Sometimes the timing just works out.

Dan Bubon felt as if his time was winding down at Howland. Holding the head coach position with the Tigers for the last decade, he thought things had probably run their course. Around the same time, the same position for his hometown team opened up.

For the 1991 Harding graduate, the timing was too perfect.

In April, Bubon was named the next head coach at Warren G. Harding High School, taking over a program he had once both played and coached for.

“It was like a perfect storm at Howland,” Bubon said. “My son’s graduating this year, our athletic director is leaving her position and I’ve been with her for 10 years there. This was my third head coaching job, and it almost seems like you have a feeling when things have run their course at a certain place. Not that anything was going bad, but a lot of stuff is changing here. At that exact moment, Coach (Keelyn) Franklin resigned at Harding. And that job came open at a school that I graduated from, I’ve taught there for 31 years, I’ve lived in Warren my whole life and the thought was that this would be an interesting time to make this move, almost like a perfect time. In the timing of my coaching career, this is my last coaching stop. Hopefully I’m here for a while, but however long it lasts, that will be it, so if I was ever going to go back home, this was the time that was going to happen.”

Bubon has been a head coach in the Mahoning Valley since 2003, coaching at Champion (2003-11), Liberty (2011-16) and most recently Howland (2016-26). He got his start coaching as an assistant coach on the girls basketball staff at Harding from 1995-99 and coached the boys junior varsity team from 1999-2003.

When the job had opened up, Bubon heard from many in the community hoping he would apply. After receiving the job, Bubon was overwhelmed by the positive support he’s received.

It’s been a humbling experience.

“Anybody that lives on the northwest side of Warren probably sees me walking whenever the weather is good, and just the amount of people that have stopped me, pulled their car over and talked to me, people through the neighborhood that I don’t even know, that have come up to me and asked me about applying for a job or talking basketball after I got the job,” Bubon said. “It surprised me. It surprised the heck out of me, let alone the people that I’ve known all throughout the years involved in the program that have called me and texted me. The amount has shocked me. I grew up at a time when the gym was filled for every game, for Harding and Western Reserve and in every gym around here. You don’t see that now in any gyms around here. I was shocked by the people that honestly still cared about high school basketball.

“It kind of humbles you a little bit to be honest, that they would think I’d be a good fit for the job. Now comes the hard part. Now you got to do a good job to show them that they weren’t wrong in wanting you to take the job. People at the school, administrators at the school, former coaches, all were very supportive.”

Bubon is quite familiar with the Harding program, and not just because he coached there in the 90s. Since taking the Howland job, his teams have battled with Harding in some down-to-the-wire thrillers. Bubon mentioned that it wasn’t always that way however, and those games are one of his favorite parts of his time with the Tigers.

“When I took the Howland job 10 years ago, that was at the time when Howland was just getting into the upper tier of the AAC, and no one thought (they were going to be able to compete.) Howland hadn’t really played Harding much for a long time, and that was one of my big things of taking that job. I liked the challenge,” Bubon said. “I liked the challenge of how Howland hadn’t beaten Harding in 30 years, and within three years, we beat them. Then lately, the last five years, most of the games have been great. That’s one of my biggest things from my time at Howland that I’m proud of, is that we brought that back into a rivalry.”

Now that he’s on the other side of the rivalry again, Bubon hopes to undo that work.

While noting there will be some emotions in those games, Bubon doesn’t think it’s going to be as special without the added bonus of proving people wrong.

“Going to the other side, I guess my goal is to take it back to where it used to be, where Harding dominated for a long time. I think it was a bigger deal when I was at Howland to prove that we could play against Harding than going back the other way,” he said. “I don’t want to say it’s going to be another league game, because it won’t be. I know a lot of people over there, but proving you could compete against Harding was going to prove a lot of people wrong, and I was happy that we were able to do that.

“Going the other way, you’re gonna see people you know, and there’ll be mixed emotions there. When the game starts, it does just become a game. I don’t know on this side that there’s all that much to prove. You’re trying to win, hopefully we’re the better team going in, that’s yet to be determined. But I think for me, it was probably more meaningful on the other end because people didn’t think you could do it.”

Some coaches enter a program knowing that they’ve got a lot to do to build a team. For Bubon, it’s the opposite. The Raiders aren’t in a rebuilding state, and he knows it. He’s just looking to steward the program and put his stamp on it.

“The program is not in bad shape at all. I think Coach Franklin, overall, did a great job. Two years ago, they were a miracle shot against them away from probably being in the state championship game for the first time in school history. Massillon Perry made a miraculous shot in the regionals to beat them, and Massillon Perry ended up in the state championship game, and that was probably going to be Harding just two years ago. Last year, everything that could go wrong went wrong for that team. That was not a bad Harding team. They lost a lot of close games and dealt with a lot of injuries. It isn’t like you’re taking something that’s broken and you have to fix it. You’re just looking to put your stamp on it.”

That stamp is a bit of a throwback, but one that should translate well.

“I hope that when you see us play, we remind you of the late 80s, early 90s ‘Runnin’ Raiders’,” Bubon said. “Up and down the court, hard, full-court defense. That’s what we’re looking to put in, and they’ve done some of that in the past. That’s usually been our identity when we’ve had the athletes to do it, wherever I’ve been and I think we do have that. … But like I told the kids, I’d like to get up and down the court and score 70-some points a game, but I’ve got to see if you guys can do it. You have to have the skill level to do it, and you have to get yourself in great shape, so that’s what we’re aiming towards. But it’s a long time from now to December, so we’ll see.”