VERMILLION COUNTY, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — Over the last few days, the lights have shone down on the football fields at North and South Vermillion High Schools, not for a game, but to remember a coach.
After a battle with cancer, Ben Blank has passed away.
This football season was Blank’s second as an assistant coach with South Vermillion. Wildcats Head Coach Corey Miller said Blank came to practice every day, ready to help others, and kept his personal life to himself.
“He told me that being here was his way to escape everything else”, Miller said. “This is his church and coaching football was how he got away and escaped all that other stuff.”
Before Blank arrived at South Vermillion, he spent a decade as an assistant football coach at North Vermillion. Head Coach Brian Crabtree said their families were close and putting others first was just Blank’s personality.
“He did so well right up until recently when he went into the hospital”, Crabtree said. “Ben wasn’t the kind of guy to want people worrying about him; he was the kind of guy to worry about people.”
Crabtree and Blank’s teams, in the 2010s, were consistently some of the best in the state, including the 2014 team that captured the 1A state championship.
North Vermillion Athletic Director Martin Brown said, even after he began coaching at South Vermillion, Blank still taught at North.
“We were part of a family, we stayed together”, Brown said. “We went through so many great times and a few bad times, but it’s always love for one another and just family.”
Even now, Blank’s friends said his impact will continue.
“It’s not going to be the same without him around here, but it’s definitely better because he was here.”
Both North and South Vermillion football teams will be playing their opening round of sectionals with heavy hearts, just days after Coach Blank’s passing.
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