Shocked. Disappointed. Those were the words of Menlo basketball head coach Ben Batory and senior captain Ethan Zhao when they learned Rich Forslund wasn’t returning for his fourth year as an assistant varsity coach.
Forslund has been coaching high school basketball since 1981. Before coming to Menlo, Forslund won three California State Championships at Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco. He was also the head coach at Half Moon Bay High School from 2010 to 2017. “[Menlo was] definitely a different animal to coach,” Forslund said.
Batory and Forslund met when they were assistant coaches at Palo Alto High School in 2017. “We became friends and stayed in touch ever since,” Batory said. A year after Batory took the head coaching job at Menlo in 2021, Forslund came on board as his assistant.
Unlike Batory, Forsland exudes an easygoing and humorous attitude in practices and on game days. Forsland believed that the combination of him and Batory was what made Menlo’s basketball program so successful, contributing to the team’s victory at the CCS Championship two years ago.
“Rich is great because he gives me the space to do those things,” Batory said. “When we’re shooting a free throw, [he] will say to me, ‘Hey Ben, sub for the shooter’ […] now we have time to set up our press.”
Zhao commended Forslund for creating close connections with players during his time at Menlo. “He was always someone I could talk to about anything. He was always there to look out for me,” Zhao said. “He taught me to either suffer the pain of discipline or the pain of regret, and that really stuck with me.”
The decision to leave wasn’t easy for Forslund, but with his full-time working schedule outside of Menlo, it was really hard to make things work out. However, he believes that there’s lots of upside with the team, describing their enthusiasm, dedication, and love for the game as characteristics he had never seen before in his 44 years of coaching.
“I wish it could have worked out because Rich is a super high-level coach,” Batory said.
