WILLOUGHBY, Ohio — Babe Kwasniak had already put together quite the resume during his high school basketball coaching tenure.
The former Villa Angela-St. Joseph head man has multiple state championships in his cabinet.
But the one thing he’d never had the chance to do, was coach his own. For that reason, he jumped at a call from Cornerstone Christian Academy in 2020.
“For selfish reasons, I thought, ya know, I don’t want to waste this opportunity,” Kwasniak said. “I thought I was done with coaching. But, I want a chance to coach both my sons.”
Three years later, one son remains on his roster.
“Obviously, I’m biased because I’m his father,” Kwasniak said. “But I’m really hard on him.”
“He really gets on me,” sophomore Quinn Kwasniak said. “Especially those hard days after school, coming to practice, getting yelled at.”
But Dad’s stern style is clearly paying off. Quinn is on a historic path — the sophomore is averaging nearly 30 points per game and has already eclipsed 200 career three-pointers.
“It’s no surprise to any of us,” Babe said. “Because he’s always the first one here and the last one to leave.”
At this rate, Quinn is on pace to smash the Ohio state career three-point record of 329.
“I have a far way to go,” Quinn said. “I give a lot of credit to my teammates, but I’ve also worked really hard for this.”
Quinn says the only number that matters is in the win column, as Cornerstone and the rest of Northeast Ohio nears state tournament play.
“I’ve said this before, but I’d rather win a state championship than scoring any points or make anything threes,” Quinn said.
“He doesn’t think about rankings, he doesn’t think about records,” Babe said. “He just doesn’t care. I think that’s kind of what makes him special.”
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