Though UW Badger Basketball Coach Joe Krabbenhoft hails from South Dakota, when he accepted the assistant coaching position in Madison, he felt like he and his wife were coming home, he said.
Krabbenhoft spoke to the Waunakee Rotary Club at their Jan. 11 meeting about his time as a Badger basketball standout and now as a coach for the team.
A Waunakee resident, Krabbenhoft remembered winning 100 games as a Badger. The team’s buzzer-beater win over Florida State marked that 100th. During the team’s Big 10 champion that year, they went 16 and 2, losing only to Purdue.
“I had a great career here,” he said, as he recalled playing for Hall of Fame former Coach Bo Ryan.
Ryan, he said, demanded a lot from the players in practice.
After graduating with a history degree, Krabbenhoft embarked on a professional career that eventually took him to far flung places.
He began in D league training camps with the Portland Trailblazers, then headed back to Sioux Falls, where he played with several former fellow teammates.
“It was a little bit of a Wisconsin reunion,” he said.
Then, a team in South Korea bought his contract out.
“If I hadn’t played, I never would have gone there. I probably never will go back,” he said, adding that the food, particularly, was difficult to acclimate to.
As always, tensions were high between North and South Korea, and from time to time, Krabbenhoft’s father would call, worried about pending nuclear war, and say, “We’ve to get you out of there.”
Krabbenhoft asked his translator, who reassured him that the strained relations were par for the course.
Krabbenhoft said he got engaged to his high school sweetheart that summer, and then signed a contract to play in Greece. He was close to Athens, and he could delve into ancient history there as they traveled throughout Europe playing games.
Krabbenhoft then married, and he spent his last year playing basketball in Spain, which he and his wife enjoyed.
Krabbenhoft saw that then Coach Ryan had an opening and his coaching career then began as a video coordinator. He had a chance to watch Coach Ryan go to work from the coach’s locker room, he said.
The next three years he spent as an assistant coach at South Dakota State where he and his wife were close to family.
“All along, I was watching Wisconsin in the final four,” he said.
When Coach Greg Gard assumed the position of head coach, it would be the third time Gard had recruited him – first as a player, then as the video coordinator and finally as assistant coach.
Meanwhile, Krabbenhoft’s wife was pregnant with their fourth child.
Last year’s team was so experienced, Krabbenhoft said, they almost coached him. Now a younger group of players are on the court and are learning a lot, he said.
With the number of players lost, they will have to build chemistry and learn to play in sync, but the more they play together, that should happen, he said.

 

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Other news:
President Jim Kattner thanked the club members who helped take down the Rotary Lights displays at the park Saturday.

 

Guests: Linda Schmitz, guest of Jim Schmitz; Jody Pulvermacher, guest of Bob Pulvermacher; Joe Zwettler, guest of Drew Lawrence; Kathey Kearney, guest of Kevin Kearney.

 

Visiting Rotarians: Kyler Kahat, Lake Mills.

 

Birthdays: Jan. 18, Rich Harris.

 

Anniversaries: None.

 

 

Greeters: Jan. 18, Sara Whitley and Phil Willems; Jan. 25, Rich Wipperfurth and Jim Ableidinger; Feb. 1, Peggy Acker-Farber and Leonard Allen.