The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Toughness and love are staples of ‘Papa Kwas’
Storied career at VASJ includes championships, preparing young men for adulthood
Doug Collins met Tedd and Babe Kwasniak for dinner in Cleveland during the 2016 NBA Finals.
Collins, an ESPN NBA analyst in town to broadcast the game, and the Kwasniaks cemented a friendship during his son Chris Collins’ recruitment of Villa Angela-St. Joseph’s Dererk Pardon to play basketball at Northwestern.
At the restaurant, Collins watched as two unfamiliar faces approached the elder Kwasniak, who hugged him.
The men weren’t any of VASJ’s many illustrious athletic alumni. Rather, Kwasniak pointed one of them out as a player he had to cut from the team for unsatisfactory behavior off the court — a memory he lamented.
“This guy just came over and gave you a hug,” Collins told Tedd Kwasniak. “He probably recognizes that what you did for him maybe saved him at that point in time. It might not have been an easy thing to do, but you probably saved his life in a lot of ways.”
Many whose lives intersected with Tedd Kwasniak at Viking Village during the past 35 years may say the same.
At the least, they’re better for their relationship with him.
Tedd Kwasniak is the cornerstone of Villa Angela-St. Joseph’s extraordinary basketball success. He was an assistant for the team’s first two titles in 1991 and 1992 alongside legendary John Carroll coach Mike Moran, then led the Vikings to two more as head coach in 1994 and 1995. When his son, Babe, took over the program in 2010, he returned to the program as what Babe calls “the best assistant coach in the state” and won two more in 2013 and 2015.
On March 24, VASJ looks to take one more step on the stairway to seven in its state semifinal against Proctorville Fairland at the Schottenstein Center.
The Vikings haven’t won six state titles under his watch because of what Tedd Kwasniak taught on the court. The bedrock of his basketball success is not epitomized by a relationship with one of the many illustrious athletic alumni he’s guided, but relationships are the foundation.
When Collins speaks at camps or clinics, he stresses the values of truth and trust to coaches and their players — for coaches to develop trust with young people so they may pass along truths. That’s how Kwasniak’s relationships are established.
“He’s real,” Collins said. “I know that sounds crazy, but he’s just a real guy. And I’ll tell you what he’s got — he’s got a sensitive spirit.”
Such a spirit has helped Kwasniak to make friendships not only with his players but people wellrespected in the basketball community such as Collins, who coached Michael Jordan and was the No. 1 pick in the 1973 NBA draft. Former college coach-turned-ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla counts himself among that group from his time spent recruiting the Cleveland area as an assistant at Ohio University in the mid-1980s.
“He’s a genuine guy who always put the kids first,” Fraschilla said. “He has no ego. It has always been, at Villa Angela-St. Joe’s, it’s about helping the kids.”
Anyone who’s come in contact with Kwasniak says nearly the same thing about him in one way or the other. Jerrod Calhoun played for Kwasniak in the late-1990s and has led Fairmont State to the Division II Final Four this year.
Calhoun’s son, Jordan, is a sophomore guard with the Vikings, and the elder Calhoun has tried to follow the example of the man he lovingly refers to as “Big Guy.”
“I just think he’s a genuine person,” Calhoun said. “Forget basketball. I think he really cares about people.”
VASJ senior Danny McGarry and his teammates trust Kwasniak to tell them the truth, as many classes of players have before — from Stan Kimbrough and Treg Lee to more recent standouts such as Pardon and Carlton Bragg. When Kwasniak’s voice raises, it’s because he cares.
“He yells at us, he gets on us,” McGarry said. “Everyone might not know it. But once you look back on it, he’s doing it because he loves you so much.”
Love is what the Vikings are built on.
Tough love, that is, with Babe providing the “tough” ingredient mixed with the love of “Papa Kwas.”
“He’s the alpha and the omega of our program,” Babe Kwasniak said. “He’s the one constant through all these years. There’s been so many great coaches, so many great players, so many great everything. He’s the conduit. He’s the old and the new.”
