Warren Central hires former standout DeAndre Brock as boys basketball coach

Warren Central chose continuity over a clean break, hiring DeAndre Brock as its new boys basketball coach and turning the program back to one of its own. Brock is a Warren Central alumnus, a former standout player and an assistant who has already spent eight seasons on the Warriors’ staffs, giving the school a familiar voice at a moment when it needs to protect its place among Marion County’s top programs.

The move comes after Criss Beyers resigned in March following a 6-16 season and a 58-50 loss to Lawrence Central in the Sectional 10 semifinals. That record followed a second stint at Warren Central that began in 2023, after Beyers had spent four seasons at Franklin Central. Now the Warriors are asking Brock to carry a different kind of pressure: preserve the standard that has defined Warren Central basketball while also lifting a team that did not look like itself last winter.

Brock’s background gives the hire real basketball weight beyond the homecoming angle. He previously worked on the staffs of Greg Graham and Beyers, and he was part of the 2017-18 coaching staff when Warren Central went 32-0 and won the Class 4A state championship. The IHSAA still lists Warren Central among its boys basketball state champions in 2018, a reminder of the ceiling the school expects its next coach to chase, not merely remember.

What Brock inherits is a roster and a program that need direction more than reinvention. The first concrete test will be whether he can stabilize the day-to-day culture quickly enough to keep returning talent engaged and make the Warriors look sharper from the start of next season. His own background as a senior all-county and all-conference player in 2004, plus the perimeter record-setting numbers attached to his Warren Central playing bio, point toward a coach who understands how much guard play and spacing matter in a program that has long expected to score, defend and compete with pace.

Brock also arrives with broader leadership experience. He spent the past five years as athletic director at Phalen Leadership Academy and previously went 13-11 in one season as Howe’s head coach in 2019-20. Warren Central had already been part of his path before, as he applied for the job in 2019, and the school’s leadership now gives him the opening he had long pursued. For Warren Central, the decision reads like a commitment to identity, not nostalgia, with Brock tasked to make the Warriors matter again on the Indianapolis side of the county.