Honourable senators, I rise today to celebrate Steve Konchalski, known locally, across Canada and internationally as Coach K, and a consummate coach he is.

In 2009, Steve was declared the winningest coach in Canadian university sport history, having achieved his 735th career victory as head coach of the StFX X-Men basketball team.

Coach K came to Nova Scotia from New York to play for the Acadia Axemen, leading that university team to its first national title in 1965. While he went on to Dalhousie University to earn a law degree in 1969, Steve Konchalski’s talents and brilliance ended up being better deployed on the basketball court than in the courtroom.

In his 46 years of coaching, Coach K led StFX to nine Atlantic titles and three Canadian championships. I remember well the thrill of the 2000 and 2001 back-to-back national championships. I loved witnessing Coach K’s focus, keen strategy and attention to his players as they brought their skills and energy together to make the magic happen. It was really something remarkable to behold.

Steve Konchalski also served Canada’s National Team for 31 years in a number of capacities, notably as assistant coach for 16 years, including three Olympic Games, and as head coach of Team Canada for four years.

Raptors broadcaster and former NBA player Leo Rautins, who played for Coach K when he was National Team assistant, said:

He was intense. People forget Steve was a player too, right? . . . He’s a New York kid. So he’s got that street ball in him.

Jay Triano, lead assistant with the Charlotte Hornets said:

I feel so fortunate that he was an assistant every year that I played on the Canadian national team. Not just a great coach, but a great man. Everyone who played for him left a better player and better person.

Steve Konchalski is a basketball rock star, a local and national hero and a member of the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame as well as of the Nova Scotia, StFX and Acadia sports halls of fame.

As a great coach, of course he loves to win, but this morning he said that his greatest satisfaction is his continued relationships with all his players and their successes after StFX.

As Steve Konchalski retires from StFX at the end of this month, I want to salute him and wish him a long and happy retirement with his wife Charlene MacFarlane, children Julieanne, Christopher and Maria and grandkids Francis and Luther. I also can’t wait to hear what his next basketball adventure will be. Given Steve’s record, it will be a winner. Thank you. Welalioq.