Living His Childhood Dreams

WWhile most 8-year-olds would tell you they want to become doctors, police officers or pro athletes, Coach Bobby Schwartz had one goal at that age: to become a coach. Everything he’s done over the years has been to that end, and he says he’s living his dream come true.

Schwartz is the athletic director and head football and basketball coach at Austin Jewish Academy, where he took a floundering athletics program and turned it around with this “championship mindset.” 

But AJA wasn’t the first underdog athletics program to get a Schwartz makeover — and he didn’t become the coach he is today without some setbacks. 

Schwartz grew up in South Carolina, where he faced an onslaught of antisemitism. Students drew a swastika on his locker, and when he was 10 years old at basketball camp, his Christian roommate complained to his parents about rooming with “a Jew.” The parents eventually pulled the child from camp because no other kids were willing to step in and share with Schwartz. Despite the ostracization, when he brought the camp team to the championship later that summer, he noticed something: Sports unified. No one was going to tell him, “That basket or touchdown doesn’t count because you’re Jewish.”  It was then that he decided to use sports to connect. 

“It planted the seed together early on, that through athletics and sports, I could achieve anything I wanted in life and find that sense of community and family,” Schwartz said. 

In a huddle, Schwartz explained, there are kids who are raised by single parents and kids with a traditional nuclear family; kids from poor backgrounds and wealthy backgrounds; kids who are Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, or with no religion at all. 

“None of that matters when you’re playing a game. There’s only the color of the uniform,” Schwartz said. “There’s one goal: We are going to score a touchdown, we are going to score a basket.” 

Right after Schwartz graduated from the University of Texas, he got a college coaching job, and one position led to another. He was traveling the country recruiting for college sports when he became a single father to a two-year-old and 3-month-old. Eventually, the traveling and recruiting requirements proved too challenging to manage as a single dad, so he switched to high school sports in order to be more present for his kids. 

Time and time again, Schwartz turned around struggling sports programs, and his reputation preceded him, leading him to more job offers. Shockingly, the antisemitism he faced as a student didn’t stop in adulthood. 

Despite his impressive record of turning around losing teams, he made it to the final rounds of interviews with multiple Christian schools, only to be told at the last minute they could not hire him because he was Jewish. 

“If you said, ‘We can’t hire you because you’re African-American, because you’re Hispanic, a woman, gay, or trans’ — there’d be blood in the streets. But it’s nothing to them to say we aren’t going to hire a Jewish coach,” Schwartz said.

So when he got an offer to overhaul the AJA athletics after years of supporting other schools, he said it was like coming home. 

“I had helped Catholic Schools, Lutheran schools, public schools…it was time for me to come home and try to win some championships here in the Jewish community,” Schwartz said. 

Since he took the job four years ago, Schwartz has turned down multiple offers that would pay more because he’s truly happy where he is. His two teenagers are settled in the Austin area and go to school just a mile away from AJA. He has no desire to uproot them.

“I just turned down four jobs to stay at AJA. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my life,” Schwartz said. “I love it here. I’m very proud of what we built.” 

Schwartz confesses that when he took the job at AJA, many of his coaching friends reached out to him with concern. 

“They said it would be bad for me and my mental health,” Schwartz says, with a smile, “They said ‘It’s in your DNA to win championships. You’re not going to be able to handle coming in dead last in every single sport’.” 

But Schwartz brought his championship mindset to the Lions, and they delivered. In four years, AJA went from losing nearly every game in every sport to winning three football and three basketball championships in a row. This year, the Lions finished second in soccer, fourth in track, and won a tennis championship. And Schwartz did it all without a home field, with a smaller budget than every other school in the league, all while practicing fewer times a week than their competitors. But how? 

“Before you can be a champion, you have to believe you can be a champion,” Schwartz said. “Everything we do is with that championship mindset.” 

Schwartz explains that you don’t win on game day — you win with everything you’ve been doing leading up to the big game. 

“There are over 23 schools in the district. What are you doing every single day that they aren’t doing? How are you outworking them? If every coach is asking everyone to give 100%. I ask for 1000%,” Schwartz said. “We are not as big, tall, or athletic. We don’t have resources, rosters, or home-field advantage.” 

He also stresses the importance of each role on a team. Not everyone is the quarterback or point guard. 

“You have to accept your role and how important that role is. You can’t be going through the motions — what if there’s an injury, and you have to step on the field?”  

But the challenge isn’t only for the players. It’s also for him as the coach. 

“You can’t coach like there are good players and bad players. You have to coach everyone like they are going to play in the NBA or NFL someday,” Schwartz said. 

At AJA, Schwartz has what he calls a “Lion for Life” program, where he emphasizes a work ethic that goes beyond sports practice. 

“We have a set of core values. You’re not just a lion on the field or the court. You’re a lion in the hallway, the lunchroom, off campus. Character building wins championships.” 

