Half Moon Bay High’s Rich Forslund could achieve a stunning coaching milestone this week, and at a relatively young age and in a short amount of time.
Forslund, with a victory Tuesday against El Camino and Friday against host and Coastside rival Terra Nova, will earn his 400th career head varsity coaching victory at the relatively tender age of 56 and in just 21 seasons.
The bulk of Forslund’s head varsity coaching wins have been at Half Moon Bay and Archbishop Riordan, but he also coached two seasons at Lowell and three at Burlingame.
Asked what, if anything, 400 means to him, Forslund said: “It means I’ve had a lot of good players. Very good players and great assistants. To be able to notch a 400th win at Terra Nova would be pretty sweet.”
Last year Terra Nova coach Kenny Milch earned his 200th victory at Half Moon Bay, the Tigers stunning the Cougars’ with a buzzer-beating 3-point shot. The victory made HMB and Terra Nova co-titlists in the PAL-North. This season, Forslund has not been in a mood for sharing.
His team (21-1 this season, 10-0 PAL-North) has won 20-plus games for five consecutive seasons and can make it five seasons of 22-plus wins with a victory against El Camino. The Cougars haven’t lost since a 42-40 setback December 30 against Palma, winning 12 consecutive games.
“He’s a great coach,” said Half Moon Bay senior guard Jake Salinero who has been on varsity for three-plus seasons. “They call him the Doctor of Hoopology and rightfully so given his coaching ability and the respect he gets. He’s one of the best coaches in the state.”
Coastside rival Milch agrees.
“Rich and I have a great relationship and I have a lot of respect for him as a coach and for his accomplishments,” Milch said. “The way he runs his program, he gets the most out of those kids. He has a way of driving his kids to excellence and he gets them to achieve it – that’s what separates from him from a better-than-average coach. He’s detail-oriented and he figures out what his team need to improve to achieve greatness.”
Half Moon Bay’s “second season” is quickly approaching. The Cougars have never won the Peninsula Athletic League tournament and would like to do that. They’d love to be in the Central Coast Section Open Division tournament again, which affords an automatic berth in the CIF-State NorCal Regionals (that would be a fifth straight year for HMB there). Then it would be another shot at CIF-State Division IV glory, something that has eluded Half Moon Bay and Forslund over the years.
Career-wise, it’s hard to argue with his success. He has 398 wins; three league titles, four section titles and one state title (2001-2002 season) at Riordan; three consecutive league titles at HMB and so on.
Most impressive has been his wins-per-season mark of 19-plus throughout his career – especially considering Half Moon Bay was 48-99 from 2004 to 2010 including a 1-21 record in 2006-2007. Former coach John Parsons who now assists with the HMB girls team got the Cougars pointed in the right direction before Forslund took over in 2010-2011 and won 18 games.
But if you ask Forslund or any coach with his heart in the right place, it’s the personal relationships and mentoring that mean the most and not just the W’s.
“I’ve always thought of coaching as being more about mentoring young people than about basketball – that it’s about teaching them life lessons,” Forslund said. “I was at a (San Francisco) pro-am game and I saw one of my former players (Dupre Peoples, formerly of Riordan) at the game and he’s got a great job in New York with Google now.
“He said one thing that resonated with him over the years was what I said about him at our end-of-the-year banquet which was that he’d be super successful at whatever he does because he was a good teammate, he’d do anything to win and it was always all about team with him. He said it really motivated him and he went on to get his Masters and has this great job now and he said it was partially because of the faith I had in him. I was taken aback, but happy because that’s what it’s really all about.”
Amen. Congratulations on No. 400 in advance, Rich Forslund.
HOT, HOT, HOT: Terra Nova 6-foot-4 senior Jared Milch, the son of Tigers' coach Kenny Milch, scored 43 points in a recent 75-55 win against South San Francisco. In the first quarter alone he tallied 21 points, making all seven of his field-goal attempts including three 3-pointers and went 4-of-4 from the free throw line, took two rebounds, had two assists and blocked one shot. That's your basic perfect quarter. After eight minutes of play, TN led 29-10.
Despite the fact Milch shoots often and his dad is the coach, Tiger teammates seem to relate well to the left-handed, two-sport star (he also plays baseball). They make contact with him after free throws made or missed and congratulate him when he goes to the bench for rare breathers.
"Watching him grow as a leader and player at the varsity level over these past four years has been incredible," Kenny Milch said. "He has far surpassed any expectations I ever had. His mental toughness this season has been off the charts. From game 1, opponents have done every tactic in the book -- double- and triple-teaming, grabbing his jersey, extra elbows/shoulder bumps, holding, smack-talking etc. He is a coach's dream -- always hustles, great attitude, never talks back, cheers genuinely for his teammates and everybody loves him."
Of course, Kenny Milch might be a tad biased. But Jared is genuinely a strong player, as proven when he scored 25 points in a loss at Half Moon Bay, known for its tough defense.
The younger Milch (24 points, 10.7 rebounds per game) can drain a 3-pointer and also has a way of angling his body to slip through tight spaces and get to the rim for high-percentage shots or to draw fouls. Following graduation he will probably check in at a nearby community college to play two sports, Kenny Milch said.
KICKING UP A FUSS: Capuchino (13-9, 6-4) continues to surge under young coach Marty Ruiz. The Mustangs upset Burlingame last month and on Friday night defeated Hillsdale 45-44. AJ Macareg led Cap with 14 points, while Taiga Schwarz had 14 points and Isaiah Cozzolino 13 for Hillsdale. Schwarz made nine 3-pointers last month in a stunning Hillsdale upset of Burlingame. In this one, Macareg and Schwarz both sank three 3-pointers.
Ruiz is the son of Andy Ruiz, a former Recreation instructor at Skyline College. Marty Ruiz, like Mills coach Rick Hanson, spent some time playing in the San Bruno rec league as kids, though Hanson later moved to Burlingame.
John Murphy is the Web Content Manager of Prep2Prep. He may be reached at jmurphy@prep2prep.com and followed on Twitter @PrepCat
