Karras leaving South Central for Michigan City

Updated: July 21, 2011 1:13PM

In a perfect world, Jeff Karras would have stayed at South Central and continued building the football program into a perennial power.

But his one year there was anything but perfect.

The on-field stuff was great — Karras led the Satellites to 10 wins and their first sectional championship. But the commute — a lengthy, circuitous route from his home in Gary to his teaching job at Rich South in Illinois to his coaching job in Union Mills, then back home to Gary — was miserable.

So after no teaching jobs opened up at South Central, Karras resigned his post two weeks ago to take a teaching and assistant coaching job at Michigan City. He’ll be new Wolves coach Michael Karpinski’s defensive coordinator.

“As hard as it was to say goodbye to the kids and to everybody — they were very good to me over there — nothing was happening as far as teaching jobs, and I couldn’t do that again,” Karras said. “I’m excited — it’s a nice lifestyle change for me. I’ll have more time for my family, and my gas bill will go way down.”

Mel Hay — who succeeded Karras at Clark in 2003 — has taken over at South Central after serving as Karras’ defensive coordinator last year. Karras said he made sure Hay was on board before resigning, because he didn’t want to leave the Satellites “high and dry” so close to the start of two-a-days. Hay is keeping the rest of the staff intact, and Karras doesn’t expect much to change in his absence — including the success the team enjoyed last year.

Hay actually ran a good portion of each South Central practice last year, as Karras usually didn’t make it from Rich South to South Central — a 53-mile trek down U.S. 30 — until around 4 p.m.

“I’m rooting for them,” Karras said. “They’re going to be good again this year, and they have the potential to build a great year-in and year-out football team. Hopefully the program’s better off than when I got there, and Mel can do a good job for them.”

Karras will be teaching Read 180 — a computer-based program designed to raise reading ability — at Michigan City. He said Karpinski’s enthusiasm and smashmouth style mesh well with his own coaching style.

“It’s going to be awesome,” Karras said. “Hopefully we can turn it around.”

Karras said it was tough to leave South Central, but that the kids and administration understood his predicament.

“It’s a little bittersweet,” Karras said. “But it’s not bitter enough to make me want to do that commute again.”

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