On February 3rd, Highlands head varsity basketball coach Kevin Listerman reached the 212th win of his coaching career. The reason for the significance of this is throughout his years of coaching, Listerman has been known for his saying, “212, turn it up”.

While some may look at this in confusion, unsure of what it means, students and athletes here at Highlands High School are well aware of the phrase’s meaning.

Listerman said, “At 212 degrees, water turns to steam, and when water turns to steam it can drive an engine or do just about anything. So we talk about raising our level one more degree so we turn from hot water to steam, and then we can cause change. And the best part is as the water molecules spread out, it’s easy for other water molecules to raise their level. So it’s a combination of individuals doing it, and then collectively doing it.”

212 career wins is a great achievement for coach Listerman, especially considering the state the basketball program was in when he took the job. He took many steps to rebuild the program.

“I think the first thing was the belief that we could get back to where we were, and the second part was an investment in people both in terms of my staff and getting young people excited about playing basketball for Highlands. And we get great people in the right spots, we believe in the system and the work, and we get to bear the fruits of that right now.”

Senior Will Herald noted that change helped the program.

“It was really just a big culture change. He opened up a lot more chances for students to play, and really he just advertised our team to everyone else and because of that we had a bunch of younger kids such as myself and players like Sam Vinson and Luke Mueller comes in who wanted to work and because of that we were able to have great success.”

Along with 212 career wins, this season marks the fifth straight 20+ win season for the Birds. But even with all the success,  Listerman made it clear that the road to state will be challenging.

“The district is going to be tough. We’re gonna have to play a good Newport Catholic team to get out of the district and obviously, Newport beat us, and then in the region, the top 8 teams are separated by just a couple of points in every game.”

Be sure to support the Birds any chance you get as they start to wrap up the regular season and begin their postseason run.