MONROE — When the Monroe boys basketball team took the floor for warmups in its season opener on Nov. 30, they wore shooting shirts with the letters KG over their hearts in honor of the late coach Kenny Gratz. 

“It’s got KG over our heart because that’s what he means to us,” Monroe head coach Brian Bassett said. “He did so much for us.”

Gratz began coaching in 2002 as an assistant to then-head coach Pat Murphy. The two helped Monroe basketball to a successful run from 2004-2011, where the Cheesemakers won six conference championships, qualified for the WIAA state tournament four times, were runners up in 2009 and won in 2008.

“We connected as far as coaches go, and he believed in the same things,” 2020 WBCA Hall of Fame coach Murphy said. “He just wanted to do what was best for kids. He was always about what can we do a little bit better to try to help our guys get to where we wanted them to get to.”

One of Gratz’s main responsibilities was scouting opponents. Being retired from Kelly Springfield, he could spend hours analyzing film. Trent Wyssbrod, who graduated from the program in 2013 and now coaches the JV squad, didn’t understand the true extent of Gratz’s scouting until he joined the coaching staff.

“As a young high schooler, you knew that the coaches watched film and scouted teams out, but you never really realized how much time they put in until you do it yourself,” Wyssbrod said. “As much detail as Gratz had in every scouting report, you would swear he watched film on every team and every kid that played 100 times. I don’t think there is any other high school basketball coach in the country that watched as much film as Gratz. At times, I think he knew what the kid’s move was before the kid himself knew.”

Additionally, Gratz set goals before each game. If a player reached a goal, they got a Gatorade at the next practice. Each charge taken was an automatic Gatorade.

As his health declined, Gratz did less and less for the program, but he was still involved. He still did his scouting, sat in the home corner of the court during home games and hitched rides with Murphy to away games. 

So when Gratz died in October 2024, Bassett and the rest of the program knew a large piece of their puzzle would be missing. He and assistant coach Josh Trame would have to do more scouting with the help of former coach Sam Mathiason. Admittedly, the team forgot to set toughness goals before its season opener on Nov. 30, but the team remembered the most important thing — Gratz’s chair.

The team wanted Gratz’s black chair to still sit in the corner, just as he did every home game. Even though Gratz himself couldn’t be there, the chair was a reminder of his presence and helped lift the team.

“Our guys wanted that. I wanted it too,” Bassett said. “We want to keep it there because all of our guys look over there during the game. I looked over there about six times today. It’s tough because he’d always be like ‘Come on. Get it going, Bassett. Come on.’ I think he’d be proud, though.”