Schroering talks getting to lead alma-mater

“It may sound corny to say it, but when I graduated from Northeast Dubois, it was always a goal to become a teacher, become a coach and eventually get back here to Dubois and coach the basketball team,” Schroering said. “It’s been a long-term goal of mine, and I’m just excited the opportunity is here in front of me.”

Schroering believes it helps with the transition to be familiar with the program, the players and the community.

“I’ve grown up here, I’ve coached here, I kind of know what people expect,” he said. “They want the kids to play a certain way — they want them to play hard, they want them to play smart, they want them to play unselfish basketball. And that’s kind of how I’ve been, grown and raised and how I’ve coached throughout my years of coaching.”

He may still incorporate some of those same elements that help comprise of Jeep Basketball, but also told The Herald his team will be different from Friedman’s in that they’ll take more 3-pointers and get up and down the floor more.

“That just goes with how the game has changed over the last 6-7-8 years,” Schroering said. “It’s just kind of the style of play the kids grow up with — it’s what they’re excited to play. Kids enjoy getting up and down the floor, they enjoy putting points on the board. It’s something that I’ve kind of been teaching in my years that I’ve been here and coaching with the groups that I’ve coached from the youth level on up.

“It’s, ‘Let’s get that ball down the floor, let’s share that ball, throw it to the open guy,’ ” he continued. “’If you’re open and you’re capable, you’re going to be shooting that shot.’ Every kid is encouraged to look to score, it’s just an exciting brand of basketball. I think the kids can buy into it and you can get them energized to it.”

But Schroering also won’t be without his challenges, as Friedman was the longest serving and the winningest coach in program history. He was also the only coach to guide the Jeep boys to more than one sectional title — winning of them, including in 2022-23.

He told The Herald Friedman and previous coaches that came before him set a standard, but feel like it’s a challenge he’s ready for at this point in his life.

The Jeeps will also take the court next season having graduated seven seniors off this past season’s sectional winner, but the new coach also feels good about what is coming back.

“We got a junior class that are going to be seniors — five kids in there,” Schroering said. “We’ve got some talent there we feel like with (incoming senior) Grant Goller kind of leading that group, and then we’ve got seven sophomores that are turning into juniors that have always been a group that have worked hard for us and doing what ever has been asked of them — so we’re expecting big things out of them.

“And then, we’ve got a group of sophomores that had a good year last for us,” he continued. “So, we feel like we got a good mix of athletes coming back that, more than anything, are going to come in and compete. They all want a piece of it, so we feel like we can get them in here and get them to buy in to what we want to accomplish and what we want to do.”

He noted summer ball is scheduled to begin May 31 — with some open gym time, plus competing against other teams and also having a team camp at Indiana State University.

And he has his goals for what he hopes to accomplish in his new role.

“I think short-term, it’s get guys to come in — we got guys to buy in to what we want to do every night and that’s just playing hard, playing unselfish basketball,” Schroering said. “And being good members of our community, being people that the younger kids can look up to.

“And then long-term wise, we want these kids to be able to graduate here and walk out here and just be good, productive members of our society that we all live in,” he continued. “And then maybe along the way, if they’re able to do all that stuff, we’ll be able to hang up some pictures, hang up some banners of their accomplishments here as basketball players.”