Not once…not twice…not three times. For four years in a row, a basketball team of small town, homeschooled high school boys has claimed the championship in a national basketball tournament. This team is based in rural Kansas.
Casey Amerin is coach of this championship team. Jeff Schurle and Travis Goff from the Keats/Riley area are the volunteer athletic directors. Their team is the Manhattan CHIEF Thunder.
Casey grew up at Plains. He enjoyed playing basketball and football. He studied business education at K-State, became a teacher and coach, and met and married Rebekah. They moved to her home area near Clifton, where Casey manages LCL Buffalo Ranch and worked as a basketball official for several years.
Casey and Rebekah had four sons and a daughter. When they decided to homeschool their children, they learned of a Manhattan-area organization named Christian Homes In Educational Fellowship, or CHIEF for short.
CHIEF is a non-profit organization that provides support to Christian homeschooling families through group meetings, field trips, curriculum and athletics.
CHIEF sports include football, girls volleyball, and boys and girls basketball and golf. The team home court is at the Beacon Center gymnasium owned by Lighthouse Baptist Church in the rural community of St. George, population 639 people. Now, that’s rural.
The Amerins joined CHIEF. When their oldest son Gage became old enough to play basketball, Gage joined the junior high team. Casey made the hour-long drive to take his son to practice and eventually was asked to help coach. In 2017, as Gage moved up to the high school level, Casey became the head boys basketball coach.
