Lewistown girls basketball has a new coach after old one is promoted to AD. Meet him here

Joey McLaughlin is the new Lewistown athletics director for the 2024-25 school year.

This also means McLaughlin has resigned as the girls basketball coach following three seasons. He’ll handle duties as a Lewistown assistant principal next school year, too.

“I’ll miss (coaching) every day,” he said. “It’s kind of the reason I went into education. … I do like the idea of still having my hands in everything as the athletics director.”

McLaughlin's replacement, Carl Beebe, was approved last week to take over at the one of the area's most successful programs, located in Fulton County about 40 miles southwest of Peoria.

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“They don’t want the athletic director to coach,” said McLaughlin, who is the current Lewistown Elementary School principal. “They look at it as they want coaching evaluations done and they don’t necessarily want another coach evaluating coaches. It would be like teachers evaluating teachers. They’re trying to stay away from that.”

McGlaughlin, a 2002 Lewistown grad, took over the girls job from longtime coach Greg Bennett following the 2020-21 season. His coaching experience included six seasons as a boys basketball assistant, before becoming a girls assistant in 2015. He also had two stints as the Lewistown softball coach.

Beebe, 57, coached at South Fulton prior to his hiring at Lewistown, winning five Class 1A regionals and making back-to-back Elite Eight appearances in 2014 and 2015. He went 283-196 in 18 years on the Rebels sidelines before stepping down earlier this month.

“I know the wins,” Beebe said. “I try to forget the losses.”

Beebe is ready to hit the ground running, embracing the Lewistown fans, bowl-style gymnasium and gifted players.

“I’ve had a great respect for their culture and their tradition over there,” Beebe said, “I’ve seen them for 18 years and it seems like they have talent every year. They have a buy-in with their kids.”

Lewistown is coming off a Class 1A regional title season, having gone 19-14 overall, and riding an eight-game winning streak before a sectional semifinal loss to Abingdon/Avon. All-Prairieland Conference-North Division second-team players Abby Wiegand and Joley McLaughlin are set to a senior and junior, respectively, next season.

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Since 2017, the Indians have won five regional championships to go with a 2019 state third-place finish and a 2020 state runner-up trophy. Lewistown went 178-66 (.730) in that seven-year span.

“I think they still will be very competitive,” Beebe said, “the next couple of years and then after that, I think they have some real talent that can fit a lot of pieces.”

Added McLaughlin, “I could not be happier with the move to make him the head coach, I think it’s an amazing move for our program and is going to be really good for the girls. His experience speaks for itself. … Everything I’ve seen since I’ve been on the girls basketball side of things, he does an amazing job. He gets absolutely everything out of his girls.”

Any chance Beebe, who works for Forreston Mutal Insurance Company, can get Bennett back on the bench to help out?

“He has volunteered to be an unpaid consultant for me,” Beebe said with a laugh. “I do have his number.”

Adam Duvall is a Journal Star sports reporter. Email him at aduvall@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @AdamDuvall.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Lewistown girls basketball promotes coach to AD, hires new coach