Russia’s Spencer Cordonnier greets his son Braylon as a state champion in basketball, leaving the floor for the last time as a Russia Raider. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
His resignation from coaching surprised no one who really knew him, and Spencer Cordonnier will not be far away. Men like him never are, which is why Russia basketball will be such a plum job for his replacement.
For a community as small as Russia, Ohio, the news travels fast. Within a day of Spencer Cordonnier’s announcing that he was resigning as the boys head basketball coach people were beginning to ask…why?
“What’s going on in Russia,” a reader and long-time coach from Lawrence County texted to ask over the weekend. “They win the state championship and the coach quits. What’s up?”
Parents?
More money?
Bigger opportunity at another school?
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Fight with the athletic director, or school board?
The answer is (E)…none of the above!
“I just have other, younger kids and it’s time that I devote the time with their activities like I’ve done with Braylon (his oldest son),” Cordonnier told me by phone last week. “And of course, I’m going to want to travel to watch Braylon play baseball next year.”
Braylon Cordonnier is a top Division I baseball recruit in Ohio and will play for Greg Beals at Marshall University come fall.
So it’s not about parents in Russia. Rarely, if ever, has it ever been.
It’s not about more money, because no one coaches high school basketball for the money.
There is no bigger opportunity at another school, although Cordonnier would be a likely upgrade for many available openings.
And there’s no issue with the athletic director, because his wife, Amber, is the athletic director at Russia schools; and by all accounts they get along well!
His statement about it being time to spend his time with different priority is not ‘coach-speak’. There may not be another high school coaching job that’s better than the one at Russia, though many are just as good, and for the same reason.
“I could not be more appreciative,” says Cordonnier. “People in Russia love basketball, they support the kids, and they allow you to coach kids the way they need to be coached.”
“I could not be more appreciative,” he said recently. “Because there’s never been many issues with coaching in Russia. The people there love basketball, they support the kids, and they allow you to coach kids the way they need to be coached. They understand. Russia basketball is not just something to do on Friday night. It’s part of the community culture. I played here, I’ve coached here, and I’m going to stay here. And yes, I’m going to go to the games.”
In a day where schools change coaches because of community pressure – or they struggle to find a coach, settling for someone ‘willing’ to take the job – Russia, like many other neighboring schools in the Shelby County League, and the Midwest Athletic Conference, enjoys a luxury of stability.
Coaches come, they buy a house, many teach in the school, and expectations are developed over a period of years – the community’s expectation of the coach, and the coach’s expectation of the community. Kids grow up learning a system, eager to improve and impress their grade school and junior high coach, all teaching the same system and values, until the time they play for the high school coach. Like interchangeable parts, they plug in and often produce immediately…because they know the system and the expectations. And, they accept them. They WANT them!
Before Cordonnier, Paul Bremigan coached boys’ basketball for 34 years in Russia. Cordonnier played, and later coached with Bremigan as an assistant. Another long-time assistant, Dave Borchers, coached the JV team for years, teaching the Russia system of basketball. Borchers eventually rose to the varsity position before passing away from injuries sustained in a car wreck in the fall of 2022. Cordonnier immediately stepped back into coaching and took the Russia boys to three consecutive Final Four appearances, winning the Division VII title this past March. Cordonnier ‘knew’ the system, trusted it and the players he’d helped Borchers develop, and the community knew and trusted him.
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It doesn’t work that way in a lot of places, but it does in Russia…in Jackson Center (Scott Elchert)…in Anna (Nate Barhorst)…in St. Henry (Eric Rosenbeck, who has Russia roots)…at Marion Local (Kurt Goettemoeller)…Versailles (Travis Swank)…or at Proctorville Fairland (Nate Speed), or Bishop Watterson (Vince Lombardo, and 500 wins), or at Delphos St. John, where the Legendary Bob Arnzen spent 43 years and amassed 676 wins.
In this day it’s hard to imagine that any community would put up with a basketball coach for 34 years, let alone 43…where the coach is allowed to have the last word on practice schedules, playing time, and discipline. But they do in places like Russia.
“I may come back to coaching in the future,” says Cordonnier. “You never know. But for now I need to be a dad. I want – need – to enjoy my kids and their own competitive experiences.”
He leaves behind a program that’s well-stocked with developing talent. And he exists within a community where the expectations for the next coach will be similarly high. The standards in Russia, on and off the court, have always been that way. That’s why it’s a great place to coach – a great place to live. Stable roots!
Roots that produce good fruit.
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