Matt Luce applied for the Wapahani boys’ basketball head coaching job in 2002 but didn’t get the job his first go-around.
Now in year No. 18 of the current head coach’s tenure, Luce and the Raiders are 324-98. They’ve won six Delaware County titles, six sectional championships, two regional championships, one semistate title and were the Class 2A State Runner-ups after falling in the 2023-24 state championship game.
The accolades speak for themselves, but it’s not just the results that Luce has helped the Raiders achieve. He wanted to change the culture and wanted the community around his hometown of Selma, Indiana to feel pride.
But most importantly, he wanted to help build a place where his family could thrive.
“We wanted our kids to learn from athletics and to be involved in the entire community,” Luce said. “The best thing about it is through these years of working with our own children, we've been able to get other families involved that have got an opportunity to improve and learn from sports.”
‘I wanted to help change that’
The Luce family and the connection with Selma did not start with Matt. His grandparents are from the area and it has spread down to the current generation.
Luce’s love of sports started with his dad, Mike, who served as a teacher at Shenandoah for nine years and was an assistant coach for the boys’ basketball team. Mike went on to help build the youth sports programs at Wapahani, with the basketball league currently celebrating its 50th season.
“He was phenomenal with youth sports and was ahead of his time,” Matt said. “He coached second grade basketball, third grade basketball and all of our baseball teams. There are so many people that he influenced throughout Delaware County.”
But while he was helping other kids get into sports, he made sure his son was getting attention as well. Every week, Mike would take Matt to watch Wapahani play. It didn’t matter the opponent or what time the game started. They were there for every home game.
“We had a connection with our school, and that's when it started for me,” Matt said.
When Matt and his older brother, Joe, began to play basketball for the Raiders, Mike made sure to celebrate with them.
Before every high school game his sons played in, he would decorate their rooms with signs and grab stringers from the doors after every game. He would also leave his job at General Motors early and stop by the MCL cafeteria in the Muncie Mall to bring them pregame meals before every contest.
While it’s common now, Mike videotaped every game his sons played in. Whether it was basketball or baseball, Matt still has all of the footage on VCR tapes.
“I think it was a way of keeping him quiet, too,” Matt said. “Instead of coaching and yelling from the stands, he knew that was not a positive thing. So he videotaped to stay quiet, but he wanted us to know how important it was to see us on video … We all watched a lot of those games and made a lot of corrections.”
Matt said his three sports heroes were Mike, former Wapahani and Delta head coach Paul Keller, and Brian Dudley, Wapahani’s longtime former baseball head coach.
“Those are phenomenal coaches, but they’re better people,” Matt said.
After four years of high school basketball and baseball, Luce attended Purdue University and played baseball for the Boilermakers. That’s where he met his wife, Marie. At the time, she wasn’t a basketball fan unless it was watching Purdue games.
“I had to be a [basketball fan.] It was that or not to be around him,” she laughed.
After graduating with a business degree, Luce wanted to become a head basketball coach. He had coached at the junior varsity and middle school level but wanted to move up. After two years of working in Texas, Matt and Marie moved back to Indiana after the factory they worked at shut down.
Once he returned to the Hoosier State and got a teaching degree at Purdue, Matt started coaching at Fountain Central with Joe. After his brother left, Matt became an assistant coach for the varsity boys basketball team at Crawfordsville High School. After a few more stops at other high schools, Matt interviewed for the position at Wapahani for the first time.
“The truth is, if I would have gotten the job, I probably wouldn't have stayed very long,” Matt said. “At the time, I was just trying to become a head coach and was searching for bigger and better things.”
But after a few more stops, the job was open once again ahead of the 2007-08 season during a Raiders streak of 10 losing seasons.
“Wapahani had been struggling there … and there was just not a lot of pride in the basketball program,” Matt said. “I wanted to help change that.”
‘A team that people were proud of’
His first assistant coach to join him was Chris Willis, a Wapahani graduate who is currently in his final season with the program. Together, the two began working on a plan to change things.
“The vision at that time was to make it where the program had pride, whether it be wins or losses,” Matt said. “We just wanted to have a team that people were proud of. Coming in, our vision was for [the program] to look a lot like when we went to school. We didn't win every game, but we had a lot of pride in our community.”
Part of the idea was to use the youth program Mike started years ago to feed the team. Matt knew this was important for success, and is still something the varsity coaching staff still incorporates to this day.
“I spend every Saturday morning refereeing and organizing that league,” Matt said. “Then on Sundays, for the last 18 years, I’ve been in charge of the East Central Indiana Basketball League, which is a competitive league throughout four counties.”
Using those programs has helped get the kids around Selma interested in the sport. They also get to play at halftime of the junior varsity and varsity games every time the Raiders play at home.
In his first season, Wapahani finished 13-8. In the last four seasons, the team has been 85-11, the highest winning percentage in the entire state of Indiana for boys’ high school basketball.
