After five highly successful years as the Lehighton High School field hockey coach, Shawn Hindy has announced that he has accepted an assistant coaching position at Michigan State University.

Hindy, who is also the Athletic Director at Lehighton, made the annoucement on Thursday, a little more than two weeks after the Lehighton School Board announced it was not renewing his contract and was opening up the Athletic Director position."I'm excited about the opportunity and looking forward to being part of an outstanding program at Michigan State," said Hindy. "They are a perennial top 10 team that plays in one of the top conferences [The Big Ten] in the country."When I was out there for my interview, I loved the facilities and the people I met who were associated with the team and the university."Hindy said the opportunity with the Spartans came about when newly named head coach Helen Knull messaged him on would be interested."I've known Helen for a while and she is a great person and a great coach," said Hindy. "I got her message when things with my job at Lehighton had taken a bad turn a few weeks ago. I'm a positive person and I always believe things will work out. It turned out to be perfect timing for me."During his five years at the Indians' helm, Hindy's field hockey teams compiled an impressive 110-12-1 record and captured four Mountain Valley Conference and four District 11 titles. The highlight of his coaching career came when the 2009 Indian team went undefeated and captured the PIAA Class AA state championship. This past season, Lehighton followed that up with a second straight appearance in the state title game, this time settling for silver."As excited as I am about the new challenge ahead of me at Michigan State, I will miss Lehighton," said Hindy. "I have so many great memories and have met so many special people."I will never forget how the entire town got behind our team during the state championship season. The parade we had through town following the game was amazing. All those great things are what I'll remember. Not the negative developments of the last month."During his time at Lehighton, Hindy had 10 players receive Division I field hockey scholarships, including two more this season. He has sent dozens more players on to play Division II and III field hockey."As a coach, that's one thing that makes me extremely proud," said Hindy. "I've always preached to our players to shoot for the stars and do everything in their power to achieve their goals. We have had a lot of girls receive scholarships to continue their education and their playing careers. That's very rewarding."This will be Hindy's second stint as a college coach. Prior to taking the Lehighton job, he coached at Radford University in 2004 and 2005.He will continue to serve as Lehighton's Athletic Director until the end of March."Michigan State wants me out in April for their spring tournaments," said Hindy. "I'm still working out details with Lehighton, but I've told them I will be back and forth several times between now and the end of the school year and I'd be willing to help the interim AD in any way I can."