Lake Zurich's Zarr opts out of coaching

It didn't take long for John Zarr to get a confirmation.

The longtime Lake Zurich boys basketball coach recently decided that he was going to retire after 31 years in the business, 15 as an assistant coach at Lake Zurich and the last 16 as the school's head coach.

But before he went public this week with the news, he and his wife Mary needed to tell their four grown children. First up was their oldest daughter Kelly.

Zarr took Kelly and her husband out to a restaurant to break the news.

"Kelly started crying and said, 'Dad, you're taking a part of my heart,'" Zarr said. "And I'm going, 'Wow, I knew this wouldn't be good, but I didn't know it was going to be this bad.'

"I said, 'You need to talk to me.' And Kelly said, 'Dad, I'm 30 years old and you've been coaching for longer than I've been alive and I don't know you as anyone other than Coach Zarr.' That really put things in perspective for me."

As in, it confirmed for Zarr that he made the right decision, because being known as just a coach to his own kids is the precise reason he believed it was time to move on after more than three decades. He says that in the coming years he wants to be known as so much more to his kids and future grandkids, and that the time is now to start that process.

Zarr, who went 251-189 over his 16 years at the helm and guided the Bears to two conference championships (2005, 2002), 3 regional titles (2005, 2002, 1996) and a school-record 27 wins with the 2005 team, called a team meeting last Friday and told his players the news. Lake Zurich then immediately opened a search for a new coach and has been inundated with inquiries.

"I've been doing this for a long time so this was one of the most difficult decisions I've made," Zarr said Tuesday. "I'll really miss the kids, I'll miss the competition. I'll really miss practices. But sometimes you just know when the timing is right on something and I felt that the timing was right to open another chapter in my life.

"I got to thinking about all the sacrifices my family has made. They've all been extremely supportive over the years and now it's time that I gave back a little of what I took away for so long. I'd like to spend some more time with them. I'd like for us to do more as a family, things that have been put on the backburner for so many years."

Zarr says that his family likes to go camping and canoeing and fishing and that all of those activities will be easier to fit in now. Likewise, he and Mary will now be able to enjoy a trip to Greece for their 35th wedding anniversary next month without worrying about coaching conflicts.

When basketball was still in the picture, getting away like that wasn't easy. Ever.

"As a head basketball coach, your time commitment now is 12 months a year," Zarr said. "When I first started in this business it wasn't like that, but it's grown to be that way. The summers are rough and they are getting rougher.

"I got to thinking about that time commitment and my lack of opportunity to do things with my family and that made me think this is the right time."

This past season, the Bears finished 3-24, but Zarr says that struggle didn't make his decision feel any more right.

"Ironically, this really doesn't have anything to do with the past season. I would hope that people don't think that," said Zarr, a physical education teacher who will likely retire from teaching in three years alongside Mary, who was a longtime teacher and administrator in Lake Zurich and is now an administrator in Palatine. "We won only three games, but as I told the kids when I met with them on Friday, I was extremely pleased with the effort they put forth the whole year.

"This really all came down to my family."