John Carroll girls basketball coach, Catonsville native Jim Stromberg surpasses 400 wins
John Carroll girls basketball coach Jim Stromberg earned his 400th career win on Jan. 12 when his Patriots defeated Maryvale Prep. However, in a long and distinguished career that began in 1994 at Seton Keough High, several other games jump to the forefront of Stromberg’s mind.
Seton Keough has since closed, but asked if he remembered losing to Mount de Sales, 44-43, on a half-court shot in the 1995 Catholic League tournament semifinals, he responded immediately.
“Oh, like it was yesterday … Ana Martinez, Mount de Sales,” he said.
Stromberg went on to win three Catholic League championships and the first Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference tournament title with Seton Keough in 2000, before leaving for St. Paul’s where he became athletic director and basketball coach.
“I went to St. Paul’s because I was just going to be the AD and it was just a better situation for my family, Stromberg said. “We had just had our son and it was just a better situation financially and the only sport I had to coach was basketball.”
Stromberg, who played basketball at Mount Saint Joseph and graduated in1976, was at St. Paul’s for 16 years and coached basketball 12 of those years. He led the Gators to their first championship in 2009, a B Conference title.
That team finished 26-1 and the only loss came on another miraculous shot.
“My babysitter was a kid from Catonsville and played at NDP, and she made a half-court shot at the buzzer to beat us and it was our only loss of the year,” said Stromberg, noting one of his players [Iliana Sanza] told him after the game, “You let her make that.”
“It’s funny when you think back at the 400 wins you think of those kind of things that happen. It was like Ana Martinez all over again,” hesaid.
He was mum as he approached his 400th win this season.
“I didn’t tell anybody, I didn’t even tell my wife because you never know when it’s going to happen or not,” he said. “You get that many it’s like, let’s just kept winning. I’m kind of superstitious so I didn’t want to say anything because you never know when it will happen and it’s just like one of those things and I came home and I told my wife.”
Stromberg, 65, had spinal fusion surgery in May 2016 and took a year off coaching before coaching two seasons at Eastern Tech, two at Catholic High and spending one year as an assistant at Howard.
In his second season at Catholic (2018-19), he won a C Conference championship making him the only coach in history to win A, B and C Conference titles.
He took over at John Carroll in October and has led the Patriots to a 12-7 record, including a 7-3 record in the B Conference, good for the third seed in the playoffs.
Mount de Sales coach Trish Armstrong, who has amassed over 250 wins in her 18th season with the Sailors, never coached against Stromberg’s Seton Keough teams when they were rivals, but she has coached against his teams from St. Paul’s and Catholic.
“His strongest point as a coach is he is a defensive genius,” Armstrong said. “He’s probably one of the best coaches in this area. When you play against him, you just know you’ve got to bring your best game because he’s there coaching them up, he’s just a fabulous coach. His basketball IQ is through the roof, but especially his defense.”
His coaching style is very simple. He learned it as an assistant under Dave Greenberg at Mt Hebron where they won six state championships.
“Coaching with Dave Greenberg and Brad Rees all those years, we only played man-to-man [defense] and we only ran motion offense,” Stromberg said. “When I went to Catholic League they said we play zone. I said, ‘That’s a four-letter word. We are not going to use that.'”
Why play man-to-man they asked?
“Because I know who got scored on,” he said.
At Seton Keough, Stromberg took over for Mike Mohler, who was there one year before going to Catonsville to coach his daughter, Meghann. Mohler is now in his 30th season at Catonsville and has 582 victories.
“I walked into a really great situation at Keough as far as players go with Meghan Donovan, Melanie Morris, Charity Carbine, Andrea Pinheiro,” Stromberg said. “I tell Mike all the time, even I couldn’t mess that up. We had some kids in place who were really good. It was a good place to be because the kids loved playing and they were committed to being good.”
Denise King, a Catonsville native who graduated in 2000, played for three championship teams before having an outstanding career and scoring over 1,000 points at Rhode Island University.
“What I loved the most about Strom was he coached hard, but he also loved hard so for me he just knew how to get the best out of me,” King said. “His skill development for me was amazing in terms of teaching the game, understanding the game and kind of having that foresight of what I would play in college.”
King is now in her third year coaching at UMass Lowell and she still confides in Stromberg for coaching advice.
“He’s definitely somebody that I talk to even now as a head coach,” King said. “He’s still sharp as a tack. I respect and value all of the things that he’s taught me and he’s still got a sharp eye.”
