Notre Dame first-year boys basketball coach Paul Unterreiner has school back in final four

Take a walk around the campus of Notre Dame High School and it only takes a few minutes to find players, coaches, students and faculty who speak highly of Paul Unterreiner and just how much he means to the school.

The son of two Notre Dame graduates who has countless family members who also are graduates, Unterreiner always has, and probably always will, bleed blue.

Now in his first season at the helm, it's that passion and dedication to his alma mater that makes him the perfect man to lead the Notre Dame boys basketball team to its first final four appearance since 2008.

"This is just a special place to me and a lot of times it's hard for people in the community and outside the Notre Dame family to understand how special it truly is," Unterreiner said. "Even my wife sometimes has a hard time understanding how special it is because she's not out here every day. But over the years I've seen enough to convince me that it is an awesome place and there's just something different about it. To be able to come back after I graduated college, it was a no-brainer for me. It's just one of those jobs that I can't imagine I'd ever leave."

The Bulldogs will square off with Hillcrest in a Class 4 state semifinal at 3:30 p.m. Thursday at Mizzou Arena in Columbia, Missouri.

Notre Dame coach Paul Unterreiner takes a water break during the championship game of the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament in December at the Show Me Center. (Laura Simon)

Unterreiner scoffs when asked about his playing days at Notre Dame and admits that he was never very good at basketball.

He only played as a freshman and again during his senior year, but despite his lack of talents as a player, Unterreiner said the sport did grab a hold of him and make a lasting impact that is still evident today.

"My basketball playing career consisted of senior night pretty much," Unterreiner said with laugh. "That's where I had the highlight of my career and drained a 3-pointer, but that was just about it. But I learned a lot about what I wanted to do as a coach. From every coach you ever work with, you always learn things that positively you want to take from them and things that you might want to do a little bit different."

In the two seasons he did not play basketball, Unterreiner acted as a student assistant with then Notre Dame girls basketball coach Jerry Grim.

"I learned a lot from him when I worked with the girls program my sophomore and junior years of high school," Unterreiner said about Grim. "He kind of taught me how to build that relationship with your players outside of basketball. He's a guy that cared about every single one of those girls on his team but also knew how to get them to work hard."

Around the time he began helping out with the girls program, Grim said he could see the "coaching bug" start to bite Unterreiner.

"Paul started out practicing with my girls back when he was a sophomore and junior in high school," Grim said. "I guess he just fell in love with the sport and got into coaching. He'll say he wasn't a very good player, and that may be true, but when he was with me, right away I could tell he was going to be a coach and really wanted to build relationships with players."

After graduating from Notre Dame in 2003, Unterreiner attended Southeast Missouri State University before returning to Notre Dame as a physics teacher and junior varsity girls coach under current Notre Dame girls basketball coach Renee Peters in 2007.

"It was a great relationship and kind of nice to have different perspectives," Peters said. "I'm a woman head coach, who came in, who played collegiate ball and had been a head coach before. And then I've got this young man, who was hired to be a coach and brought a fresh perspective to the game and a lot of enthusiasm and eagerness. It was fun. I kind of felt like not only was I teaching these girls and instituting a new program down here, but I kind of felt like I had someone who was absorbing every aspect of coaching because there is a lot that goes on."

For the next four seasons, Unterreiner spent time coaching the JV team as well as helping Peters lead the Bulldogs to a second-place finish at state in 2010.

Peters said it was during that season that she began to let Unterreiner coach on his own and truly feel what it was like to coach a team on his own.

"I never sat with him on the bench when he was the JV coach because he needed to be able to think about all the aspects of the game and make the quick decisions, and he did," Peters said. "We would talk or discuss things, but I had all the confidence that he was going to make those decisions and help the girls win. As a result, I think the girls had an opportunity to grow closer and trust him. They did have a bond with him and you know, girls are different personalities, different makeups. And when they respect a coach like Unterreiner, yeah, they're going to work hard for him. He helped us a ton during that run whether it was making hotel accommodations, or just being there for those girls. One thing I'll always remember is that every time his JV girls made the jump to varsity, he always had them ready to play. You truly do respect a person, who helps and wants your program to succeed."

Shortly after the 2011 season, Unterreiner made what he refers to as "the toughest decision" of his young coaching career.

When an assistant coaching position on the boys team became available, Unterreiner joined former Notre Dame coach Kevin Roberts' staff.

"There's something truly special about coaching girls. I mean, honest to God," Unterreiner said. "It was an unbelievable experience and the hardest thing about coaching girls is leaving them. When I told them I was switching over to boys that was one of the hardest things I've had to tell a group of people. You become attached to those girls, they mean a lot to you. It's a different relationship than you create with a bunch of guys. When I left, I got letters from my players thanking me and just stuff that none of these yahoos are ever going to give me. It was tough, but they understood why I did it."

Unterreiner added that he believed taking over as the JV boys coach presented him the opportunity to help him reach his ultimate goal of one day becoming a head coach for either the girls or boys program at Notre Dame.

