For a decade, Nick Amor’s full-time job was in insurance. While he has also spent the past four seasons as LaVille’s girls basketball head coach, insurance was what paid Amor’s bills.
In the spring, Amor said he was at a turning point in his professional life. He wondered what the next step was in insurance, if there was one for him at all.
Then, LaVille’s 15-year athletic director Will Hostrawser announced his impending retirement at the end of the 2025-26 academic year. Amor spoke with his wife and Bremen Community Schools superintendent Hope Amor, and he decided to pursue a first-time athletic director role.
In April, Amor was announced as Hostrawser’s successor. A month later, Amor officially left the insurance world to fully immerse his career in high school athletics.
“I love LaVille, so any opportunity I have to make the school better, I want to try and do it,” Amor said. “Life has a way of getting you to the right spots, and sometimes certain doors close and other doors open.”
Amor is a 2013 LaVille alumnus, who graduated as valedictorian and a four-sport athlete. He continued his basketball career collegiately at Indiana State, but he also played tennis, and ran for the cross country and track & field teams at LaVille.
Amor will also remain the Lancers’ girls basketball head coach. His combined record is 55-40 with one 2A sectional championship. Since officially starting as athletic director July 1, Amor has leaned on LaVille High School principal and boys basketball head coach Michael Edison for advice on how to balance roles as both an administrator and a coach.
Amor said the most consistent advice he has received through conversations with Hostrawser, Edison and even other athletic directors from the area is that no athletic director is ever able to walk away from their to-do list having completed every objective — and you have to be okay with that reality.
His main focus in year one is solely on the betterment of LaVille’s student-athletes. Amor plans to create a Student Athletic Council to give Lancers leadership opportunities while still in high school. He has already taken a group of student-athletes to the IHSAA’s student leadership conference in Indianapolis over the summer.
Amor was honest in saying that he feels LaVille has been inconsistent from sport to sport in how it approaches competition itself. LaVille’s only team sport IHSAA sectional championship in 2025-26 was a 1A football crown, and the Lancers will have a new coach this upcoming season in Matt Thacker after previous three-year leader Jeff Kaiser stepped down.
Amor said sustained success across the board can be achieved most through developing a mindset that high school athletics aren’t only for fun nor are they guaranteed. He believes those who approach high school athletics with a mindset of wanting to improve with each and every practice or game are the student-athletes who will be most successful, and their teammates will follow.
“I feel like it’s my job as the athletic director to create that mindset in all students and not just let it be driven by individuals,” Amor said. “I’m a competitor at heart. I’ve told my girls on the basketball team, ‘It doesn’t matter to me if you’re playing a game of Monopoly with your parents or your friends, or you’re coming out and playing in the biggest game of the season: you should approach that situation with the same mindset.’ I want to compete and win.”
Kyle Smedley is a sports reporter at the South Bend Tribune. Contact him via email at ksmedley@usatodayco.com or follow him on X @KyleMSmedley.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: New LaVille Athletic Director Nick Amor wants to raise Lancers’ standard
Reporting by Kyle Smedley, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
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By Kyle Smedley, South Bend Tribune | USA TODAY Network
