MASSILLON — If there is a central theme to Josh Hose’s career in athletics as a player and coach, it’s adaptability.
He’s figured out paths for himself and his teams to find success. And when it comes to his current team, it doesn’t get much more successful than this.
Hose is the head coach of the Massillon boys basketball team. He is a man building a winner on the hardwood in a town that eats, sleeps and breathes football. His 25-1 Tigers are in a Division II state semifinal against Lima Senior (22-4) on Saturday, March 21 at Wright State’s Nutter Center. Tipoff is set for 1 p.m.
Watch Ohio High School Sports Live on NFHS Network all year
This is the first Massillon boys basketball team in 81 years to make a state tournament appearance. Only one Massillon team has made it to a state championship game. The 1936-37 Tigers coached by Paul Brown (yes, that Paul Brown) lost 37-32 to Hamilton.
It’s fitting that Massillon’s greatest basketball season was guided by one of the greatest coaches in football history.
Hose is a 1998 Massillon graduate. He played football and basketball for the Tigers, so he knows full well the shadow football casts in the community and on every other sport.
“It is hard,” said the 47-year-old Hose, in his eighth year as Massillon’s head coach after a successful seven-year run as Tuslaw’s girls basketball coach. “Every coach in every sport wants the attention that they feel like they deserve. Being here, football is what Massillon is known for. It’s always going to be like that. It’s probably no different than being the basketball coach at Ohio State. It’s not a negative thing. There are a lot of positives to it.”
For example, Hose feels like he rarely loses transfers because most good athletes want to stay and play football in Massillon.
Hose also pointed to the high standard that comes with being associated with head coach Nate Moore’s football program. The Tigers are 107-20 the past nine seasons, with three state runner-up finishes and the 2023 Division II state championship. Massillon has beaten rival Canton McKinley 10 straight times on the football field.
“I told the kids this week is going to be a lot like McKinley week in football,” Hose said of preparing for state. “There are going to be a lot of things going on. A lot of distractions. But they’ve played in big playoff games and state title games. It’s a benefit to us. They’re competing at a high level every Friday against some of the best teams in the state and the country. I guess it’s all about perspective. We’re not where we’re at right now if we don’t have our multi-sport guys.”
Three of the Tigers’ starters play football. Senior Jadyce Thigpen and junior Giorgio Jackson Jr. are wide receivers. Junior Braylon Gamble is a safety. They join senior Isaiah Lamp and junior Xavier Williams in the starting five.
Offensive lineman Marcus Garner Jr. and linebacker Isaac Maxheimer play off the Tigers’ bench.
In an era of specialization, Hose does what he can to make it work with kids that want to play multiple sports.
“I think it takes collaboration,” Hose said. “You have to have give and take. I tell the guys all the time, you don’t have to be at everything in the offseason or the summer. But try to be at things when you can. You have to be real with the kids. If they just had a hard football workout, they may not be able to give you a lot in a basketball game in June. But I tell them I appreciate you just being here. It’s a big step for your teammates.”
If Hose comes close to a genuine gripe about football, it’s the lack of preseason practice time. Long playoff runs in football (which are typical at Massillon) mean abbreviated preseasons for the basketball team.
“I have to chuckle when I talk to other coaches and they have that football team that has a deep tournament run,” Hose said. “They say, ‘Oh man, we’re going to have to bump our games back. I’m only going to have 16 practices with our full team.’ I think my second year, we had four practices, then we played three games in four days. You just roll with it.”
Hose has helped transform a talented group of athletes into a true basketball team. Massillon has four players averaging double-figure points — Williams 16.2, Jackson 15.7, Thigpen 14.8 and Gamble 14.1. Lamp and sophomore sixth man Terrion Wells average 8.7 points each. Five players average at least 2.3 assists per game, led by Gamble’s 6.3.
Massillon averages 80.7 points and 20.2 assists on 29.8 field goals a game.
“Coach Hose does an amazing job every day,” Gamble said. “I think it’s our practice that helps us succeed. He pushes us every day and challenges us to do the little things, the little things that we don’t want to do, but they’re the winning things. It just translates to the games.”
Gamble believes the intense Hose has adjusted his coaching style a bit to better fit his players’ loose demeanor.
