Lake Catholic Coach Reflects on Long Career

Although the communication technology boom has surrounded us for a while now, former Lake Catholic girls’ basketball coach Frank Soria doesn’t walk around with a cellphone, although he does keep one in the car for emergencies.

When Soria announced his retirement from coaching basketball after 18 years last week, he said the energy it took to be a coach these days was no longer in him, and one might have gathered that the age of Facebook, Twitter and 24-hour sports news coverage simply wore him down.

Although the 56-year-old math teacher has seen a lot of change from the time he began coaching the Cougars, the era’s switch to touchpads and real-time updates never got in the way of his joy for the people and game he loved at the Mentor school.

In the end, it was just time to leave and spend more of his life with the people who mean the most to him.

“I enjoy spending time with my wife,” Soria said. “In the summer time, now I’m off for most of June and July. We can just take off and go. If I’m coaching basketball, I can’t do that because we’ve got summer programs to deal with and camps.  So it was mostly all the time commitment. I didn’t think I had the energy to do that anymore, and I thought it’d be better for someone a little younger and single.  It was a good opportunity for a change.”

Soria had quite a run at Lake Catholic leading the Cougars to a Division II state runner-up finish in 2006, two regional titles and four district championships.

This past season, the Cougars made it to a Division II regional final before falling to eventual state champion Hathaway Brown. They finished 23-3 with a North Coast League Blue Division title.

Soria, who grew up near Shaker Square in Cleveland and attended nearby Our Lady of Peace in elementary school, will continue to teach math at Lake Catholic.

Former Lake Catholic player Steve Eppich, a 2001 graduate, was hired Wednesday to replace Soria. Eppich, a social studies teacher at the school, is the program’s all-time leading scorer in boys’ basketball. Soria will be a consultant to the team.

While Soria is happy to move on from coaching, he’ll always cherish the relationships he built with the assistant coaches and players.

“I’m going to miss the camaraderie. It was always a pleasure to come in and talk with them and see what their plans and ideas were. That aspect of teaching is something I always enjoy. Being able to do that on a personal level outside the classroom makes it extra special,” Soria said.

Putting in 18 years on the job means Soria’s witnessed the girls’ game evolve with bigger, stronger and faster players who possess more skill than past players. Plus, he’s seen a lot of what the area has to offer from many gritty battles against great players and top teams.

While Hathaway Brown blocked his path to Columbus in a number of tense and memorable playoff games, it’s the Cougars’ tilts against Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin he’ll always treasure most.

“The games we have with them are just a tremendous rivalry.  The fans get into it big time, and the players know each other. That, I think, has always been a big rivalry for us,” Soria said.

When it came to players, without hesitation, Soria called Semeka Randall, who was Ohio's Miss Basketball in 1996 and 1997 at Trinity High School, the best player he ever faced.

“She was easily head and shoulders above everybody else,” Soria said. “She was very, very good and very difficult to play against. It was very difficult to get a game plan together.”

Soria came to Lake Catholic in 1985 and coached freshman football, boys’ junior varsity basketball and girls’ softball. Soria said he couldn’t coach more than one sport nowadays because each sport has become a year-round commitment.

“Every sport requires 365 days and seven days a week to really do a good job and stay competitive. With basketball, you finish it up and in a few weeks, you’re starting up again. That takes a lot of time away from the family,” Soria said.

Soria has one regret, though, and that’s not winning it all.

“The ultimate goal is to be a state champion. We never were able to achieve that, so I’m disappointed that we haven’t done that. I did the best that I could. But the things we did accomplish I’ll remember the rest of my life.”