Forslund franchise forsees fantastic future

Gabriel Santos ’21, Staff Reporter
December 13, 2018

Former varsity basketball coach of the Crusaders, Rich Forslund ’76, is making his return at the Junior Varsity level this year.

Forslund has a number of accolades on his high school coaching resume from various high schools in the area. Forslund is a Riordan alumnus and Class of 1976 valedictorian. His son also attended Riordan and followed in his father’s footsteps, as they are the only father-son duo to both be named valedictorian in all of Riordan history.

Forslund has the second highest record of wins amongst coaches in Riordan’s history, sitting at an outstanding record of 194-124 solely from 1997-2007. Among these wins belongs the only basketball state championship in the school’s history, as well as four Central Coast Section titles.

After his journey at Riordan, he decided to take his coaching talents to Half Moon Bay High School where he coached for seven years, accumulating a 163- 48 record, the best record in their school’s history. The team made it to the Norcal playoffs every year under the guidance and coaching skills of Coach Forslund.

Coach Forslund’s success may be based off of the saying he coaches by, which is “No one prepares to fail, you fail to prepare.” Past and current players say he emphasizes everything down to the smallest detail in order to ensure the team’s success. By not relying on the team’s strengths and spending a tedious amount of time to work on the team’s weaknesses, his success with such an outstanding record follows.

Basketball is a team sport where working together is more important than any single great player. This all starts with the coach, as he is the main instrument in helping the players effectively work as a team. The players have to execute the materials the coach gives to them, and it is up to the coach to ensure that the execution ends up successful.

Without great coaching, a team would consist of great players who do not play well together, eventually leading to less wins as team chemistry and teamwork are necessities.

He was welcomed back to the Crusaders with opened arms, with Junior Varsity point guard CJ Cabanero ’21 stating, “I feel that Coach Forslund is a great coach with a lot of basketball knowledge. He is really funny and just a great guy to be around.”

Evan Wallis ’22, a student new to Riordan and its athletics, said, “Just by these couple weeks of him as our coach I’ve learned so much, and he is by far one of the best coaches I’ve ever had! I love his coaching style and our upcoming season will be outstanding for the JV team for sure!”

If the players’ enthusiasm is any indication, this will be a record breaking season for the JV team.