Froelich looks back on coaching career

CINDY WOOD/independent feature writer

There’s one question that remains in Dave Froelich’s mind. “I really don’t know where I’m going to sit next year,” he said with a laugh.

The longtime Van Wert boys’ basketball head coach’s regular courtside seat will be filled by replacement Mark Bagley after Froelich announced his resignation earlier this year.

Capping a 34-year coaching career that began at Colonel Crawford in North Robinson and ended at Van Wert, the man known for his signature vest and passion for the game of basketball has passed the torch.

“I just knew it was time,” Froelich said. “It was tough, but I just felt that it was the right time for everybody. I have no second thoughts whatsoever at this point.”

Even still, Froelich finds himself in unfamiliar territory as the summer creeps up and, for the first time in more than 20 years, he’s not coordinating schedules and scrimmages. “All of those ‘firsts’ are going to be different for me,” he said, adding, “it’s the first time I’m not planning our summer calendar or planning the next shoot-out, so it’s absolutely going to be different for me.”

As it will for players and fans alike, who have come to respect the man who mentors his players not only on the court, but off as well.

“It’s easy to get consumed with the basketball part of it, but in reality it’s just one small part of life,” Froelich said. “I’ve had a lot of quality people to work with, not only the kids but their families as well.

“That makes it a whole lot easier to work with kids when they have the right values and right intentions of what they want to do with life,” he added. “If any of these kids can use what they’ve learned here as they move forward and move on, then that’s great.”

Hundreds of players have come and gone through the program, but Froelich’s coaching style and his passion for the game have remained a constant. Calling himself “old school,” Froelich admits he’s tough, but also says he’s never asked for anything other than 100 percent from his teams.

“We’re demanding, but I don’t think we asked kids to do anything outrageous; I’d say I’m old school in terms of our attention to detail and some of the fundamentals we stress time after time,” Froelich said, adding that each year the team operated on a basic outline that was tweaked to match each individual player’s strengths.

It’s an outline that has worked well. Under Froelich’s leadership, the Cougar basketball program has consistently churned out athletic, as well as academic, standouts, evidenced by the 2012-13 squad earning the No. 1 ranking in the state for its team grade point average.

It’s that type of accomplishment that matters long after diplomas are in hand, Froelich said. “You always want to get to the ultimate goal (a state championship); some get to it and some don’t,” Froelich said. “I was never really consumed by whether a state championship defined success.

“As important as we think winning is, it’s just one small niche in the development of a kid,” he added. “If I truly had to define success, I would say go back and look at the kind of players we had and what they’re doing now, not what they were doing when they played high school basketball.”

In what would be his last season of coaching, Froelich was honored for acquiring his 400th career coaching win, and added 20 more “Ws” before the end of the season.

Early on in his career, though, those wins were a little harder to come by. Froelich was quickly initiated into the world of high school basketball during his first career game, which pitted rural Colonel Crawford against a Dayton-Chaminade team that boasted two excellent guards — one who eventually played for Wisconsin and the other who went on to play at Marquette.

“They beat us by thirty-some points at the Nutter Center at Wright State,” Froelich said, adding, “after that, I thought ‘well, this was not a good decision.’”

Fortunately, things began to come together at the small school, and under the new coach, the Eagles won their first-ever league championship, in addition to their first sectional championship.

After a brief three-year stint at Perrysburg, Froelich took over where former Van Wert coach Keith Noftz left off and continued to build on a strong foundation. “Things had obviously gone very well and we wanted to continue that,” Froelich said. “The program was already in good shape, but we did struggle a bit for a year or so, just due to some different circumstances.”

In three short years, though, Froelich gained the respect of his players, and he looks back on that time with fondness — and a mutual respect for the young men who played under him.

“We ended up winning the league in our third year and making a nice post-season run. We had our ups and downs, but if the kids see you’re passionate about what you do, they’ll buy into it and work hard for you,” he said. “We’ve been fortunate here to always have good kids who are able to step up and perform for us.”

As did Ben Ayers in 1999, a sectional championship game Froelich counts as one of his most memorable. “We won that one on Benny’s last-second shot in the sectional finals,” he said, “It was kind of a ‘Hail Mary’ type play and it worked.”

Froelich also recalled a game in the old gym that pitted former VWHS standout Cory Sinning against Shawnee’s Jamar Butler. “That was one of the best games to just kind of sit there and watch,” he said. “But there were many, many more games that were exciting to watch, and there were some that we obviously lost.”

He specifically recalled Van Wert’s recent tournament games, in which the Cougars dropped out of the race after tough double overtime losses.

Reflecting back on a successful career, Froelich said the key to being a good coach is not only having committed players, but a strong assistant coaching staff, as well as a supportive family. “It has to start at home, and I’m very fortunate I had that. My wife has done this for thirty-four years without question, and I never once felt like I was a burden to her,” Froelich said. “She was behind me one-hundred percent, as were my kids, who were born into this and grew up in it.

“Without question, my family has sacrificed many things quietly, adjusting schedules so I could do what I love to do,” he added. “It was just what we did as a family and we always did it together.”

Froelich will have considerably more time now to devote to his family, something he said he is looking forward to. And he’s happy to be Van Wert basketball’s No. 1 fan, no matter where he’s sitting. “Oh, it’s going to be strange. I really don’t know where to sit, or where I’m going to go in the gym,” he noted. “But I’ll be their biggest fan, and I’ll be supportive, but I won’t be in the way. It’s time to move on for the next group.”

It’s a bittersweet realization for not only local administrators and fans, but the Western Buckeye League as well.

“When Dave announced that he was resigning from basketball, I had a fellow athletic director who has also been a coach say to me that the WBL has lost its best basketball coach,” Van Wert High School Athletic Director Kent Smelser said. “I think that truly shows how people within our league and our area feel about him. Dave truly cares about each one of the athletes who have played for him and he’s going to be very hard to replace.”