Cornerstone coach Babe Kwasniak hugs his son Quinn for his effort in the state tournament loss to Russia…38 points, 13 of 23 shooting, 6 of 11 from three-point range. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Babe Kwasniak coached his son and his Cornerstone Christian boys basketball team hard, and was fired recently in the wake of a runner-up finish at the state tournament…for not being more Christ-like!
When Quinn Kwasniak began his varsity basketball mission at Willoughby Cornerstone Christian, he didn’t know how to take a charge.
He could already shoot. But someone had to teach him to hold his ground, absorb a hard-charging opponent and fall to the hardwood. That requires a coach.
But not just any coach.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
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A coach who isn’t satisfied with the natural talent for the thing everyone marvels at – ability to score from anywhere. A coach who wants that player to be good at everything. A coach who knows that player will be the team leader, therefore, he must be the hardest working and most fearless player on the team.
To play at the elite level a player like Kwasniak aspired to, it often takes a demanding dad. And when coach and dad – a West Point graduate and Army veteran – are the same person, well, that player has a chance to excel. You can run from one coach to another coach. Happens all the time these days.
But you can’t run from dad.
“I spent an hour one time, and he had tears in his eyes taking charges because he couldn’t do it,” Babe Kwasniak said, reflecting on a day in the gym when Quinn was a ninth grader and got a lesson in toughness.
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Four years later in the Division VII state championship, with 6,466 people watching at UD Arena, Quinn showed why the hard coaching was necessary. He scored 38 points. But he took two charges against Russia, a team full of players bigger than himself.
“Those two charges he took were unreal, especially against those guys,” Babe said. “Those guys are wildebeests.”
When Quinn – affectionately known as Turtle – played in his first game as a freshman, he scored 34 points and his older brother, BK, scored two. A reporter asked BK what it was like as a senior to defer to his younger brother. He gave the correct, coach-speak answer. But that’s not what BK told Quinn.
One of the assistant coaches told Babe what he had seen after the game.
“‘Hey, coach, I don’t want to say anything, but I was standing there, and BK stuck his finger in Turtle’s chest,’” Babe recounted. “‘He said, ‘If you’re open and you don’t shoot the ball, I’m going to punch you in the face. You understand? You don’t dribble if I throw it to you. That means you’re open.’”
That brotherly shove toward greatness made Babe smile. “Yes, that sounds like BK’s leadership style,” he told his assistant.
A style, no doubt, BK learned from his dad.
When Turtle got mouthy a couple times this season, Babe didn’t overlook it. He corrected his son in the moment and sat him on the bench for a while to cool off. He acknowledges he coached his son hard. He would do it again.
However, the administration at Cornerstone rendered a different opinion on Wednesday. They fired Babe Kwasniak after four years as head coach and a runner-up finish four weeks ago in the state tournament. His assistants were fired, too. Cornerstone administrators didn’t like his coaching style, especially the way he coached his son.
“The administration hadn’t spoken to me in a while, so I kind of knew it was coming,” he said. “After the state championship game, I texted the athletic director [Tim O’Leary] two or three times and would get nothing. Then out of the blue they wanted to meet.”
O’Leary answered an email request saying the school will not comment about Kwasniak’s firing.
Kwasniak, an Army veteran who works a day job as a liaison between the Army and the public, has not kept any money he was paid to coach. He and associate Danny Schikowski passed on their stipends to the other assistant coaches. “It’s a calling,” he said.
Quinn Kwasniak finished his career at Cornerstone as Ohio’s all-time leader scorer in high school basketball, surpassing the previous mark set by Jon Diebler.
Kwasniak wrote in a Facebook post: “I was told that I am being non-renewed because I am not fully representing Christ. I agree, none of us are. I am trying my best, even if that might not be good enough for CCA.”
He said he was given three specific reasons for why he won’t have a contract to sign for the 2025-26 season. Each reason stems from his passion for coaching his players hard so the team can achieve as much as its abilities will allow. That’s what good coaches do.
“The reason they gave was that I used foul language, that it’s not Christ-like,” said Kwasniak, who surrendered his life to Christ after a suicide attempt in 2015. “I’ll tell you all the times I’ve messed up. I’m a suicide survivor, PTSD survivor, I’m a guy that has been saved by grace. The guy they’re saying that I’m not trying to be, they’re right. Nobody can be like him, but I’m trying.”
Kwasniak said the administration gave examples from two games in regard to language.
