls a great mentor.

“Slick was a big part in mentoring me. I looked for him for advice,” Kalsto said. “That was huge for me. I got behind the scenes look to see how it’s like at the high school level and I got to be around a couple good teams and a couple good players.”

The Lions graduated 11 seniors from a 14-12 team last season, the first year of the L/O co-op. LaMoille won its first regional championship in 2007-08.

Kalsto will make his debut as Lions coach on Nov. 30 against his alma mater, Serena in Little Eight Conference play.

Ziegler said Monday he is still looking for an assistant coach to help Kalsto as former assistant Brett Cawley followed Nelson to St. Bede. Ziegler had interviewed one other candidate for the varsity job, he said.