“He is the stereotypical player’s coach,” Gamble said. “He’s all for us. Taking time out of his day, taking time away from his family just to be with us. We respect Coach Hose and love him very much.”
Speaking of that family, Hose and his wife Lindsay (Nelson) had a busy weekend. Sandwiched around Massillon’s regional final win on Saturday were their fourth-grade son Hudson’s birthday on Friday and their third-grade daughter Aniston’s birthday on Sunday. Their other son, Landon, is a sophomore on the basketball team while their other daughter Corigan is in eighth grade. Hose is quick to point out that any athletic talent and height for his children can be attributed to their mother, a three-sport athlete at Tuslaw in her day.
Coaching is in Hose’s blood. His dad, Butch, was a longtime teacher, coach and administrator at Massillon. Now 80, Butch and his wife Becky will not miss one of their son’s games. Butch said he had a heart procedure done Thursday of last week and joked with his doctors that they needed to hurry up and get him ready for Massillon’s regional final two days later.
Butch adores this team and lauds the job his son has done coaching it.
“I think he made them a family,” Butch Hose said. “He disciplines the kids. You have to have discipline to be a winner. The group learned to play together. They are very fun to watch. Sometimes, they’re almost too unselfish. He works with them all summer long and he has a good time with them. And they fight for each other.”
This Massillon-Lima Senior state semifinal is of special interest to Matt Creamer. Now the Canton Central Catholic head coach, Creamer coached both Hose and Lima Senior head coach Quincy Simpson as players at their respective alma maters. Simpson’s senior year was Creamer’s first year at Lima Senior. Creamer came to Massillon in Hose’s junior year and coached him for the first two of his 15 years with the Tigers.
“Those coaches, they’re at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to athleticism,” Creamer said with a chuckle. “Quincy was a go-to guy. A 6-foot-2, lanky guard. He had all kinds of unbelievable skill. He understood the game. Good defensive player.”
Hose wasn’t a go-to guy. But he played an important role on very good Massillon teams featuring Marco Morgan, Angelo Edwards and Slobodan Ocokoljic.
“He was a team guy, would do all the intangibles,” Creamer said about Hose, whom he remains close with to this day. “He’d take a charge. Get on the floor after a loose ball. Get that extra rebound or deflection. He understood the whole was more important than him. He was a good teammate and a good player to have around.”
The common connection between Simpson and Hose?
“Both of those guys were students of the game,” Creamer said. “They loved the game.”
Creamer, who led Massillon to its last district title in 2003 before this year’s team, says he isn’t rooting for anyone Saturday. He’ll be in attendance and just wants to enjoy the show. But he does favor Hose in one regard.
“I’m excited for both of them,” Creamer said. “I’m probably more excited for Josh because I know what he’s up against at Massillon. It’s a football school.”
In football, Hose was a quarterback and safety growing up, then realized he may never see the field at those positions as a varsity player.
So he figured out a different route. He became Massillon’s kicker. Josh and Butch would go out in the woods and kick footballs between trees to simulate knocking it through the uprights.
“It’s not a glorious position,” Hose said with a laugh. “Everyone knows you’re either the hero or the zero. My dad used to tell me that all the time.”
Hose was good enough to serve as the place kicker for three years for Massillon and another four years in college at John Carroll.
In basketball, Hose is a classic example of the role player who evolves into a coach.
He hustled. He found open teammates. He knew where to go on offense and defense. He wasn’t caught up in himself. He viewed basketball through the prism of the team.
“It helped me learn the game,” Hose said. “I was not the most athletic player, so I had to learn how to play the game well and understand the nuances of it all. Being around great mentors in my coaching career helped advance that.”
Those mentors include his dad.
Butch Hose coached a variety of sports in his day. He is best known for being a long-time assistant coach for the Massillon football team.
But that may not be what he’s most proud of during his coaching career. He took over the Massillon cross county program for a season, leading the Tigers to an undefeated record.
“I told them I didn’t know a doggone thing about cross country but I know how to win,” Butch said. “I said, ‘If you stick with me, we’ll win.’ And Josh has a little bit of that same candor and attitude.
“I’ve always said a winner is a winner. A winner will find a way to do it.”
Reach Josh at josh.weir@cantonrep.com
On X: @jweirREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Massillon coach Josh Hose building basketball winner in football town
Reporting by Josh Weir, Canton Repository / The Repository
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
