Pfohls a hoops family that puts family first

If there ever was a shred of doubt that the Pfohl family introduces its progeny to basketball early, we present photographic evidence from March 2 at Bridgeport Hospital.

In his basinet there is one-day-old Shane John McGowan, named after his grandfather John Pfohl, tuned into the SWC finals on an iPad.

“Here’s your first grandson,” middle daughter Alexa McGowan told her dad before the game. “The only thing he wants is for you to win the SWC championship.”

Poppy took home the title with Kolbe Cathedral’s 68-45 victory over Notre Dame-Fairfield.

“We’re 1-0 with Shane,” said J. J. Pfohl, who assists his dad. “We’ve got to ride that while we can.”

Kolbe will face Hillhouse in the CIAC Division I tournament Wednesday at Fairfield Warde. So it goes with one of the great basketball families in Connecticut. The torch is passed.

John Pfohl had won 317 games, nine SWC titles and two state championships between 1993 and 2008 atKolbewhen he announced his retirement. At 43, he wasn’t burned out. He certainly hadn’t stopped winning. The Cougars had just been to the state finals.

John andDawn, an avid runner like her husband, also had three daughters, Victoria, Alexa and Amanda, and a son J. J. who played basketball.

“When you have four children so close in age, all involved in athletics, there is timewhen you realize you’re either going to miss them play, they’ll have to play for you, or you have to make a decision to watch them,” John Pfohl said.

WhenVictoria, now28, was a freshman at Trumbull, Pfohl made the decision to watch. He did not return to coaching Kolbe until after J. J. completed his career at Trumbull in 2017. Nine years.

“My kids sacrificed, my wife sacrificed a lot for coaching up to that point,” John said. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. There’s no do-over. I realized that from coaching my players for four years. Iwanted to savor every second of them playing. I do not regret it for one second.”

All three girls were first-team All-State at Trumbull. Amanda was All-State twice. Alexa was Academic All-State. When Victoria was a senior, the three were teammates.

“My father is a very unselfish person,” said Victoria DiScala, who has a 17-month daughter Adeline with her husband Vinny and another daughter due onMay 1. “It was important for him to support us. I don’t think he would have traded watching all three of us playing together for the world.”

“To be willing to retire from something hewas so passionate about and loved to come watch us,” Alexa said, “you couldn’t ask for a better father.”

The sisters had a pregame ritual.

“We’d each have to give him a hug and a kiss before we warmed up,” Alexa said.

Victoria? Typical first born, dad said. Leader. Bright. Driven. Organized. Has a fire in her. Also, a beautiful heart.

Alexa? His best athlete. Three-sport captain. Fearless defensive player. Tough. A sweetheart off the court, but would make you cry on the court if she was guarding you.

Amanda? Probably the best skill-wise. Terrific shooter. Best shooter in the family.

The sisters remain very close. And little bro?

“J. J. is great,” Victoria said. “He’ll say they feel sorry for him, but he’s really the king of the household. He’s the best.”

Victoria followed her dad’s footsteps to play at Eastern Connecticut. Amanda played at Southern Connecticut and set the school record with 99 threes in a season. J. J., who went on to play at Roger Williams, was second-team Class LL AllState at Trumbull.

“We were always No. 1 in his life,” Amanda said. “He knew he couldn’t be 100 percent committed to both. If it came down to basketball or family, he’s always going to pick family. That shows you his values.”

“When Iwas younger, I didn’t really understand why it was such a big deal to step down,” said J. J., now 23. “Looking back, it was a great sacrifice. Not a lot of people do it when they’re on top, but for him it was a blessing.”

That love of the family and love of the game has resulted in three of Pfohl’s four children choosing a coaching career. Victoria is an assistant for the girls team at Trumbull. Amanda is an assistant for the girls team at Staples.

Alexa decided not to play in college and has not followed the coaching path. She majored in speech-language pathology atUConn, got her master’s at Southern and is a speech pathologist at a Fairfield pre-school. She also goes to all the Kolbe games. She filled in doing the books this season through the SWC semifinals when Shane John interrupted.

“My husband (Tim) was a soccer player at Marist,” Alexa said. “But now he loves going to Kolbe games almost as much as I do.”

Amanda, 25, has coached at Staples for four years. She graduated from SSCU, got her master’s from the Graduate Institute and is back getting her sixth-year degree at Southern. She teaches special education at Saugatuck Elementary School.

“The opportunity to coach was there right away and it was a nobrainer,” Amanda said. “My dad said if you have aspirations of being a head coach someday, this is something you should try.”

Asked what she learned from her dad, Amanda answered, “Everything.”

“Not just basketball,” she said, “he has taught me everything in life that’s worth knowing. One of the biggest things is it’s not what you say, but how you say it. As a coach working with female athletes, you have an important message to get across and it’s all about the delivery. It extends to my students, my boyfriend, my sisters and brother, my father and mother.”

Victoria, who majored in kinesiology and physical education at Eastern, got a job atTrumbullHigh out of school and now teaches health and PE at Madison Middle School.

“I started coaching AAU in high school and I knew I wanted to be part of it,” Victoria said. “Steve Tobitsch, who I played for, is a great coach. My dad coaches summer league and has been involved with the Trumbull girls program for a long time (still is). It felt natural. Itwas nice never to be apart from basketball.”

Trumbull beat Staples on Feb. 7, so the sisters are 1-1 against each other. They don’t count last year whenVictoriawas on maternity leave.

Is head coaching something the twowould be interested in? Sure.

“But not in the foreseeable future, with two under 2,” Victoria said. “It’s a little chaotic.”

“I feel like I’m still learning all the pieces of the pie,” Amanda said.

Here’s the thing about learning all those pieces.

“It’s vice-versa withmy dad,” Amanda said. “He has been coaching forever, but he’s always evolving. That’s a really big lesson for me. He has earned all these successes and accolades, but he’s constantly learning, researching, critiquing himself, asking questions. Even after all these years, he doesn’t act like he has all the answers.”

With Kolbe winning only seven games in three seasons before he returned, Pfohl, 57, took the Cougars to his third state championship in 2018 and to his seventh finals in 2022. Being around his dad all the time the past two years, J. J. said he’s starting to pick up more and more of his philosophies and habits.

His senior season at Roger Williams canceled because of COVID, J. J. had time to transition to coaching. He coached summerleague in the past and Kolbe finally had the numbers for him to coach a freshman team. A finance-accounting major, J. J. has worked for Mitsubishi for the past year.

“One thing about my dad, he is always, always trying to get better as a coach,” J. J. said. “We’ll be eating and all of a sudden he’ll say something like, ‘What do you think about that high pick and roll?’ ”

Victoria is recognized as most like her dad on the sidelines. Amanda is more reserved. J. J. is somewhere in between.

“I certainly don’t yell as much or loud as my dad,” Amanda said. “Victoria is definitely the one who yells more like him.”

“I’ve been told I can be a little vocal,” Victoria said. “The way my father approaches the game and his team sets him apart. He is very animated on the sidelines. Sometime people take that he’s not nice or compassionate in some way. That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“I love watching my dad and brother talk strategy,” Alexa said. “J. J. is so passionate. I think one of the reasonsmy dad is such a great coach is he’s involved in those kids’ lives, not just in basketball, their academic lives, dinners, rides to practices. You see J. J. with that stuff now: ‘ We got to stop and grab some peanut butter crackers for the boys.’ All the little stuff. He’s following inmy father’s footsteps.”

In themeantime, Shane John will be watching with every one of his footsteps.

“He was eight pounds at birth, a big boy,” Alexa said. “We’re thinking center or forward.”