Milwaukee Vincent High School has a new varsity boys basketball coach, and the hire is about more than wins and losses.
Principal Dr. Richard Watkins made it a priority to find a coach who could develop students on and off the court. He chose Freddie Riley.
"It's not just about what's on the court but what they can do off the court, so not every player gets a chance to go to the NBA, but however, they can be productive citizens," Watkins said.
The stakes were high. The season before Riley's arrival, the basketball program was canceled because players were academically ineligible — something Watkins said was unacceptable for a school with Vincent's history.
Watch: Milwaukee Vincent hires new varsity boys basketball coach to rebuild program and student success
"For alumni or anybody to hear that the fact that Vincent did not have a basketball program due to the grades was unheard of. You walk outside the hallway you see all the people that made it to the NBA from this school. To have no program existed at all because of grades. That's us as leadership, and I want somebody who could really tackle and address that," Watkins said.
Riley is no stranger to Vincent. He got his start coaching the women's team there in the early 2000s. He returns after three seasons at Menomonee Falls and 11 seasons at Milwaukee Washington High School, where he won four City Conference titles and earned Coach of the Year honors twice. He also had two state runner-up finishes in 2018 and 2019.
His approach to rebuilding the program starts in the classroom.
"For me, my formula is really simple; it starts first as a student athlete. You're a student first, you have to be in attendance in school. You have to be prepared, you have to be in class. You have to be engaged," Riley said.
Riley said his motivation goes beyond basketball.
"I live working with young people, I think they keep me young. They keep me vibrant. I know I got a lot to offer them, and I'm just eager to try to pour into them and help them be successful," Riley said.
Watkins said restoring the basketball program is central to restoring the school's identity. Vincent's last era of sustained success came under legendary coach Tom Diener, who won five state titles.
"Basketball is part of the foundation, it helped provide identity, right? If you can restore that pride of the basketball team. We wanna have greatness going there," Watkins said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
It’s about time to watch on your time. Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for “TMJ4” on your device.
Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more.