Matt said that’s because players like former Raider — Delaware County’s and Wapahani’s all-time leading scorer — Isaac Andrews and current player, junior Camden Bell, have watched from behind the Wapahani bench since they were young.
“The [current] juniors and seniors have grown up watching Wapahani basketball,” Matt said. “They have grown up with me and our coaching staff, wanting one day for their opportunity to shine … Now it’s their turn.”
But Matt has had something else other than success in his time coaching the red and white. His kids have been a part of both basketball programs.
His oldest son, Drew, played for him from 2016-20. His oldest daughter, Lauren, attended Wapahani from 2019-23 and was a part of the Lady Raiders’ teams that won the 2022 and 2023 Delaware County championships.
Right now, the final wave of Matt’s kids is helping the program continue its success.
Matt’s youngest son Nate — who plays for his father and also is a part of Wapahani baseball — said the time he gets to spend with Matt is something he’ll never take for granted.
“We have a good bond through basketball, even baseball," Nate said. “It’s an unbreakable bond.”
Matt’s youngest two kids — junior twins Megan and Emily — compete for the Raiders’ girls’ basketball and volleyball teams. Over the last three years, the two have helped the Raiders girls’ basketball team to a 54-18 streak.
For them, they all realized how important basketball was to their family at different times. For Nate, it was when his mom was pregnant with the twins. During a game, Wapahani fans threw diapers at Marie to celebrate the news. At first, Matt was not pleased. However, he was reminded by Mike what it represented.
“At the time, I was embarrassed and mad because it was taking away from the game,” Matt said. My father [Mike] said, ‘Hey, how stupid are you? Do you realize how neat this is and how special this is, and how much money this is going to save you, too?”’
‘18 years’
While the family loves basketball, Nate said he and Matt are pretty good at ending the basketball mindset once they leave the Wapahani gym. The same goes for Megan and Emily. However, one thing that doesn’t ever go away is the families’ competitiveness. Even board games can get out of hand.
Marie agrees that she is the most competitive out of the crew and has had to cut back on playing games. While she wasn’t originally a basketball person, she is known to be a vocal supporter in the crowd.
“My mom would always tease me that I needed my water bottle and my sucker to keep my mouth [shut] from yelling and being too loud,” Marie said.
With this being Nate’s final year and the twins only having one more year left, this generation of Luce kids is almost at the end of their Wapahani athletic careers. Matt has coached his youngest son his entire life but knows this was always going to happen one way or another.
“We knew one day that when these three get to high school, there's going to be an end to the Luce kids playing on the basketball teams,” Matt said. “It’s a wonderful thing and a bad thing … I've been waiting for this for 18 years.”
Over the last four years, Nate has been a part of the winningest Wapahani boys’ basketball classes of all time. He’s also one of the first Raiders to ever lead Wapahani to a state championship game amongst other accolades. To him, knowing that the Luce family has been connected with the name across his chest gives him pride.
“It’s so special. My grandparents and my great-grandparents have been through this corporation and it’s so special and fun,” Nate said.
To the twins, it’s the same motivation.
“It just makes you want to carry it on and be a part of it even more,” Emily said.
The girls’ team is 18-4 on the year and will open the state tournament Saturday, Feb. 7. Their opponent is to be determined. For the boys’ squad, they are 15-1 and ranked as the No. 1 team in Class 2A. Their goal is to return to the state finals.
Matt said he wants to keep coaching for as long as he can. Being the assistant principal and athletic director as well, he wants to make sure the growth he’s seen around the athletic program continues.
“When you come to a Wapahani basketball game on Friday night, you're not only showing off the high school basketball team,” Matt said. “You're going to show off our cheerleaders, our band, youth basketball teams and our choir. You're going to show off our student section. Even though it's not a big school, there's going to be 50 kids standing in that cheer block. I just think that there's a beauty to it.”
To him, one of the moments that showed that his work has helped the community was in last year's state championship game. As the Raiders were trailing with little time left, he called a timeout so the four Wapahani seniors could be honored. The little town of Selma filled almost two full sections of Gainbridge Fieldhouse, and as the whistle sounded, the Raider faithful gave them a standing ovation.
It’s still something that Matt thinks about often because of where the program was when he started.
“Emotional but proud. There were so many friends and alumni that either I played with, or I've watched growing up at that game,” Matt said. “... I think it's what's been built. They just want to cheer on a bunch of good guys. And again, we tried year after year after year to win the county tournament. We tried year after year to win the sectional.
“The guys that have the gray beards and who have been with me for 18 years [and have seen] the improvement and the growth of our program, they know how much it meant to all of us to be there.”
But in the end, there is one thing that stands out amongst the rest.
“When I came here, Nate was six months old. The twins were born here during my first year of basketball,” Matt said. “Is it because we have some secret sauce? No, not at all. It's the fact that my family is involved and we have an entire family of youth players, middle school players, and high school players that are invested and want to be a Wapahani Raider.”
Contact Zach Carter via email at zachary.carter@bsu.edu or via X @ZachCarter85.
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