"I wanted to put myself in a position to at some point become one of the head coaches, and I didn't really care which one," Unterreiner said. "I needed to get some experience with the boys. When that opportunity came up, Kevin offered it to me and I gladly took it. I thought about it for awhile, but I knew for the betterment of my coaching career I needed to get a little experience with both."

That decision ultimately paid off for Unterreiner, who was named the boys basketball coach shortly after the end last season when Roberts stepped down.

"Kevin came to talk to me and told me that he was getting ready to step down and that he was going to put in a word saying that it should be me," Unterreiner said. "That night I got a call from the principal and he told me to come over to his house and that's where I was offered the job."

Notre Dame did not open the job to any outside applicants. Instead, Brother David Anthony Migliorino, who has been the principal at Notre Dame for over 15 years, said Unterreiner fit the description right away.

"I knew Paul's vision, and it was exactly what I thought that position should represent," Migliorino said. "He was a basketball player himself for awhile and a coach here, so I knew he knew what he was doing. But more importantly, I really loved his vision of family and God first, others second and we're third. I really embraced that for the entire school and he's made the team embrace that. That's what I wanted, and that's what we're all about."

Anthony first met Unterreiner when he was a student at Notre Dame. It was then that the young coach left an impression on Anthony.

"When I came to Notre Dame in 1999, he was the first student I met," Anthony said. "I had asked the student council director at that time if she would get 10 students for me to meet from each grade level. He was going to be a sophomore. He was the very first one I talked to, and I kind of knew since then that he was going to be special. His enthusiasm, his desire to be great were all things that struck me. I could tell he wanted to make a difference as a sophomore and he did. He later went on to became our student body president as a senior and when he we had the opportunity to hire him here it was a great fit for both of us. He's just been a delight."

Unterreiner said Anthony, associate principal Brad Wittenborn, athletic director Paul Hale and other faculty members welcomed him to the job right away.

"Brother [David] obviously had nice things to say and didn't want to even look outside, which means the world to me because I respect and think so highly of him," Unterreiner said. "For him to have that kind of confidence and trust in me to lead what's kind of the face of the school meant a lot. I think he knew my vision and knew what my priorities were and I think that meant a lot to him. Whether we won or not, that wasn't important to him. And to hear people that I have kind of respected and looked up to my whole life show respect for me now, it's very humbling. It's one of those things where I'd go home and I couldn't believe that they offered me it like that because I'm a big doubter of myself, and I have been in years past. I'd doubt myself saying, 'Am I reaching the kids? Am I doing things the right way? Am I good enough to do this?' Brother has always been behind my back saying, 'Believe in yourself because you have all the abilities and gifts necessary.' For them to really come through and support me, it means the world."

Despite the extra encouragement, Unterreiner admitted he still struggled with his lack of confidence this season.

In the Bulldogs' first game of the season against Charleston, it almost cost them.

"The first game down at Charleston in overtime, I drew up the worst play you've ever seen in your life," Unterreiner said. "Somehow Thomas (Himmelberg) got the rebound and put it in and we won. I went in the locker room and said, 'Guys, I'm sorry. I almost just cost us that game.' With all that aside they said, 'Whatever, we're going to trust you. We're going to buy into what you're telling us and we're going to figure this thing out.' That's the reason we're good. I truly believe that it's just the fact that they let all their egos go and just bought into being a team."

Despite some early season jitters, his players soon found that Unterreiner was uplifting them with confidence.

"He gave me a lot of confidence right away," senior Tanner Shively said. "I kind of came into the year just kind of like a role player. I was kind of ready to just do whatever I had to do. He said, 'You're a great shooter. You've got great post moves, so just go out there and show them what you can do because I know you're better than what you've been playing.' I just came out working hard every day and it's paid off."

It has paid off for the Bulldogs, who improved to 26-4 with a quarterfinal victory over Westminster Christian Academy on Saturday.

"From day one he came in and he said we would be changing the program," senior Dean Crippen said. "He said, 'It's not going to be like it used to be. We're going to focus on different things,' and we really have. It's not like we weren't a team before, but he set up like almost guidelines for us to grow as a team. We really have grown into that. It's impressive."

Notre Dame struggled to gel as a team right away, according to Unterreiner. But thanks to a team motto the Bulldogs adopted earlier this season, they have thrived.

"We have a motto. It's 'I am third,'" Crippen said. "God first, others second and I am third. That's a big deal. I have trouble following that sometimes, I think we all do. But we all check ourselves and make sure we're playing for the right reasons and not just ourselves."

In the final stretch of the season, Unterreiner has Notre Dame more focused and unified than ever with one more common goal to achieve.

"I was talking to my cousin Mark [Unterreiner], who played basketball here and went to state and my cousin John [Unterreiner]. They've both got banners hanging on these walls," Unterreiner said. "They both said there are a lot of things that happened in high school, but they will never forget what it felt like going to state. *... I know that we all want that, and I've always wanted to experience that. This weekend we get that chance, and I'm just trying to keep this all in perspective. Sure we want to go win this thing, but it's a quite an honor to be one of the top four teams in Class 4. We'll go out there, give it all we got and see what happens."