Like Armstrong, King knows Stromberg’s strong suit is defense.
“That’s his thing, defensively, that was always our bread and butter,” she said. “Defense and then getting out and running in transition. So that’s the first thing that he talks about and that he notices.”
As a player, she didn’t always see eye to eye, but absorbed his opinion.
“I think one of the biggest lessons with Strom that I learned and I respected was that you could have a conversation and you could agree to disagree, both points could be heard, both sides can be heard and it’s OK,” King said. “That’s how I tend to operate now in communication so I think that’s one of the things off the court that he’s taught myself.”
Jackie Valderas, who played four years under Stromberg until graduating in 2002, first saw Stromberg as a coach before she got to high school.
“I watched him coach a lot as a youngster because my aunt, Meghan Donovan, played for him,” said Valderas who played collegiately at Loyola College. “I remember being intimidated by him, but wanting to play for him and I was excited to go there and do what she did.”
Her excitement was tempered as a workhorse freshman who did more than just play the game.
“As a freshman in high school I don’t think you appreciate the things you appreciate now as an almost 40-year old looking back,” Valderas said. “He really taught us discipline and he was very tough on us and he expected a lot from us. It was a very disciplined environment and there was a hierarchy, freshmen had to get the water before every practice, we had to sweep the floor before every practice, we had to bring the towels and first aid kit and it was like if you didn’t show up 15 minutes early to practice you were late.”
Practices were sometimes harder than the games.
“The practices were really, really competitive and I’m sure that’s why we were so good,” Valderas said. “He cultivated that competitiveness at practice, but then off the floor and on game day we were all very good friends and are still friends to this day, we get together. He had great players and that’s a good place to start as a coach, he was tough on us, but he could be tough.”
One of her favorite memories was beating St. Mary’s in the 1999 Catholic League tournament championship game.
“I remember winning that game and thinking about all the hard work and the brutal practices that it was worth it,” Valderas said. “We all bought in because we won and it worked.”
Seven of the players Stromberg coached at Seton Keough went on to play Division I basketball. At St. Paul’s, Stromberg inherited a lot of multi-sport athletes.
“I go to St. Paul’s and none of them were basketball players, so I really struggled the first three years, struggled in the sense of getting kids to buy in to basketball there,” he said. “The year we won the championship [2009] was kind of rewarding because the school had never even been in a championship game before. We beat St. Mary’s, who was my old nemesis when I was at Keough, and there were five kids on that team who ended up playing in college.”
He also coached three years of varsity lacrosse at St. Paul’s and appreciated the two and three-sport athletes.
“It was just a really good group of kids who liked moving from sport to sport,” he recalled.
After two years at Eastern Tech, he landed at Catholic High and won the C Conference title in 2019.
“Three of the kids actually played basketball in college,” he said.
He took over at John Carroll for Holly Ismael, who took the Patriots to one title game, and the winning has continued and the multi-sport talent has been there as well.
“A lot of the kids play softball, they play lacrosse, there are some good athletes there,” he said. “Holly did a good job changing their minds we can compete in this league. The kids are competitive, that’s the thing. They play all these other sports and they are really competitive.”
His coaching style hasn’t changed from his early days at Seton Keough.
“We are just going to play man-to-man and run motion offense, We are not going to get too complicated,” he said. “You get a bunch of kids together and if they are just competitive and they are going to do their best, so that’s kind of where they are at.”
When he was offered the job by athletic director Seth Greenberg before the season, he committed to one season, and with the postseason on the horizon he’s going to enjoy that.
“I want to move on and see how many this team can win and I don’t want to put any pressure on them. I just want them to just play and not have to worry about some old guy trying to win games,” he said. “I’m at the end of my career, so it’s just a nice milestone. Looking back on all the people I’ve met and all the families, I’m trying to enjoy that part of it more than anything else.”
After a loss to Mount de Sales in Friday’s regular season finale, he has 405 career wins and he’s still making an impact on his former players like King, who he starting coaching on the Hurricanes AAU team.
“Ever since I was 11 he’s coached me and watched me grow from a little fiery spitfire to a 41-year old spitfire,” King said. “One of the other things about Strom is he always makes it a point to check on all of his former players whether they are coaching or whatever it is that they are doing. He is just so involved in the game and still has so much more to give, so I love that he is still coaching and I know the era is different, but I still think he is great for the game.”