Lee Bennett never played a minute for Centralia High School, but in 19 years on its sidelines, he has become as “Orphan” as they come. Growing up in Alton and Pittsfield, the son of a high school coach, Bennett wasn’t destined for this program by birth. Instead, his path wound through small-school gyms and eventually back to Alton, where he and his brother were building something special. But fate—shaped by strong showings in the Centralia Holiday Tournament—brought him east. “Mr. Lane approached me with an opportunity,” Bennett recalls. “That was only 19 years ago.”

Nearly two decades later, he wears the role with equal parts pride and gravity. “I don’t want to make it sound negative, but you feel a burden. You feel a responsibility. You feel excitement,” he said. That responsibility goes beyond wins and losses. In a community where basketball expectations are woven into the civic fabric, Bennett knows every practice and every game carries weight not only for players but for parents, grandparents, and neighbors who have invested generations in this tradition. “It matters to a lot of people,” he said. “Most importantly, we have young people who it matters to.”

For Bennett, basketball is an avenue for teaching life skills. He talks often about accountability—showing up, working hard, being selfless—and how those lessons extend far beyond the court. “Nobody wants to hire the person that’s great at excuses,” he said. “You’ve got to be accountable mentally, physically, emotionally. It’s about everyone there, not just you.”

He models that accountability himself. “I’m not going to hold kids to a standard I don’t hold myself to,” he said. Game nights stretch late into uniform laundry and film study, only to give way to another practice the next morning. “The world is run by those who show up, and that is a life skill that we really value.”

That sense of standard connects to something larger. “Playing varsity basketball at Centralia is a pretty high level of basketball,” he said. “The expectation level that gets passed on to them is solid. If they can grasp that, it can help them come closer to achieving their life potential.”

His players may not see it immediately, but Bennett knows that decision-making under pressure—thousands of snap judgments in the course of a game—becomes training for life. “Basketball is unique,” he said. “Every guy’s the quarterback, the blocker, the tackler. Everybody has to have all the skills. And kids, like you said, make a thousand decisions. Some of them are good, some are bad, but they’re learning.”

Beyond the season, his role as athletic director widens the scope of his influence. He helps host countless tournaments and events, including the Centralia Holiday Tournament, one of Illinois’ proudest traditions. Dating back to 1942, the tournament was born when World War II gas rationing canceled Pontiac’s event. Centralia stepped in, and with it began a legacy. Teams still travel from across Illinois—and now even from Florida—to play in the fabled Trout Arena. “You have adults now who talk about how they looked forward to getting tickets in their holiday stockings,” Bennett said. “And kids from out of state come here and walk in and go, ‘Whoa.’ They don’t get to play in this kind of environment anywhere else.”

That environment—both old Trout and today Trout—has shaped generations, creating memories for players and pride for townspeople, whether they ever touched a basketball or not. “When your Orphans win, everybody in this community feels a little piece of victory,” Bennett said.

He laughs at how often he hears the same question, no matter the season: Coach, how are the Orphans going to be? He takes the weight of those expectations seriously, but he never lets it pull him backward. “It’s always about forward,” he said. “It’s tomorrow, it’s next season. That’s what it is.”

For Bennett, the job feels like carrying a bag of sand on his shoulders—one that grows heavier as the season approaches, then empties out in the spring, only to be refilled again by summer workouts. But he wouldn’t trade the load. Because in Centralia, carrying the weight of Orphan basketball means carrying the pride of an entire community and, judging from our 40-minute conversation, I am confident Coach Bennett has the shoulders for it.