Brandon Pritzl did not like Tod Kowalczyk.
It was 2009. Pritzl was a senior at De Pere High School in Green Bay, Wis., and Kowalczyk — a 1985 De Pere graduate — was the head coach at Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Pritzl wanted desperately to play for the hometown team. But it took just one conversation for Kowalczyk to put an end to Pritzl’s dream, delivering a cold, sobering message: Pritzl was not good enough to play Division I college basketball. (Kowalczyk’s father, Rod, had coached Pritzl’s father, Brian, at St. Norbert College.)
“In the moment, I was probably as angry as an 18-year-old kid could be,” Pritzl said.