The Green Bay Preble boys basketball team is unexpectedly looking for a new coach, and there are more questions than answers as to why.
Preble athletic director Tim Flood sent an email to the basketball players and their parents May 7 to inform them that Rick Rosinski is no longer the coach.
“Coach Rosinski has resigned from his coaching position at Preble,” Flood wrote. “We want to thank him for all of his time and dedication to the program over the past three years and wish him luck in his future endeavors.
“We will start the process of hiring a new coach soon.”
It’s not clear whether it was Rosinski’s choice to step down or if he was forced to do so.
“I have no comment,” said Rosinski, who is a teacher at Green Bay East.
Flood did not immediately respond to a message.
The Hornets have shown some improvement the past two seasons after going 6-20 and finishing ninth in the 10-team Fox River Classic Conference in Rosinski’s first year in 2023-24.
They have won 10 or more games in each of the last two seasons.
Preble went 10-15 this season and finished seventh in the league standings.
It beat a traditionally tough Sheboygan North team, twice held halftime leads against a De Pere squad that won the league championship and earned a trip to the WIAA Division 1 state tournament and had a 13-point halftime lead against Bay Port in the first meeting before wilting in the second half.
Perhaps even more encouraging for the future is that the lower levels of the program were respectable. The junior varsity team finished 11-11, while the JV2 team went 16-6.
Off the court, Rosinski helped start a new Silent Night game tradition at Preble this season that raises money for good causes, an idea he carried over from his time coaching at East.
Rosinski was the longest-tenured coach in Red Devils history when he walked away in August 2022 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.
“It’s never been about wins and losses for him, it’s about affecting kids positively and giving them a chance to show what they can do,” East athletic director Steph Mathu said at the time. “Yeah, it’s certainly a big loss for us.”
Rosinski has dedicated years of his time to Green Bay public schools.
The 1987 East graduate was hired by the Red Devils in May 2002 after serving as the freshman coach under Kevin Phillips.
There were plenty of lean years by the end of his tenure, but Rosinski always talked about how it was more than just X’s and O’s.
“He would come up out of his own pocket to make sure the kids are eating and make sure everything is ready for when the season started,” longtime East staff member Richard Sims after Rosinski stepped down. “I was there for him because I saw how much he put into it. A lot of that stuff was done by himself. His assistants were very loyal as well. Jim Hayes was his righthand man.
“I could go on and on about the things he did. Cleaning the locker room. Sweeping the locker room after the football season. It was almost like a college program, except he was doing it himself.”
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Longtime area basketball coach Rick Rosinski is out at Green Bay Preble
Reporting by Scott Venci, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
