OSHKOSH, Wis. (WFRV) – Oshkosh North High School honored one of its basketball legends on Friday night.
The athletic department held a ceremony to name their fieldhouse after legendary coach Frank Schade. He spent 31 years as the school’s head basketball coach, accumulating 437 wins, five conference titles, and five state finals appearances. He’s a member of the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, inducted as both a player and a coach.
“I was caught by surprise. This was the guy who told me about it (Tyrese Haliburton),” Schade said. “I don’t cry easily, but I had to shed a few tears.”
Hundreds of people attended the ceremony, including dozens of his former players. Schade joked that he coached for so long that he was nervous he wouldn’t recognize all of his former players who attended.
The highest profile guest was NBA star Tyrese Haliburton, providing a ringing endorsement to his former high school coach.
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“Coach has meant a lot to me and my family as well as the majority of our community,” Haliburton said in a news conference ahead of the ceremony. “To be here and be part of this means the world to me.”
Speaker after speaker described Schade’s old-school toughness, saying he instilled in them countless life lessons during their time at Oshkosh North. Haliburton recalled how coach Schade taught him the importance of timeliness when he made the rest of the team, except for him, run suicide sprints when he was late for practice.
He said to this day, he makes it a point to be on time after going through that experience with Coach Schade as a freshman.
He also recalled another life lesson he learned from Schade, telling a story about his exit meeting with his coach after his freshman season.
“I thought I had a great year, a freshman on varsity,” Haliburton told Local 5 News. “And he was a little disappointed in me because I didn’t take the starting position. I remember leaving that day and being like, ‘What is this guy talking about?’ But the more I thought about it and talked with my parents, it made sense he didn’t just give it to me, it was something I’d really have to push, fight, and claw for.”
“Being on time, working as hard as you could every single day,” Schade said when asked what he hoped he taught his players over the years. “Those are life skills that I think are important.”
He also said he wanted to teach his players toughness and the importance of giving their best effort in every practice and game.
During Haliburton’s senior year, Oshkosh North won its first state title in program history. It was the year after Schade retired, but Haliburton said the championship wouldn’t have been possible without him because he laid the foundation for the program.
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Haliburton recalled how, after they won the state championship, he remembers the student section chanting ‘Schade,’ a nod to his importance to the program even in retirement.
Frank Schade has over 600 wins (to just 316 losses) across his high school coaching career. He was a star player as well, making it all the way to the NBA. The Kansas City-Omaha Kings drafted him in 1972. He played in nine games.
Haliburton also announced that across the next three years, he will donate $3 million to Oshkosh North athletics. The money will go towards scoreboards, new signage for the fieldhouse to reflect the new name, and upgrades to the weight room.
