Article by ST Senior Writer Jim Mashek
The seeds were planted, the way Chris Decker sees it, in the 1980s.
Warren East High School had a considerably smaller geographical area, say, than nearby Bowling Green High School or Warren Central. Warren East was tucked away on Louisville Road, with a smaller enrollment than other area schools but the same kind of athletic ambitions.
Decker was a lineman for Coach Kevin Wallace’s Warren East football team, and in the spring, Wallace called the shots from the dugout while Decker served as the baseball team’s catcher. The Raiders enjoyed success in both sports, and Decker was learning the value of leadership from his coaches.
He wanted in.
“I really loved sports, growing up. I really looked up to my coaches at Warren East,” said Decker, who is retiring after 10 years as the athletic coordinator at South Warren High School.
Decker went on to enroll at Western Kentucky University, and begin his path toward a coaching career while majoring in physical education. He started lending a hand at Warren East in his undergraduate years, and before long, found himself as the head football coach at Drakes Creek Middle School, located near Greenwood.
Wallace remembers a group of Warren East kids who enjoyed working toward building a team, toward establishing a camaraderie in the locker room. He remembers guys like Chris Decker and John Keck and Eric Hughes, teenage student-athletes with a keen interest in coaching after their playing days were over.
Wallace remembers them like it was yesterday.
“Warren East is a unique community,” Wallace said. “When you look back at it, a good number of kids who graduated from Warren East, say, from the mid-70s to the mid-90s, they had a lot of success. It was a smaller community. Athletics were important. A lot of those kids went into education in college.”
Wallace was Warren East’s football and baseball head coach for most of the 1980s, and he coached the Raiders’ football team through 1993, at which point he took the job at Bowling Green High School.
Decker was learning the profession at the middle school level before becoming the head baseball coach at Greenwood High School. His Gators squads reached the regional finals six times in his 16-year tenure, and in 2000, Greenwood reached the state tournament.
“Record-wise, the 2000 team was just 12-17 going into tournament play,” Decker recalled. “We won three in a row in the playoffs. Cumberland County, Logan County and Franklin-Simpson. We won the Franklin-Simpson game 7-6 on a botched pickoff play.”
When South Warren High School was preparing to open in 2010, Decker decided to pursue an administrative career at the new Warren County Public Schools campus on Nashville Road. Chris Gage, the Spartans’ baseball coach, had worked with Decker at Greenwood and kind of knew what to expect from his longtime colleague.
People skills, Gage and Wallace agree, is the constant with Decker in his organizational style.
“Chris is like the mayor. He talks to everybody,” Gage said with a laugh. “Now, he’ll do anything he can for you, unless it involves money …”
Gage had to compose himself, knowing a quote like that might produce a few laughs down the road. In his next breath, he’ll tell you what Chris Decker has meant to ALL sports at South Warren High School, in both boys and girls athletics.
And South Warren, a back-to-back KHSAA Class 5A state champion in football (2017-18), has had plenty of winners across the athletic spectrum.
“Opening the school, it was a massive undertaking,” Gage said. “(Decker) had to order all the uniforms, all the equipment. He was always at school at 7 a.m., no matter what. South Warren’s had a lot of success, in different sports, and the one common denominator was Decker.”
South Warren football coach Brandon Smith said Decker liked to delegate authority and work as a team with his coaches.
“I’d say what makes Chris Decker successful is his ability to manage personalities,” Smith said. “He’s been a key component to the entire athletic program.”
Wallace said Decker always just liked being part of a team.
“Chris was typical of a lot of kids at Warren East then,” he said. “Really good teammates, worked hard in the classroom, outstanding kids to coach. Those kinds of young men and young women often make the best coaches down the road.”
Decker will now have more time with his wife of 24 years, Shelly, a school psychologist at the Hart County School District, and their 8-year-old daughter, Ryann.
“I’m definitely not looking for a job,” Decker said with a laugh. “I’ve missed out on a lot of things, with Ryann, and I’ve got my retirement package. I feel bad about (the COVID-19 public health crisis) and the everybody’s disappointed about the spring sports. Especially for the seniors.
“But if this is the worst thing that’s happened, for all of us, then we’re actually pretty lucky.”
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