Whiteland didn’t want to leave its boys basketball coaching vacancy open for too long — and less than a week after the sudden departure of Matt Wadsworth to Edgewood, the Warriors have their man.
Nate Cangany, who spent last season as the head coach at Hauser, was formally approved as Wadsworth’s replacement at a school board meeting on Tuesday night.
"He will bring great enthusiasm and passion to our school," Whiteland athletics director Ken Sears said of Cangany. "He is very organized, and while he is young, he has 11 years of coaching experience and has had some great mentors. He will hit the ground running and hope to build on the foundation coach Wadsworth set the past seven years."
Cangany steered the Jets to a 12-14 mark and a Class A sectional final in his lone year at the helm there despite losing eight seniors from the 2017-18 season, when he had served there as the coach-in-waiting alongside interim head coach Griff Roth.
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Prior to that, Cangany spent two seasons (2015-16 and 2016-17) as the coach at Waldron. The 30-year-old also has worked as an assistant at Franklin College, Rushville, Eastern Greene and Morristown.
Though he enjoyed his time at Hauser and had anticipated spending many more years there, Cangany says the opportunity at Whiteland was too good for him to pass up.
"For me and my family, it’s a great location," he said. "And for me professionally, it puts our family in a much better situation."
And after battling numerous larger schools with the limited resources that come with being at a Class A school, Cangany is eager to head into such matchups with a more level playing field.
He inherits a young Warriors squad that has just a handful of players with meaningful varsity experience back from last year’s 9-14 team, but having dealt with similar challenges at his previous stops, Cangany is up for this one.
"At Hauser, we had no experience back (last season)," he said, "so what we were able to accomplish — to win 12 games and get to a sectional championship — we were proud of that."