Even though his teams keeps winning, Schwartz says he doesn’t judge success on how many championships his teams take home this year. 

“We won’t know for 20 years if I’ve been successful,” Schwartz said. “The success is going to be the type of fathers, husbands, mothers, wives, men, women, members of our society, they’re going to be someday.”

Schwartz explains that if his players can’t handle being down 2 touchdowns in 4th quarter, how are they going to handle the pressures of life when they have kids to feed and care for and a family that is relying on them? 

“Schwartz uses a variety of motivational techniques including getting people to see beyond Events and focus their attention on their response to events to achieve a better outcome. Schwartz said, “Events happen in a game, in life, and the only thing you can choose is your response to that event — and your response will determine ultimately the outcome. Respond to to an event in this way, and that’s going to get me to the place I want to be.” 

He says that asking empowering questions can help students walk through difficulties. Instead of asking, “Why does this happen to me?” (what he calls a “crippling question”), ask “What are three things I can do right now to get better, to improve my situation?” 

“It gives the power back to the individual,” he said. “We’re rewiring young people’s brains to thinking about how to always be looking for solutions and better outcomes, not being crippled by circumstances.” 

Feeling inspired? You probably won’t be surprised that during the summer, when he’s not coaching at AJA, Schwartz is a motivational speaker and life coach. 

“I had a history of turning around programs that really struggle to win,” Schwartz said. “People started asking me, ‘How did you turn around that program? That philosophy sounds great, can you come speak to our group.’” 

His first audiences were athletic programs, but soon he was being asked to give motivational speeches at universities, camps, and even corporations. 

One of the things he brings to his coaching and speeches is a small compass. 

“The idea is to keep it with you 24 hours a day — on your keychain, cellphone case, backpack,” Schwartz says, “What does a compass do? Tells you what direction you’re going in. We are always going somewhere.”

The compass is to remind you to ask yourself, “Is what I’m doing right now helping me or hurting me? Is it helping me get closer, or getting me further away from reaching my goals and dreams and having a happier life?” 

But it’s also a gentle reminder that it’s never too late to change directions.

“You can be going in the wrong direction for a long time — getting in bad relationships, bad jobs — but at any point you can stop and change directions. Yes, your last three relationships ended in breakups and heartbreak, but you know what, you can change courses and change directions and start making decisions that are better for you,” he said. 

As if his track record of speaking, teaching, and coaching isn’t enough, Schwartz also started the Jewish College Basketball Coaches Association (JCA).

Back when he was a college coach, he attended the NCAA Final Four and saw tons of groups for Christian coaches, black coaches, coaches with families, 30-and-under coaches, etc. — but nothing for Jewish coaches. So he started bugging the leadership, asking the NABC if he could start a group for Jewish coaches. 

“Finally, they got annoyed with me.” Schwartz said with a laugh. “They told me, ‘Let us know if 3 people show up.’” 

Their first Jewish Coaches meeting was in San Antonio in 2004, where about 8 coaches came together for bagels and a chat.  

“This year was the 21st anniversary. We were back in San Antonio, and more than 300 Jewish coaches attended,” Schwartz said. “Of the four coaches coaching in the final four, three of them were Jewish.”

Schwartz explained that when he started, there was only one Jewish D-1 major head basketball coach he knew of in the entire country. But now the head coaches at Duke, Florida, and Auburn are all Jewish. 

His goal with the Jewish Coaches Association is the same as his goal with coaching at AJA: Using athletics to build a sense of community. 

“We want to help young coaches professionally, give them advice, be a reference,” Schwartz said. He said that young Jewish coaches have to start somewhere, and he wants the JCA to be a part of that journey and process.

“I rarely mention the word pride, but I’m very proud that 25 years ago, after four years on my own, beating down doors, this small-time coach in Texas — coaching D2 college basketball — was able to convince them to give us a room,” Schwartz said. “There were 8 of us. Twenty one years later, there were 300 coaches in that room. That’s pretty amazing.” 

And when he’s not coaching, speaking, or encouraging young coaches, Schwartz is the CEO for the Texas Fathers’ Advocacy Network, which he started to help single dads with divorce and custody family law in Texas. While it began specifically for fathers like himself, who the law was predisposed against in custody battles, he also helps moms in the trenches of legal battles over children. 

Does he ever sleep? 

“Uh, about three or four hours a night,” he said with a laugh. “But I always have.” 

Despite the sleep deprivation, Schwartz does everything with a championship mindset. 

“I had a lot of negative things happen in my childhood, but rather than let it make me a martyr or victim, or a scapegoat, I used it all as a motivation,” Schwartz said. “You can use this formula for everything you do in life. I think what we’re doing here is special. I think we are winning championships because we build a culture of accountability and trust, and we’re going to outwork everybody to reach our goals.”