Coach Bobby and AJA’s Boys Varsity Basketball team after winning the championship. Credit: Stephanie Cousins

By Natalie McKee

Coach Bobby Schwartz is the athletic director and head football and basketball coach at Austin Jewish Academy, where he turned around a floundering athletics program with a “championship mindset.” But AJA wasn’t the first underdog athletics program to get a Bobby Schwartz makeover — and he didn’t become the coach he is today without some setbacks.

Schwartz grew up in South Carolina, where he faced an onslaught of antisemitism. He was bullied for being Jewish and got into many fights growing up where several students attacked him calling him antisemitic slurs. Despite the ostracization, when he brought the camp team to the championship later that summer, he noticed something: Sports unified. No one was going to tell him, “That basket or touchdown doesn’t count because you’re Jewish.” It was then that he decided to use sports to connect.

In a huddle, Schwartz explained, there are kids who are raised by single parents and kids with a traditional nuclear family; kids from poor backgrounds and wealthy backgrounds; kids who are Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, or with no religion at all.

“None of that matters when you’re playing a game. There’s only the color of the uniform,” Schwartz said. “There’s one goal: We are going to score a touchdown, we are going to score a basket.”

Right after Schwartz graduated from the University of Texas, he got a college coaching job, and one position led to another. He was traveling the country recruiting for college sports when he became a single father to a two-year-old and 3-month-old. Eventually, the traveling and recruiting requirements proved too challenging to manage as a single dad, so he switched to high school sports in order to be more present for his kids.

Schwartz repeatedly turned around struggling sports programs, and his reputation preceded him, leading him to more job offers. The Texas High School Coaches Association recognized Coach Schwartz for his legendary career in coaching, with a milestone of victories for winning 900 games as a Head Basketball Coach and 200 wins as a Head Football Coach. Shockingly, the antisemitism he faced as a student didn’t stop in adulthood.

Despite his impressive record of turning losing teams into champions, he was recruited by boosters with multiple Christian private schools, only to be told at the last minute that they wanted to hire him as Head Coach, but the church and board would not hire him because he was Jewish.

So, when he received an offer to overhaul AJA athletics after years of supporting other schools, he said it was like coming home. “I had helped Catholic Schools, Lutheran schools, public schools…it was time for me to come home and try to win some championships here in the Jewish community,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz brought his championship mindset to the Lions, and they delivered. In four years, AJA went from losing nearly every game in every sport to winning three football and three basketball championships in a row. This year, in basketball, the Lions won the District Tournament Championship, and the AJA girls team were the district champions and Tournament Runner-ups; in volleyball, the AJA girls team were both district champions and tournament champions; the AJA football team won the district championship; the Lions finished second in soccer, fourth in track, and won a tennis championship. And Schwartz did it all without a home field, with a smaller budget than every other school in the league, all while practicing fewer times a week than their competitors.

“Before you can be a champion, you have to believe you can be a champion,” Schwartz said. “Everything we do is with that championship mindset.”

At AJA, Schwartz has what he calls a “Lion for Life” program, where he emphasizes a work ethic that goes beyond sports practice. “We have a set of core values. You’re not just a Lion on the field or the court. You’re a Lion in the hallway, the lunchroom, and off campus. Character building wins championships.”

Even though his teams keep winning, Schwartz says he doesn’t judge success by the number of championships his teams take home this year.

“We won’t know for 20 years if I’ve been successful,” Schwartz said. “The success is going to be the type of fathers, husbands, mothers, wives, men, women, members of our society, they’re going to be someday.”

Schwartz explains that if his players can’t handle being down two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, how are they going to handle the pressures of life when they have kids to feed and care for and a family that is relying on them?

As if his track record of speaking, teaching, and coaching isn’t enough, Schwartz also started the Jewish College Basketball Coaches Association (JCA). Their first Jewish Coaches meeting was in San Antonio in 2004, where about 8 coaches came together for bagels and a chat.

“This year was the 21st anniversary. We were back in San Antonio, and more than 300 Jewish coaches attended,” Schwartz said. “Of the four coaches coaching in the final four, three of them were Jewish.”

Schwartz explained that when he started, there was only one Jewish D-1 major head basketball coach he knew of in the entire country. But now the head coaches at Duke, Florida, and Auburn are all Jewish.

His goal with the Jewish Coaches Association is the same as his goal with coaching at AJA: Using athletics to build a sense of community.

“We want to help young coaches professionally, give them advice,be a reference,” Schwartz said. He said that young Jewish coaches have to start somewhere and he wants the JCA to be a part of that journey and process.

“I rarely mention the word pride, but I’m very proud that 25 years ago, after four years on my own, beating down doors, this small-time coach in Texas — coaching D2 college basketball — was able to convince them to give us a room,” Schwartz said. “There were 8 of us. Twenty-one years later, there were 300 coaches in that room. That’s pretty amazing.”