Mark Tomashek faces friend, former players and team

By Kelly Fenton

The Denmark News

DENMARK – It was an early-season, non-conference game between two coaches who have been friends for more than a decade and whose sons were in the same 4K class in Denmark, both of whom would also be battling each other that very evening. One of the coaches still teaches at the other school and would be going up against some of his students, not to mention some of his former players who are now assistant coaches for that evening’s opponent.

So you would probably characterize Denmark’s game at Ashwaubenon High School on Monday night as basketball’s version of “a soccer friendly.”

Yet you can’t ignore the passion each of the head coaches holds for the game and their teams, nor can you overlook their nearly identical competitive instincts. Mark Tomashek stalks the sidelines like a taller Shaka Smart and sports the same clean-shaven head Smart flashed during his early years at Texas.

Add to that a crowd full of loud and raucous students from both schools sending taunts across the court to one another and friendly might not be the word you’d choose.

“I had a lot of success playing under Coach T,” said Denmark assistant coach Logan Krueger, who played for Tomashek at Denmark in the early 2000s. “So I’ve had this game circled on my calendar. My sister teaches at Denmark so she and Coach T work together. There’s just a lot of crossover.

“Getting to coach against him is pretty special.”

Tomashek, head coach at Ashwaubenon for the past four seasons, laughed.

“Yeah, Logan sent me a photo today from way back and there’s (my son) Drew in it and he’s four years old,” Tomashek said. “So I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to make me sentimental. Thinking, ‘I’ve got to get some advantage.’”

‘No One Feels Sorry For You’

The Denmark Vikings, an extremely young and undersized team under second-year head coach Pete Dewar, were at a decided disadvantage against the long and athletic Jaguars who reached the Division 2 state seminfinals just two seasons ago. 

“Something (teammate) Eli Kapinos said in the locker room before the game,” Denmark’s three-point shooting specialist Jack Dewar said a couple of days after the game. “‘We know how good they are and when we take the floor people are going to look at us like the sacrificial lamb, like the D3 school coming into play a D2 school.’ So our motto was just we’ve got nothing to lose and we came in playing to win and gave it all we had. 

“But they are just an amazing team.”

The Vikings hung close early and, true to their coach’s tough-mindedness, seemed undaunted by an early 17-7 deficit. Neither smooth 6-4 guard Jayden Schoen’s dynamic early shooting, point guard Drew Tomashek’s nifty drives to the bucket nor a flurry of offensive boards off the Jaguars’ rare misses could demoralize the feisty Vikings, who, behind four Sean Malay three-pointers, trailed only 24-23 with five minutes left in the half. 

“We knew we were going to get punched in the mouth but we wanted to absorb that and do things to get Coach T stomping his foot and yelling at his guys,” Dewar said. “And he was having to do that early. But it was like all our games so far; that first 8-10 minutes we’re phenomenal but then fatigue sets in and we just don’t have much depth at this point.”

Jack Dewar said it wasn’t just the depth discrepancy but the Jaguars’ speed that finally began to take its toll and by halftime, Denmark trailed 40-25 and went on to fall 88-51. Ashwaubenon got scoring from 10 players, Denmark, which surrendered three to four inches at nearly every position, got points from just six. 

“I know Pete feels this way too,” Tomashek said before the game regarding Denmark’s size deficiency. “You gotta find other ways to do it, scrap harder or whatever. You can’t use that as an excuse because every team is going to say, ‘If we were just this or that.’ No, here’s the hand you're dealt and our job as coaches is playing to your strengths. No one feels sorry for you.

“So you gotta get out there and compete and Pete and his staff are doing a great job of that.”

Ashwaubenon has scored 80 points in all three of its games this season and look primed for another deep run.

“I’ll say this, I’d much rather have played them with last year’s team or with next year’s,” Dewar said. “But I wanted my kids to see what a well oiled machine looks like. They are so good at understanding their roles and Coach T does a great job of making sure their offense runs through Jayden and Drew.”

‘Torn Allegiances’

The connections that made this game seem almost inevitable are many. One of Tomashek’s assistants, DaVante Blanks, is married to a Denmark native. Tomashek, a Shawano native, coached the Denmark Vikings from 1999-2008 when he stepped down to focus on coaching his five-year old son, Drew. During his stint at Denmark, the Vikings ran the table one season, emerging as undefeated conference champs. Among other accomplishments was a trip to sectionals.

“It was tough leaving,” Tomashek said of stepping down at Denmark. “I really enjoyed my time there. Denmark has great kids and we had some great teams. I have to admit there’s a tad bit of feeling guilty about leaving but then my kids live in the Ashwaubenon district. I have torn allegiances.”

Tomashek coached youth basketball and AAU over the next 11 years, while teaching at Denmark. He is currently the longest-serving teacher at the school. Though he didn’t get the job at Ashwaubenon the first time he applied, he finally landed it in 2019. Over the past four seasons and three games, the Jaguars have posted a 78-29 record. 

Tomashek met Pete Dewar when Dewar’s son, Jack, was invited to Drew’s fourth birthday party shortly after Dewar had moved to Denmark. 

“I asked them this summer, ‘hey, we have an opening and do you want to come and play,’” Tomashek said an hour before the game. “Pete’s a competitor and he wants his team to get better and this was a great opportunity. It’s interesting. I’ve got a lot of these kids in class. I mean I have Jack in first block tomorrow so one of us is probably going to be a little crabby.

“It’s emotional because I’ve always been with these guys and here I’m going up against them.” 

‘Basketball Is Not a Democracy’

Former player and current Denmark assistant Josh Leiterman, a point guard for Tomashek in the early 2000s, remembers Coach T as “tough but fair.

“He made us better basketball players and better people,” Leiterman added. “As far as basketball, defense is definitely number one. If you didn’t play defense, you didn’t get onto the court. And then, ‘Be smart, take care of the ball.’”

Krueger remembers just how high Coach T’s expectations were. 

“I learned a lot about the game of basketball from him,” he said. “I think I speak for Josh that it’s the same stuff we teach our players. It’s a lot about the fundamentals and the details.”

There was one Coach T adage Leiterman still holds on to. 

“‘Basketball is not a democracy,’” he said with a laugh. “Not everybody gets to shoot.”

One thing is obvious: Tomashek is still a big fan of Denmark Viking basketball. Before the Ashwaubenon game, the Vikings, who feature only three players on their roster who have any significant varsity playing time, led at the half in every game but prevailed in only one. 

“I’ve watched all their games,” he said. “They’ve got a great junior nucleus and they’re going to be a successful team. They’re young and they just have to get from where they are to figuring out how to win and Pete’s gonna do a great job of that. Denmark is lucky to have a guy who is so passionate about the game and who holds kids accountable and pushes them to be the best they can be.”

Despite what ultimately turned into a lopsided game, all agreed it was a phenomenal high school basketball atmosphere, with so many charged-up students showing up for both schools. 

“I love that,” Jack Dewar said. “We knew it was going to be intense. (Coach Dewar) told us before the game whether we’re up 10 or down 10, T is just going to be T. He’s going to be smacking the floor and just being very intense. And the evidence shows that it’s working.”

So what did Coach T say to Jack at school the following morning?

“We shared a little laugh about the game,” he said. “He told me that he told his team, ‘Denmark is coming and they’re going to be hungry.’ He said he was very impressed by us.”