Jason Speer steps down as Bloomington North boys basketball coach

Bloomington North is losing the coach who helped steady its boys program for nearly a decade, and the change lands with real weight because Jason Speer is not leaving the building, just the bench and the athletics office. Speer is stepping down after nine seasons as the Cougars’ boys basketball coach and will also step away as assistant athletic director, while remaining a teacher at Bloomington North.

That makes this less of an exit than a handoff, but the program still faces a major pivot. Speer’s run gave North two sectional championships, a 127-83 record with the Cougars and enough statewide respect that he was named an assistant coach for the 2025 IndyStar boys’ Indiana All-Stars. Athletic director Andy Hodson praised Speer’s work with the boys program, a familiar role for him in North basketball circles after he previously stepped down as the Cougars’ boys coach in 2017 to focus on athletics administration.

Speer’s impact at North goes beyond the nine years he spent in charge of the boys team. He coached the school’s girls team for two seasons, giving him 11 total years on the sidelines at Bloomington North, and a 2022 profile traced his connection to the program back to 2001, when he first worked there as an assistant coach. He also brought experience from Columbus North, where he coached the boys from 2008 to 2015, before returning to Bloomington North.

The recent high points matter because they came in games that were tight enough to define a season. North won the 2022 sectional title in overtime, beating Bloomington South 32-28, then followed with a 43-41 win at Center Grove in 2023. Those results gave the Cougars a recent postseason identity that the next coach will be expected to protect immediately, especially as summer workouts and offseason planning begin to set the tone for the 2026-27 season.

The job now is bigger than filling a vacancy. Bloomington North is a program with a deep memory, from the 1997 team that finished 28-1 and won the state championship, the first Bloomington squad to reach the state finals in 37 years. That standard will hang over the search. Speer’s departure closes a long institutional chapter at North, but it also puts the next coach on the spot to keep the Cougars winning while preserving the structure that kept them relevant.