Will named coach at Fremont St. Joe

By Jim Metcalfe, The Delphos Herald
Published:  Saturday, May 16, 2009 (10 months ago)
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FREMONT — Jon Will played basketball for legendary St. John’s boys basketball coach Bob Arnzen.
For the past five years, he has been an assistant varsity, junior varsity and freshmen coach for Sylvania Southview, a Division I program.
For years, he has been a coach for the Delphos summer baseball program.
He plans on taking all that experience into his first head varsity basketball job, coach of the Fremont St. Joseph Central Catholic Crimson Streaks.
He was announced in a news conference Thursday.
“I have had the ability in the past few weeks to talk with some great people who helped to prepare me for the interview and the job at hand. Coach Arnzen and I spoke two weeks ago about the things it would take to be successful and build a winning program,” Will began. “Those thoughts were echoed by (current St. John’s coach) Aaron Elwer and (St. John’s Principal) Don Huysman, who were also very helpful in this process. I have had the privilege to work for some great guys in my five years in Sylvania, namely Marc Jump (varsity head coach) and have learned a lot of what I know from him. He has been instrumental in my advancement as a coach and he can’t be thanked enough.
“I think I was chosen for this position because I have played in a successful program at St. John’s, have coached in a successful D1 program at Sylvania Southview and couple those things with the fact that I have a Catholic education which gives me the ability to relate to the kids who are in our school. I’m in a school setting that I am comfortable and able to express my views and this allows me to teach our kids and help them understand the importance of a Catholic education. My enthusiam and passion for the game, especially the ability to make a difference in a kid’s life, is the reason I coach. It’s such a rewarding profession to be able to coach young adults and push them to be successful in the classroom, on the floor and in the real world once they leave high school.”
Will has a goal of developing an up-tempo style for the Crimson Streaks but that is also not set in stone.
“Offensively, I want to play an up-tempo style; however, you can only determine what you want to run based on what tools you have at your disposal. We have some athletic kids returning but we’re undersized,” he explained. “Our height will all have to come from the JV team that had a successful season last year. We want to transition on makes/misses but have the ability to run our half-court patterned sets when forced to slow down. We’ll stress team play, fundamentals and patience here.
“Defensively, we’ll play a little bit of everything but our staple will be our man-to-man defense. We’ll play extremely aggressive and pressure the basketball at all times. With the mixture of kids we have returning, we’ll be able to run some man press in the full-court as well.”
Will figures his first season will be a “get-to-know-each-other” scenario.
“This first year proves to be the most important without a doubt, the ability to get in, get our system in place and still have that ability for me to learn about my kids and vice versa. They are extremely hard-working kids and we’ll go in with the mindset that we can achieve anything together as a team,” he added. “We’re one big family now and it’s my job to point them in the right direction. Mr. (Gary) Geller (Fremont St. Joe Central athletic director) and Mr. (Mike) Gabel (principal) are two great guys to be working for. We have a staff who is passionate about the game and are great guys who have the knowledge of the game. They will be crucial to our teams’ success, as well as they have already put in a lot of time and thinking into what we want to do here.
“Over the course of the next few years, we want to have pride, tradition and excitement built at Fremont St. Joe similar to what we have in Delphos at both schools. The pride and sense of community is big in the small-school setting and that is something we want to continue. They have had a successful basketball program for years and Mr. Gabel, the former head coach, was very successful there. The kids were well coached and now it’s my responsibility to continue the successes that he has laid in the past but bring a fresh new look to the program and bring the ideas that I have learned over these past few years and instill them into our kids.
“Over the course of the next few years we want to have a reputation built on hard work and have a program that not only the Fremont community can be proud of but also that others in surrounding communities respect.”

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