“I was telling my son to shut up because I didn’t want to get a technical,” he said.
In the same Facebook post, Kwasniak wrote: “Yes, I have used foul language telling him to keep his mouth shut. When he would run his mouth to the officials or to the opponents that hurt OUR team and it made me furious. I take accountability for that.”
Otherwise, Kwasniak said he didn’t swear at his players in games, in practices or anywhere else.
“The other thing they had a major problem with was just the way I coached him and how hard I was on him, and I’m not going to apologize for that,” he said.
On Facebook he wrote: “My son knows I love him; I show him EVERY day. He wants to be pushed, he wants to be great. Not once did I ever yell at him for basketball, it was his behavior I was correcting. Does that make my behavior justified? I guess not. I just refuse to not make corrections on my own son’s behavior.”
The third reason came from what he calls a tumultuous relationship with the local newspaper, The News-Herald.
“We would glorify God and they would censor it, and that bothered our kids, especially Turtle,” Kwasniak said.
There’s more. Turtle averaged 37 points this season, surpassed Jon Diebler to set the state career scoring record with 3,341 points and set the career 3-pointer record with 572. Yet, he wasn’t nominated for Ohio’s Mr. Basketball award from the media in his OHSAA district, a slight Babe Kwasniak holds the News-Herald largely responsible for. Turtle has several Division I offers and committed to play college basketball at Army where his dad and mom did. BK is a cadet there now. On Friday, Turtle changed his mind and will choose another school to play basketball.
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The News-Herald relationship took another hit after an emotional state semifinal win over South Webster. Kwasniak felt the emotion of being back in the state tournament where he won three state titles with Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph, that before being fired from that job in 2020 by athletic director Elvis Grbac, a former Michigan and NFL quarterback.
But that wasn’t the only thing that turned up the emotions before the game.
“One of the refs was an avid hater of mine, I guess, is the only way I could say it,” he said. “And so we were like, ‘Oh, my goodness. This is not going to go well.’”
In the meeting at Cornerstone where he was told he was fired, Kwasniak said a board member, who is a friend of the official from the state semifinal, made a comment to the effect that none of the refs like Kwasniak.
“I’ve gotten four technical fouls in 14 years of high school basketball coaching,” Kwasniak said. “I don’t yell at officials, and I don’t swear. You can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve sworn. And you can ask any of my kids.”
The events of the season coupled with the emotions of the day, Kwasniak said, added up to not wanting to talk to the News-Herald reporter after the victory over South Webster.
“My son turned to my associate head coach and said, ‘Coach Danny, I don’t want to talk to him,” Kwasniak said. “And he looked at me, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ And we said, ‘Hey, man, we’re just not going to talk to the News-Herald today.’ We weren’t going to do it like a full-time thing. We just needed some space. We were just super emotional.”
Kwasniak’s passion and emotions are evident when he coaches. He doesn’t deny it. He believes he had the support of his players and their parents.
“I’m a disrupter. I’m not status quo. If I do something wrong, and I do a lot wrong – I am so flawed. But I always own it.”
“Both jobs I’ve been fired from it’s the administration,” he said. “To be fair it’s just not wanting to deal with me, and I get that. I’m a disrupter. I’m not a status quo guy. I’m not a yes man. I think something’s not right, I say it – doesn’t matter if it’s at Cornerstone or if it’s at the Pentagon with the President and DOGE. That’s a blessing and a curse. If I do something wrong, and I do a lot wrong – I am so flawed – but I always own it.”
Kwasniak followed in his father’s footsteps as a coach. Tedd Kwasniak won two state titles at VASJ. His brother, TJ Kwasniak, was on his staff at VASJ and was hired this week as head coach at Avon Lake. Basketball is a family trait, and Babe Kwasniak says he isn’t done coaching at 48.
In another excerpt from Facebook, Kwasniak wrote: “To say I didn’t model Christ-like behavior is not true. That’s all my staff and I have ever tried to do. It’s not about winning games for us; it’s about impacting LIVES. They don’t think they can work with me and I was even told ‘you can change but not here.’”
Kwasniak said he holds no grudges against Cornerstone.
“I’m really not mad at them,” he said. “In fact it’s the opposite. I thanked them for these last four years. I got to coach both of my boys. We won three state championships at St Joe’s, and these last four years have been the best years of my life.”
Babe Kwasniak is guilty of coaching his son and his team hard. But he never wore a plaid jacket. And he never threw a chair.
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