Before making his name as a Division I basketball coach, Josh Schertz spent seven seasons working side-by-side with an assistant coach whom he came to love like a brother.
Coaching at Lincoln Memorial University, an NCAA Division II school in Harrogate, Tennessee, they formed a combination that nurtured a national basketball power and a friendship.
One was Jewish and the other Palestinian.
Schertz recalled the relationship Wednesday, after learning that a protest against the war in Gaza was planned that night at ºüÀêÊÓƵ University, where he was hired a month ago to coach the Billikens men’s basketball team.
“Hate usually is a biproduct of fear or ignorance,†Schertz said. “People are scared of something or they have had no exposure. He was with me seven years. I love him like a younger brother. I was in his wedding.
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“At the time, we understood the (Israel-Palestinian) conflict. Once you get exposed to people, you discover we’re a lot more alike than we are different.â€
Schertz is a Jewish coach on a Jesuit campus, and he’s not the only one. He’s not typically vocal about issues related to the conflict, leaving that for people such as Auburn coach Bruce Pearl, who is a founding member of the Jewish Coaches Association.
But as someone with family members killed during the Holocaust, Schertz is passionate about what is happening on U.S. campuses and abroad.
His previous coaching jobs took him to Harrogate and later to Indiana State University in Terre Haute — two towns with relatively smaller Jewish populations. In ºüÀêÊÓƵ, he finds himself on a campus that was the site of a protest that university officials were aware of early in the day. On Wednesday evening, about 300 protesters shut down Grand Boulevard for more than an hour in protest of the war in Gaza.
“They told me about it because of being Jewish and to make sure I was aware and if I needed anything,†Schertz said. “We let recruits know, too, because we have some coming on visits and don’t want them blindsided.â€
Schertz’s family members came from Germany, Poland and Russia. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Florida Atlantic University.
He became the first member of his family to marry outside of the Jewish faith, a decision that generated considerable scorn from some relatives. His brother and mother attended the ceremony when Schertz wed wife, Natalia, but his father and grandparents did not.
Later, he hired Omar Wattad as an assistant coach at Lincoln Memorial. Wattad holds Schertz in high esteem and wrote in an email, “Josh Schertz is forever family to me. I love him, Nat and the boys dearly.â€
Schertz said he was treated well in Terre Haute, but he was aware of some violence toward the Jewish community. A Holocaust museum started by Eva Mozes Kor was destroyed by an arsonist in 2003 and rebuilt.
“To think, because you’re Christian or Hindu or pray to Allah or you’re Jewish, that it is some sort of referendum on the kind of person you are and inherently makes you better or worse,†he said.
When Kor’s son, Alex, wrote a book about his experience being Jewish, Schertz was asked to write the foreword.
Schertz has supported the Athletes Against Anti-Semitism and Discrimination consortium, which includes Kor’s museum and focuses on educating student-athletes about the Holocaust. One goal of the consortium is to support team trips to Auschwitz-Birkenau, like one Davidson College took in 2018.
Although he uses X for basketball-related posts, Schertz is not apt to voice opinions on social media. But he admits that what he has witnessed has made for “scary times.â€
“As a coach, you have a responsibility to stand up and speak your mind,†he said. “I certainly know we have seen, in a variety of ways, a roll back (to) not just anti-Semitism but all kinds of discrimination and a general eroding ... to places we thought we have moved past.â€
ºüÀêÊÓƵ University mens basketball coach Josh Schertz talks about the players who have helped create his coaching success.
