After 557 victories and a coaching career that spanned five decades in two states, Westminster basketball coach Bruce Firchau announced his retirement Wednesday afternoon in an emotional meeting with his team and school officials.
“I will miss the practices more than the games,” Firchau said. “I love teaching. We can get real flowery with our words here, but I love teaching the fundamentals of the game. I think there’s a lot of (life) lessons in there.”
Firchau is heavily involved with fundraising and obtaining artifacts and oral interviews for the new Basketball Museum of Illinois in Pontiac, and also is chairman for the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame banquet, and will remain in the sport through those pursuits.
The time it took him to devote to these projects made it apparent to him very early this season that it would be his last.
“It’s not like I’m retiring to the pasture here,” Firchau said.
Athletic director Rich Palmer said Firchau did exactly what he had been hired to do at the small school on Elgin’s far west side.
“That’s to establish a program, give it respect, have people know when they play Westminster that they are going to be playing a competitive game,” Palmer said. “I’ve said this numerous times over the last several years: I felt that our kids were the most prepared and most ready to play every game that they play.”
Firchau coached at Leland and Assumption in Illinois, then went to Plainfield, Indiana, before coming back to Illinois in 1981-82 and eventually leading the Harvard Hornets to fourth in the state in the 1984-85 Class A tournament. He went on to coach at Oswego in 1989-90 and Dundee-Crown in 1997-98 before Palmer hired him for 2005-06.
“I couldn’t get the Quincy or Collinsville type of jobs, although once in a while I might get an interview for them,” Firchau said. “I guess it was God’s will that I was to turn around losing programs and build programs and turn them into respectful programs.”
Firchau’s record was 557-447. His first Westminster Christian team was 5-21 and the last one matched a school record for victories (22). He went 174-112 at the Class 1A school with three regional titles and winning records the final nine years.
Firchau’s first Oswego team in 1989 went 7-19 but within three years he’d reversed that record to 19-7. He left D-C after 2002-03 with his best record, 15-12. He won 20 games in both seasons downstate at Assumption in the 1970s.
“There probably isn’t a coach in the state who has coached in small schools, medium size schools and big schools like I have in private and public,” he said. “So I’m about as diverse as they come.”
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Firchau grew up on the far South Side of Chicago, near the Indiana border and lived across the street from St. Francis de Sales, the school whose team ended his coaching career with a sectional defeat two weeks ago.
“It’s a weird script,” he said, pointing to the irony of finishing against a school where his dad coached eighth-grade basketball.
He saw coaching as more than wins and losses.
“When my final day on Earth is over and I get to the gates, if I’m lucky He’s not going to ask me how many victories I had, but He might ask me how many lives I had a positive impact on,” Firchau said. “I don’t think I can tell you I had a positive impact on every player, but probably enough that I hope it means something to the players I coached.”