Tedd Kwasniak grew up in Cleveland and attended Cathedral Latin School, which closed in 1979, on East 107th between Euclid and Carnegie avenues in University Circle. He says he was small for his age, and played basketball for the freshman and junior varsity teams before he was “lost in the shuffle.”
Kwasniak attended Franciscan University of Steubenville from 196064, where he played shortstop and some catcher on the baseball team. He recalls playing against teams from the Negro Leagues, and as well as future Yankees general manager Gene “The Stick” Michael and World Series champions Sal Bando and Mike Hegan as well as All-Star Rich Rollins in Cleveland.
Kwasniak then served in the military for two years after college, and when his parish needed a CYO coach, he volunteered. Kwasniak dabbled in coaching during college to attain credits, but most of his learning came from listening to the words of legends such as Indiana’s Bobby Knight or Marquette’s Al McGuire.
After about 15 years of coaching youth leagues, Moran approached Kwasniak about joining his staff shortly after VASJ (then St. Joseph) hired him in 1981. At the time, Kwasniak worked for the American Automobile Association and refereed on the side. The extra money couldn’t hurt as Tedd and wife, Roe, had five children: Joymarie, Babejohn, T.J., June and Julie.
In the 50-plus years he’s coached, Kwasniak says kids haven’t changed. Rather, parents have. “Parents are so hands-on now,” Kwasniak said. “I can remember Mrs. Kimbrough telling me, ‘Coach, I’m leaving my son here. I’ll come back in four years to get him. Make him a man.’ ”
Kimbrough was later drafted by the Pistons and during his rookie year collect-called his old coach almost daily as he worried if Chuck Daly was going to cut him from the Bad Boys. One of those calls brought each man to tears when Kimbrough called Kwasniak and told him his meal money allowance was raised to an amount higher than his mother’s welfare check.
While Kimbrough and other Vikings made it to the NBA, Kwasniak also had a hand in the career of All-Pro NFL linebacker London Fletcher. Kwasniak recalls Fletcher “hated everybody” when he arrived at St. Joe’s from his Cleveland public school and Fletcher recounts how the two used to “butt heads” often when Kwasniak was made the head coach in 1992.
Fletcher is quick to remind of Tedd Kwasniak’s toughness, which has been replaced by the “teddy bear” persona Babe Kwasniak says his father has now. A love-hate relationship turned to one of mutual respect and admiration as Kwasniak refused to allow Fletcher to “skate by” in order to reach his potential.
“I understood he had my best interests at hand,” Fletcher said. “He wasn’t trying to harm me. He was trying to get the most out of me and help me to succeed in life. Once I started to realize that, I could have a greater appreciation for him and how he really cared about the kids.”
Now, after a 16-year career, which included a Super Bowl victory, Fletcher counts not winning a title for Kwasniak in 1993 among one of his life’s biggest regrets.
“All those things helped prepare me for when I went away to college and got into the NFL,” Fletcher said. “You don’t just all of a sudden get to the NFL. You have to have a foundation to get to those levels, especially from a discipline standpoint and an accountability standpoint.”
Discipline and accountability, hallmarks of Tedd’s military service and Babe’s West Point education, are two waypoints provided for high school players toward becoming young men college coaches want on their teams.
“Playing hard is a skill,” Collins said. “That’s what those Kwasniaks do. If you want to play for them, you’d better bring it. You better bring it. The rewards are going to be great, but only if you put the work in.”
Kwasniak says he never expects to lose when his team enters a game, but he also never prays for wins. Rather, the man who attends church every morning asks the same thing before each game: “Good Lord, let the team that worked the hardest win this game.”
Among other lessons, Kwasniak urges his players to cherish their positive memories — especially those they create with their teammates in times of achievement.
The Vikings never take for granted what’s become an annual trip to Columbus each March, from a trip to Hooley House on Monday to the sendoff on Thursday through the weekend of basketball.
“I just get fired up thinking about getting in that Schottenstein,” Kwasniak said. “Just walking in there sends chills. There’s so many bad things that happen to you in life. The highs, the lows sure outnumber the highs in most people’s lives.”
