On February 21 a new king of Indiana high school basketball was crowned.

With a 63-24 win over Northview on senior day, Bloomington High School South’s J.R. Holmes became the winningest high school coach in the history of the state with 807 victories to his name over nearly five decades. If somebody had told the coach at the beginning of his career that he would reach this milestone, he wouldn’t have believed it.

“I would’ve bet them a million dollars to a dollar that would not be true because I didn’t plan on staying but four or five years when I started,” Holmes said. “I got a degree in mathematics and I was gonna get me a job out in the business world and get rich. That didn’t work out too well so instead of getting out in 5 years now I’m heading toward 50 years next year.”

That career in business got derailed when Holmes set a goal that would take him over a decade to complete—winning a sectional. The coach nearly did it in his first season. His 1970-71 Tunnelton squad went 18-5 but ended its season with a heartbreaking 54-52 overtime loss to Bedford in the sectional championship game. That’s where the drive to win a sectional started.

“Just the competitiveness got into me that I had to win the sectional before I got out,” Holmes said.

He nearly did it again in 1978. His Mitchell team fell to Bloomington South 53-50 in the sectional title game. A few years later, Holmes took over as the coach of the Panthers and a few years after that he finally won his first sectional title 15 years after starting his career. After that milestone, that same team later won a regional title and raised Holmes’ goals and expectations.

“After I won the sectional and we went and won the regional the same year then I wanted to win a regional every year, then we went to the final four and then you want to do that every year,” Holmes said.

The Panthers have risen to those expectations as in 36 years at South, Holmes has now won 20 sectional championships, including the last five in a row, and a pair of state titles.

South will look to take home another trophy this weekend in regionals at Seymour. The Panthers will take on Jeffersonville on Saturday at Noon in the first round. If they win that game, they’ll go on to play either Jasper or Center Grove later that night in the regional championship game.