IAABO BOARD 10 NEW HAVEN
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2012
With Tim Kohs, Girls Head Coach, Mercy High School Tim Kohs has been the head basketball coach at Mercy since the 199394 season. This is his 19th season at the helm. In that time, his teams have won 323 games – including going 20-0 in the 2004-05 regular season -- and lost just 137. Mercy has qualified for the state tournament every year during his tenure as coach and has won at least one tournament game in each of those years. Mercy has been to the state finals four times, the semifinals eight times and quarter finals 12 times. They won the Class L championship in the 1995-96 season and finished as Class LL runner up three times between 2005 and 20211. They have also won 12 SCC Quinnipiac Division championships and one SCC tournament, the latter in 2007. Coach Kohs has also been an active supporter of girls’ high school basketball off the court, serving as a member of the CIAC Girls Basketball Committee for 13 years, and he has been chairman of that committee. He has also been a member of the CT High School Coaches’ Association (CHSCA) for 7 years, and served as that association’s All State Banquet coordinator for the last 7 years. Coach Kohs has been highly honored for his work, including receiving Board 10’s Rudy Canelli Sportsmanship Award not once, but twice – a rare accomplishment. He coached the 2005 CHSCA All Star Game, won the 2007 New Haven Tap Off Club Coach of the Year award, the 2009 CIAC Merit Award, and was named the 2010 New Haven Register All Area Coach of the Year. As for his “real job,” Tim Kohs was, until last year, the assistant Athletic Director and chair of the physical education department at Xavier High School. Tim is now the Athletic Director at Mercy High School.
Q: How did you get started in coaching? A: I played basketball at Xavier High and Springfield College and after that I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I got the opportunity to coach freshmen and JV boys at my alma mater, Xavier, and enjoyed it and thought if the head coaching job became available there, that would be my dream job. It didn’t, but the opportunity to coach at Mercy did become available. When I got to Mercy, we had a really good group of younger players my first year. The following year, we went to the state semifinals and the year after that, we won the championship. So, it was a very good situation for me. Q: What is your coaching philosophy? A: I try to get our kids to buy into our team concept, work hard, and play with passion. My goal !
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is to have my team play as hard as, if not harder than, anyone on our schedule. We do a pretty good job of that, but we can always do better. I may yell at a player for not working hard. The player might not like it at the moment, but most of the time she’ll figure out that I’m yelling because she’s not doing something she’s supposed to do, so then why not just do it right. I promote a team-first mentality. I’ve been lucky to have some great individual players. They get a lot of attention and honors. But we treat them the same as we treat everyone on our team. There’s no star system here. Every player is important. We try to play team basketball. The other thing I stress is the importance of academics. Mercy is a great school, and when you come here, it should be school-first, not basketball. (cont. on p. 24)