Austin Schlabach’s basketball origin story is probably not all that different from a lot of kids Indiana: A boy and a basketball, shooting on a hoop in the backyard.
Schlabach did not have dreams of playing for his high school team, however. He did not know if he would even attend high school. Schlabach was raised in an Amish family near Shipshewana, a community of 850 residents in Northern Indiana that is home to the third-largest Amish population in the country.
In the Amish tradition, children go to school through eighth grade and then go to work. Mark Schlabach, Austin’s father, grew up in an Amish family a few miles away, near Middlebury and Northridge High School. Mark was a good player. Really good. He played three or four nights a week in pickup games and Amish leagues.
But he quit school after sixth grade. He was home schooled the next two years while he started a business building pony carts.
“I was a Northridge fan growing up,” Mark Schlabach said. “We would go to the Northridge-Westview game every year. I wasn’t allowed to go to high school, though. I tried my hardest, but I wasn’t allowed.”
At Westview, roughly half of the students are Amish. According to the Department of Education enrollment numbers for the 2024-25 school year, there were 142 seventh-graders and 171 eighth-graders, but the high school classes were between 80 and 86 students.
Austin assumed that would probably be his journey, too. His older sister, Nora, did not go to high school. She went to work at her father’s business, Shipshe Trailers. But when Austin was about 10 or 11 years old, Mark and his wife, Linda, decided to leave the Amish community.
“To start with it’s a little scary,” Mark said. “Because you don’t know what is on the other side. There’s a decent amount of difference. You have electricity in the house and you aren’t driving a horse and buggy anymore. It’s a different way of life. Not faith changes. But it’s just different.”
Mark said the Amish have been more lenient about children attending high school in recent years than they were when he was going through school. But he said the decision to move away from the Amish lifestyle was not about Austin’s basketball future.
“Austin was young at the time,” Mark said. “I’m a business owner and just kind of put my head down and work. But at some point, it wasn’t the way of life we wanted. We weren’t really thinking about high school when we did it.”
Austin played Warrior Youth basketball in elementary school. But even after moving from Amish to “English,” Austin said he was not sure if high school basketball would be in the cards.
“I didn’t fully know if I was going through high school,” he said. “Usually Amish people stop after eighth grade and go to work. I was just going to go to work and start making money for the future. But I just kind of picked it up and started going with it.”
Mark and Linda said they would support Austin’s decision to attend high school if that was his choice. There have been some Amish previously to play basketball at Westview. Dennis Wingard, a tough defensive guard on the 2018-19 team, grew up Amish. Norman Miller, a 2017 Westview graduate, worked at a local furniture company for two years before returning to school and later becoming a Butler student manager.
“Either way, they would have supported me,” Austin said of his parents. “If I go work at a job and get money, they would be happy with that, or go through and play basketball. My dad just wanted me to focus on one.”
It appears, considering Schlabach’s ascension as one of the top junior players in the state, that he made the right choice. The 6-1 guard is averaging 19.7 points, 5.6 assists and 5.4 rebounds for Class 2A state finals-bound Westview, which is 27-1 and ranked No. 3 in the state going into the state finals on Saturday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse against No. 4 Parke Heritage (26-4).
Schlabach has been on a remarkable tear through the Warriors’ tournament run. He scored 33 points in Westview’s 63-59 win over No. 7 Gary 21st Century in the regional, then put up a combined 50 points in semistate wins over Lapel and Fort Wayne Bishop Luers.
Chandler Prible has had a front-row seat to watch Schlabach’s progression. He averaged 15.6 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.8 assists as a sophomore, but has improved his efficiency numbers (61.2% field goals, 39.5% 3-point shooter) across the board as a junior.
“Honestly, it was all down to him,” said Prible, in his fourth year at Westview. “The sky is the limit because he can score at all three levels and he’s typically the best athlete of his matchup at the guard spot. It’s pretty exciting to see him get the results from all the work he’s put in. The guy is in the gym all the time. He deserves it and he’s earning it every single day.”
Westview has a 1-2 punch few other 2A teams can replicate with Schlabach and 6-4 senior Kaden Grau, who averages 18.1 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists and shoots an eye-popping 51.1% from the 3-point line.
“They feed off each other,” Prible said of Schlabach and Grau. “When we practice, they are usually going against each other so they get to compete against another high-level guard.”
The relationship between Westview and basketball is deep. Rob Yoder, who played at Westview and coached the Warriors for 18 seasons, said once said: “This is probably one of those places where you could go the games in the ‘70s and ‘80s and come back now and it feels like home. You won’t see a whole lot different.”
The school, a consolidation of Shipshewana-Scott and Topeka in 1966-67, has two dozen sectional titles, seven regional championships and two state titles – Class 2A in 1999 and 2000 – to its credit. At home games, the Amish fans fill the top half of the bleachers after tying their buggies to the fence outside the gym.
“They’re all about it,” Prible said. “They really, really support us. I’ll have people stop me when I go into a store somewhere and say, ‘Oh, you are the basketball coach,’ and want to come over and talk basketball. It’s awesome. The whole community seems to have the same passion and same love for it. It’s pretty special.”
There is, of course, “The Westview Whistler.” Dan Byler, a Westview graduate, has been performing the pregame whistling routine at games – home and road – since the early 1980s. He sticks his thumbs in his mouth and whistles loudly as the crowd claps in unison and belts out, “Beat ‘em up, beat ‘em up, rah, rah, rah!”
“It’s awesome,” Grau said.
Schlabach said the decision to attend high school could not have worked out better. Part of his motivation is for his father, who did not have the chance to play in high school.
“I think that’s what it’s so special,” he said. “I do it for him because he never got the opportunity.”
Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649. Get IndyStar’s high school coverage sent directly to your inbox with the High School Sports newsletter. And be sure to subscribe to our new IndyStarTV: Preps YouTube channel.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Austin Schlabach did not know if he would attend high school. Now he’s Westview’s star
Reporting by Kyle Neddenriep, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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