ONALASKA — His Onalaska High School boys basketball teams averaged 19.3 victories per season.
They won eight MVC championships, played in three WIAA Division 2 state tournaments and won a championship in 2012.
The Hilltoppers completed several weeks ago a season that included a 21-4 overall record, an 11-1 mark in the conference and was impacted heavily by players who will return next season.
But Craig Kowal, who coached the program the past 18 seasons after taking La Crescent-Hokah to its first MSHSL state tournament the year prior to arriving, stepped down Friday after 18 seasons of extraordinary success.
“Having to tell the players today,” he said, “was really, really hard.”
That’s because Kowal created quite an era of basketball after taking what he liked to a dream job back in 2008.
A Logan graduate, Kowal was plenty familiar with the success blazed by legendary coach John Shelton in Onalaska. The Hilltoppers won state championships in 1988 and 1992, and Kowal’s plan was to bring the program back to a championship level.
“My goal was to revitalize it,” Kowal said. “I knew how much basketball meant to the community.”
By winning 347 games and losing 102 — his career record was 481-176 over the course of one season at Granton, seven at La Crescent-Hokah and 18 in Onalaska — with the Hilltoppers, winning 13 regional championships and qualifying for two state title games, it’s easy to conclude that he did.
He coached his teams through numerous wars with Central and Aquinas that filled gymnasiums and almost always had Onalaska in the thick of a championship run of some kind. The Hilltoppers won 170 of 210 MVC games (81 percent).
“We had some great battles because we always had to be at our best, and he elevated basketball not only for our teams, but for the entire area,” Central coach Todd Fergot said. “It’s sad to see him go as a competitor, but I’m happy for him as a colleague because he is at peace with the decision.”
The result of those successes may have helped Kowal — still the baseball coach at Onalaska — conclude that the time was right to step away.
He had several reasons for making his decision, but Kowal said two of them hinged on not only continuing that success but having the fire to do so.
“When the standard is set so high, it becomes tougher,” he said. “For whatever reason, the wins seem less enjoyable, and the heartbreak is worse.”
The fire, Kowal said, should have lit again a couple of weeks after Onalaska’s loss to West Salem in a regional championship game, but it didn’t.
“There has to be a hunger there, and I didn’t get that fire back like I always do,” he said. “It was just different, and that was a sign to me that maybe it was time.”
Kowal said he believes his time as a high school head coach is over, but he isn’t closing doors on a return to the sport on some level.
For now, he will embrace the time ahead to watch his older son Ian play basketball at UW-La Crosse and his younger son Tyler play two more seasons for the Hilltoppers. Kowal enjoyed coaching the two on the basketball court — just as he does now on the baseball field — but added that he is ready to enjoy their participation on a different level.
“I can look back on it with great pride,” Kowal said of the 26-year run as a whole. “I also know this program is in very good shape, and I’m proud of that.”
