South Bend native Pat Holmes takes pride in leading La Lumiere boys basketball

LA PORTE – Pat Holmes wasn’t liking the energy of his team during practice.

Instead of yelling at his players while on the court, he took them into the hallway of the La Porte Civic Auditorium. There were people on hand watching the open practice, hence the move off the court.

Everyone could still hear coach, though.

“Wake up!” Holmes exclaimed, giving a stern look to his team.

The interaction lasted less than 10 seconds, but it drove home Holmes’ point.

The seventh-year La Lumiere boys basketball coach knows his team can be special. Now, it’s about maximizing the Lakers' nine-man roster in order to win the program’s first high school national championship since 2017.

“We tell them and their families when they’re choosing this school that we’re going to coach them hard and we’re going to coach them up,” Holmes said. “The standard is the standard, right? When I pull them aside, it's because of a lackluster performance.”

La Lumiere has stayed one of the country’s top high school basketball powers under Holmes, a South Bend native. Coaching is something Holmes has wanted to do since childhood, with the passion growing during his time at Saint Joseph High School and as a student manager for the Notre Dame men’s basketball program from 2009-12.

After a year as the video coordinator for the Fighting Irish post-graduation, Holmes spent the 2013-14 season under Leonard Hamilton at Florida State. Wanting to come back home to be closer to family, Holmes returned to the area after his one year in Tallahassee.

That’s when he first made contact with La Lumiere.

“I just reached out via email saying I was back in the area and I was looking to volunteer,” Holmes recalled. “I emailed Alan Huss, who was the head coach at the time. I interviewed with him and Shane Heirman, and then Alan took a job at the University of New Mexico as an assistant coach.

“Shane was named the head coach and offered me a position as an assistant on his staff and to be the head coach of our regional team. I jumped at the opportunity.”

After a few seasons as an assistant coach of the national team — including being on staff for the national title in 2017 — Holmes was elevated to head coach following the departure of Heirman, who’s now the head coach at Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas.

Holmes’ best season was 2018-19, with the Lakers winning its first 31 games before falling to IMG Academy (FL) in the national championship contest. They went 18-10 last year but have another talented roster this season.

Only two seniors are on the team — Clemson signee Ace Buckner (originally from Cleveland, Ohio) and Steve Solano, a 7-foot center from Bronx, New York, who holds offers from both mid-major and Power-6 Division-I programs.

The only in-state player on the team is a new face to the program in junior Jalen Haralson. After two seasons at Fishers High School, the Anderson native decided to transfer to La Lumiere. A five-star prospect ranked as the 11th-best player in the Class of 2025 by the website 247 Sports, Haralson holds numerous major offers, including Indiana, Purdue, Notre Dame, Duke, Kansas, Gonzaga and Missouri.

“It was a hard decision,” Haralson said. “A lot of things went into it, but I came to the conclusion that this would be the best spot for me. I crossed all my ‘t’s,’ dotted all my ‘I’s’ and really looked into everything. I studied this decision for a couple of months, took visits, watched a lot of film of the program. I felt like it was the best spot for me.”

With plenty of Division-I talent on the roster, Haralson is setting his goals high for this season.

“I’m not scared to say it: we can win the national championship,” Haralson said. “We’ve got the guys that can do it and the coaches that can push us to do it.”

La Lumiere will play a difficult schedule once again, including hosting the La Porte Invitational for a third-straight season. The three-day event from Jan. 4-6, 2024, will see 11 of the top programs in the country descend upon La Porte, with the host Lakers playing the first game on the 4th and final game on the 6th.

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“The first one was scramble mode, just trying to get all of our ducks in a row,” Holmes said. “Early January, you just never know, weather-wise. … This year, we’re ahead of schedule. Every year, you tweak it a little bit to hopefully make it better than the year before. We feel like we have a good model in place.”

Even with another season full of high expectations on the horizon, Holmes can take a step back and appreciate where he’s at in life.

“I wake up every day knowing I’m very fortunate to have this job and love it,” Holmes said. “I get to call my job coaching basketball and coaching elite-level guys. Being from the area, it is special. My wife and I are both from South Bend, right down the road. We’ve got a bunch of family in the area.

"It’s definitely a point of pride to say I’m the head coach at La Lumiere.”

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend native Pat Holmes takes pride in leading La Lumiere boys basketball