'I've always been an east Green Bay kid': Preble hires former longtime East basketball coach Rick Rosinski

GREEN BAY – He’s back.

When Rick Rosinski resigned as the Green Bay East boys basketball coach before last season, it appeared it might be the final time he would run his own program.

Think again.

Rosinski was named the coach at Preble on Thursday. He replaces Andy Bobholz, who stepped down after five seasons.

Rosinski was the longest-tenured coach at East when he walked away in August after 20 seasons, not because he lost passion for the job but because he had to do it in order to maintain 50-50 custody of his son.

There are plenty of people who deserve credit for making his hire a reality. They include his longtime friend and trusty assistant, Jim Hayes, who encouraged him to apply for the job. Rosinski’s ex-wife, Tracy, also gave him her blessing to pursue it.

He served as a volunteer for the Red Devils last season under first-year coach J.D. DeVault, who played for Rosinski at East in the early 2000s.

He couldn’t be more excited to get back at it with the Hornets.

Rosinski will remain a teacher at East and make the short commute to Preble each day for practice.

“You know, when you sit out after coaching for 20 years, you see the things that you really miss,” said Rosinski, who is East’s all-time winningest coach with 190 victories. “From my perspective, just missing the connections that you were developing with the kids. When you lose that, it was almost like something was taken away from me. Now to be able to have that ability to connect with kids again, I think that’s what excites me the most. I think that’s one of my strengths.”

There is no way Rosinski could take the Preble job without at least receiving some good-natured ribbing from family and friends.

So much of his life has been East. He played basketball and football at the school before graduating in 1987 and eventually making his way back as a teacher and coach.

His younger brother, who graduated from East in 1990, told him he’s not going to be able to wear Preble’s green and gold colors quite yet. He laughed as he wondered what his late mother, who sat in the bleachers to watch him during his playing days, might say if she knew he took the job.

As much as he always has been a Red Devil, Rosinski knew plenty of Preble kids growing up. He played baseball with them in Little League and Babe Ruth. When he got older, some of his friends went to Preble and others to East.

If it isn’t a homecoming, it’s at least in the neighborhood.

East competes in the Bay Conference and Preble in the Fox River Classic, but the teams have met in recent seasons in nonconference contests.

That next game should be fun.

“I was telling (East staff member) Richard Sims today I won’t know what kind of emotions I am going to have when it comes to that Preble-East game,” Rosinski said. “I’m going to have so many things running through my mind. It’s going to be emotional, because I know what the Preble-East rivalry was like at one time. It was one of the bigger rivalries around. It’s exciting, but it’s also a little nerve-wracking because I don’t want to lose my emotions right there. It’s going to be different.

“But you know what? It’s another game, and other people have done it.”

Rosinski was asked if there was any hesitation about applying or accepting the Preble job because of what East has meant to him.

“I think I thought that for maybe 5 minutes,” said Rosinski, who plans to attend other Preble athletic events to show support for the students and their families. “But the reality of it is, I’m an east-side kid. Not only did I go to East events when I was younger, but I would attend open gyms on a Saturday at Preble. I would go to Preble events.

“I kind of view it now that I have always been an east-side kid. … A lot of the (Preble) alumni were my best friends. I’m not looking at it like I’m leaving a school I was at 20 years. I’m looking at it from the perspective that, hey, I’ve always been an east Green Bay kid, and that’s how I am going to move forward with it.”

A familiar face will be sitting alongside him on the bench next season. There was no way Rosinski would take another job and not make sure Hayes, a Preble graduate, was coming with him.

But the two will have to go without longtime East team manager Eugene "Geno" Phillips, who served in that role for the Red Devils in the 1990s under former coach Steve Kestly and continued for decades.

Rosinski said Phillips told him he was retired the last time they talked.

MORE: 'Very exciting': Green Bay Preble's Steve Marcelle to be inducted into Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame

MORE: 'A threat in so many ways': Preble's Ashley Wolfe is important piece to another FRCC title run

Rosinski and his coaching staff will be tasked with figuring out how to turn a Preble program around that has not enjoyed much success despite being one of the largest schools in the state.

The Hornets have had four winning campaigns in the 16 seasons since the FRCC was formed, going 122-247 during that span.

They went 5-20 last season and finished ninth in the 10-team conference.

Preble had one player make the all-conference team in 6-foot-5 senior forward-center Thomas Michaels, who averaged 9.8 points and 9.1 rebounds.

“I kind of stressed this to a number of people, my thing is that you have the fifth largest school in the state,” Rosinski said. “You have a venue that should be a venue that’s an exciting place to go watch a game. There should be an atmosphere in the gym. My goal is, we have got to bring back the juice to that environment.

“We have got to get people out. We have got to do things that will make it an exciting event to go to on a Tuesday or a Friday night. We have got to bring back some passion. I’m a pretty emotional guy. There is a passion you have to play with, and hopefully, with that passion brings in that excitement.”

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay Preble hires longtime East basketball coach Rick Rosinski