The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Euclid hires T.J. Kwasniak
T.J. Kwasniak never thought he would be a head boys basketball coach.
Kwasniak, a 1996 Villa AngelaSt. Joseph graduate, 1995 state champion and an assistant for the last 15 years, knows he was ready for a head coaching job some time ago. But he never really considered the idea until a few years ago.
Now, he’s the head coach at Euclid.
“The main I thing I want to do is I want to give the city of Euclid a team it will be proud of,” Kwasniak said. “When you come to see us play, I want you to say, ‘OK, those kids are from Euclid,’ by the way they act, by the way they play, and hopefully winning takes care of itself.”
His wife Christina has been a kindergarten teacher in the district for the last 15 years and his sons, 6-yearold Evan and 3-year-old Lucas, are old enough that he’s comfortable committing to a head position. Kwasniak, a Euclid native, consulted with VASJ athletic director Nate Zavorek, who spoke highly of his Euclid counterpart, Patrick Higley.
Euclid became the right place at the right time.
The Euclid City Schools Board of Education approved the hire May 8. Higley said the Panthers narrowed their search to four names, any of whom he would have been “thrilled” to have as the new coach. Higley and the Panthers expect to be very competitive in the next season under Kwasniak’s leadership.
Higley said he was impressed by Kwasniak’s extensive knowledge of the game and his ability to teach players — a vital skill in the hyper-competitive Greater
Cleveland Conference.
“He has a quiet confidence about him,” Higley said. “He doesn’t say a whole lot, and he lets his actions speak louder than his words.”
Kwasniak graduated from VASJ in 1996 and won a state championship in 1995 under his father, Tedd. Kwasniak assisted his father at Lake Catholic before joining the VASJ staff alongside his brother, Babe, in 2010, where the Vikings won two more state championships with three Kwasniaks on the staff. T.J. served as the Vikings’ interim head coach while Babe took a leave of absence at the beginning of the 2015-16 season.
Kwasniak spent the last year at Beachwood as an assistant to Jon Mannarino. There, he helped guide the Bison back to a district semifinal after Beachwood turned over nearly its entire roster from the year before.
Mannarino, whose daughter Miabella was born May 8, is “thrilled” for Kwasniak, although he’s losing an assistant he says became like a brother to him in the past season.
“You’re getting a guy with a high basketball I.Q,” Mannarino said. “Great work ethic — this is a guy who could’ve been a head coach a long time ago. He had an opportunity at some other schools and didn’t do it because of his love for VASJ. I think this is the time for him.”
Kwasniak still wasn’t sure about a head coaching job but, with some prodding from Mannarino and the fit at Euclid, the choice was obvious.
“It just seems like the timing is absolutely perfect,” Kwasniak said. “I was very happy at Beachwood. What Jon did for me last year, I’ll always be grateful, but he’s the one that kind of pushed me out the door and said, ‘T.J., you need to take this.’ He pushed me out of the nest, so to speak. I don’t think, without his encouragement, I do take it.”
Kwasniak, a sales representative at Buckeye Business Products, also credited his boss, Bill Dillingham, for encouraging him to pursue a head coaching position.
He replaces Jonathan Harris, who spent two years at Euclid.
“I give Coach Harris all the credit in the world for keeping our kids here,” Higley said. “Garvin Clarke, basically Harris has been his babysitter the last two years, taking him to all the AAU games and things like that and making sure he was happy here.”
Clarke, a rising sophomore, and rising senior Emari Baddour lead a group of players returning to the Panthers from a 2-21 team a year ago. They showed flashes of potential, especially Clarke, who earned first-team all-GCC and second-team all-district honors.
To find a coach who will keep the talented players who come up through the Euclid school system like Clarke in the program was an emphasis for Higley, as competition with private schools continues to intensify.
“When we start having success and T.J. starts seeing his vision through,” Higley said, “we’re going to keep our players here in Euclid. They’re not going to want to leave to play for anybody else.”
Subjects not pertaining to basketball were where
Kwasniak was perhaps most striking in his interview process. Higley said the interview’s discourse related only to about 20 percent basketball.
How athletics fit into education, working with teachers, monitoring, holding student-athletes to high expectations, developing the district’s youth programs and how the program will assist in community service constituted most of what the Panthers wanted to know from their candidates.
“To every question that we had outside of basketball,” Higley said, “he was just as impressive in his strategy for tackling that other 80 percent that doesn’t have anything to do with basketball.”
On and off the floor, Kwasniak intends to construct a successful Euclid program in line with the school’s tradition-rich history.
“I’m a Euclid guy,” Kwasniak said. “I see where the program has been the last six years, and I don’t like that. I don’t think anyone does. It’s time to change that.”