Ex-college coach returning to lead Huskie basketball squad

Chad Kills Crow, a Pawhuska High School grad who recently ended a five-year stint as a college head coach, has been named as the new boys’ basketball coach of the PHS Huskies.

Board of Education members approved the selection of Kills Crow during a Monday meeting at the School Administration Building. A contract proposing that he also coach the junior high team was tabled due to the board’s ongoing discussions about coaching assignments.

Earlier in the meeting, PHS Principal/Athletic Director Joe Sindelar said a rebuilding of the local athletic department had not been completed, as planned. Sindelar explained that an outdated “template” being used for the process did not designate enough slots for junior high-level coaches. That would result in some coaches being required to coach multiple teams at both high school and junior high levels, he told the board.

Kills Crow was approved to be high school coach by a unanimous, 4-0, vote of the board. One member, Jeff Bute, was absent. His hiring fills another key position in the athletic department following the spring resignations of seven PHS coaches.

From 2009 until earlier this year, Kills Crow coached men’s basketball at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan. Competing in the Midlands Collegiate Athletic Conference (MCAC) against NAIA schools from Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma (including Oklahoma Wesleyan University of Bartlesville), his Indians’ teams won 40 games while losing 108.

Kills Crow is of Lenape (Delaware) descent in addition to being an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. He had stated that he considered it an honor to coach at Haskell, where he had played in 1994-95 prior to returning to Oklahoma to resume his college career in Tahlequah.

Northeastern (Okla.) State is where Kills Crow’s playing days ended and his coaching career started. He went on to graduate from NSU with a Bachelor of Science degree in Health and Human Performance. In 2010, Kills Crow earned a Master of Arts Degree in Education.