Located on Lake Shore Boulevard in Cleveland right on the border with Euclid, VASJ attracts a student body of various socioeconomic backgrounds — from suburban or rural areas due south or east to inner-city neighborhoods. Regardless of anyone’s walk of life, grief strikes at some point.
When Joymarie passed in 2006 at 33, the Kwasniaks lost a sister and daughter. “Joy the Gymrat,” a nickname Tedd recalls, played at St. Bonaventure, where she later coached in addition to West Point and Fairleigh Dickinson.
“She couldn’t jump over this (district trophy),” Kwasniak said. “She was the dirtiest girls basketball player I’d ever seen — she’d hold your shorts when you’d jump, she’d stand on your foot. You’d talk to her teammates, they’d say she couldn’t play a lick but she was the best teammate ever.”
The Kwasniaks started the Live for Joy foundation, which raises money for scholarships and Ocular Melanoma Research in her honor, and Tedd’s perspective of forging lifelong relationships and sharing love was reinforced. He often says, “If you love somebody, you should tell them and you should tell them every day.”
Babe says Tedd is with the times as far as Facebook, Twitter and texting go, and he often messages players or even Fraschilla to tell them he is proud of them.
“It’s more than just wins and losses,” Fraschilla said. “As proud as he probably is of the wins and the championships, I think he’s probably more proud of the fact he’s helped mold these young guys, for the most part, great human beings and people that can go out and become good fathers and husbands, mentors themselves, because they were around Tedd and Tedd stayed in their lives.”
When Calhoun left VASJ, Kwasniak called Rollie Massimino at Cleveland State. Calhoun was offered a walk-on spot, which he used to earn a scholarship. Calhoun says he wouldn’t be where he is today without Kwasniak, and still sees him giving young men confidence in the way he empowered Calhoun nearly 20 years ago.
“He made me believe I could go on and do great things,” Calhoun said. “There’s a lot of times in our program the last five years I’ve called him for advice or I’ve thought about something he would do if he was in that situation or past experience.”
Another Viking Kwasniak also helped on to college was Sherman Cartwright, he helped procure a position as a student manager with Massimino at Cleveland State. Cartwright is now the manager of operations at Quicken Loans Arena, and Kwasniak’s first call if he wants to see a Cavaliers game.
Of course, not everything turned out in similar fashion. Kwasniak knows of two former players serving life sentences in prison and sometimes wonders about an answer to an impossible question: “Is there anything I could’ve done differently with these guys?”
Kwasniak tries to watch every minute of every game played by the Vikings alumni in college: Kansas’ Bragg, Northwestern’s Pardon, Evansville’s Duane Gibson, Cleveland State’s Demonte Flannigan and Marist’s Brian Parker, among others.
But his greatest reward isn’t the state titles, hundreds of wins or players sent to the next level. It’s not just the achievement of Fletcher, Cartwright, Kimbrough, Calhoun, Kevin Edwards, Tony Miller, Eric Riley, Elvis Grbac or Desmond Howard, but the boys he helped become valuable members of the community, and his relationships.
“The best thing that happened is the relationships I’ve made over the years,” Tedd Kwasniak said. “Guys I probably never would’ve met in my lifetime, because of basketball, have become my friends.”
One relationship remains unsurpassed, which Babe Kwasniak realizes a little better now as a coach than when he played in the early-1990s.
“He’s a great coach,” Babe Kwasniak said, “one of the all-time greats in Ohio high school basketball history. He’s a better father and grandfather.”
Now 75, Tedd says one of his biggest thrills is to watch his eldest grandson, B.K., hit a golf ball — “Boy, can he smack it” — or to watch his younger brothers Quinn and Logan shoot on the sidelines during practice.
But as their father looks to lead VASJ to its seventh state title, he knows one thing about his father better than before. From his grandchildren to men who played for him 30 years ago, win or lose, Tedd Kwasniak’s love is unconditional.
“I remember when I used to have a bad game, he’d say, ‘You may never win every race, but you’re always my horse,’ ” Babe Kwasniak said. “I’d cry just talking about it. He does the same thing with these guys.”