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| Former St. Peter boys basketball coach takes job in Cleveland |
By: Pat Beck
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Posted: Tuesday, November 4, 2008 10:05 pm
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Former St. Peter head boys basketball coach George Schoenborn has taken the ball as the new Cleveland head boys basketball coach.
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CLEVELAND — Ten-year St. Peter Saints head boys basketball coach George Schoenborn is switching teams this year from the blue and white to the orange and black Cleveland Clippers.
Schoenborn, 40, resigned last year at St. Peter, but accepted the Cleveland job because he’s not ready to give up coaching the sport he loves.
“Coaching basketball is my love, and I’m not at all tired of coaching, and that’s not the reason I resigned in St. Peter,” Schoenborn said. “It’s just an intense atmosphere during games and during practices. It’s just fun.
“It would be nice to have winters off. It would be nice to go ice fishing, snowmobiling or doing those winter things that I haven’t been able to do for 17 years, but on the flip side I think I’d go crazy if I wasn’t in the gym and I didn’t hear the shoes squeaking and whistles blowing.”
Prior to being head coach at St. Peter Schoenborn coached freshman boys basketball for seven years: two years at St. Peter, two years at Bemidji and three years at Belle Plaine. A graduate of Belle Plaine High School and Minnesota State University, Mankato, Schoenborn will continue teaching in the business department at St. Peter High School where he has worked since 1996.
“I love St. Peter,” Schoenborn said. “I love the school, the teachers, the coaches, the administration and the community. It will be kind of neat coming in fresh. Any time there’s a new coach, it’s a new fresh start. That’s exciting for me. The people I’ve talked to here are excited to have me, and we want to fill the gym.”
“I’ll be watching the scores for St. Peter games. I can’t say nothing but good things about those kids. I wish nothing but the best for them, but in the same breath I’ve got a job to do here.”
Basketball is basketball no matter where it’s played. In the movie, “Hoosiers,” when they played Bloomington, Ind. in a big arena, and the coach measured the free-throw line and measured the height of the hoop and said, “It’s the same as our gym. Ten guys play and there is one orange ball.”
Schoenborn grew up playing basketball, and it is the first sport he coached. Schoenborn lettered two years as a point guard at Belle Plaine High School. He was captain his senior year. He also was a sprinter and hurdler in track and a center and wide receiver in football.
Schoenborn has assistant coached track for two years at Bemidji High School and 12 years at St. Peter. He assistant coached football for 10years.
Although he never played the game, Schoenborn coached soccer the last three years at the middle school level at St. Peter because they needed someone.
“The goals for any team that I coach are the same,” Schoenborn said, “that the kids have fun and get the most out of participating and competing, teaching some life skills and hopefully in the process win some games.”
Winning is not the end all with Schoenborn: “What’s the definition of a good season? Do you look at wins and losses or do you look at did the kids learn anything, grow and develop. More so did they learn things about the game, about life and working together.
“We have not gone to the state tournament in St. Peter, but years down the road the kids appreciate what we did and remember the little things, not so much the record. I could ask most of the kids four or five years ago played for me, they wouldn’t know the record. They would say remember that game or remember that bus ride. That’s what I think it’s all about.
Few players go on to college to play or even less make it to pros. In Schoenborn’s 10 years at St. Peter, only five kids went on to play college basketball, none Division I. “These are kids that going to go on and be citizens and working in the community and you can to help them in that area.”
Asked about highlights of his coaching career at St. Peter, Schoenborn listed reaching the section semifinals against St. James and working with the Little Saints elementary basketball on Saturday mornings when varsity guys work with little kids.
“Each year it’s always been fun, whether we lost or won a lot of games,” Schoenborn said. “We create a family and everybody gets along for the most part. It’s like another extension of a brotherhood type thing.”
Switching from St. Peter to Cleveland will mean changes, but Schoenborn welcomes the change. He moved to Cleveland last August. Now after he finishes work in St. Peter he can go home to coach basketball in Cleveland.
“It’s close,” Schoenborn said. “It’s not as big as Belle Plaine when I graduated, but it’s very similar and had the same sense. Differences in sizes have their advantages and disadvantages. You just have to play to the advantages. It’s a smaller school so there’s less sports for the kids, so there’s less sports for the coach to compete with as far as getting kids to the gym. It’s a smaller community, and it’s more blue-collar here and more white-color in St. Peter. Both things have their advantages and disadvantages. I like the size of the school and the community. Most everybody in the wintertime can support basketball.
“The schedule is a lot different than St. Peter. Every since I’ve been in St. Peter we’ve been one of the bigger Class AA schools. Last year was our first year bumped up to 3A. Now in St. Peter we’re going to be one of the smaller AAA schools which makes it tougher. The schedule at St. Peter was a lot tougher. Cleveland will be easier compared to what I’m used to, but it will be a different team.”
With an enrollment of about 500 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, Cleveland plays in Class A and does not have the numbers of St. Peter. “ It’s nice to have numbers,” Schoenborn said. “There were years in St. Peter when I had 25 juniors and seniors. The last few years it’s been down to 15. Over here I anticipate some years having 10th, nine and eighth-graders playing. They’d have to if the numbers are low enough. The coaches that have been here have been here for a while. It seems like there’s a reason for it.
Schoenborn replaces five-year head coach Doug Schweim, who resigned after last season. Schoenborn is the longest lasting head boys basketball coach at St. Peter.
His coaching style is to adapt to his players. “Discipline is a key to any sport, but I handle it a different way. There’s been teams in St. Peter where things weren’t going right and I could get into peoples’ faces and scream and they’d respond. The last couple of years I’ve had teams where if I did that they wouldn’t respond. Some people might say I’m too laid back, but it depends on what type of kids I have to work with. In high school, you have to adapt to your personnel.
“I think I do a good job of reading personnel and determine what is the best fit. I’ll run a tight ship, but once they figure out what buttons they push we just have a fun time. I thank Cleveland for giving me a shot.”
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