Passionate life of basketball leads to Hall of Fame for Roesch
COLUMBUS, Ohio (BVM) — Toni Roesch will always be a beloved women’s basketball player in the state of Ohio, and her accomplishments on and off the court have led to a 2020 induction into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame.
Roesch came onto the Ohio basketball scene in the late 1970s, starting as a freshman point guard for Bishop Hartley High School. She helped lead her team to state that year and would do so again as a junior, while accumulating over 1,600 points during her high school career. However, her most impressive feat may arguably be playing her entire senior season with a torn ACL – something that you can’t imagine ever seeing in today’s game.
A Columbus native, Roesch stayed home for college and went on to play at Ohio State University. While she came up just short of a state championship in high school, Roesch helped the Buckeyes to four straight Big Ten titles during her playing career at OSU. In her senior season, she was also a team captain and earned All-Big Ten Second Team honors.
Although her competitive playing career had ended, Roesch stayed involved with the game through coaching. After brief stints at Stetson University, Marietta College and back at Ohio State as a graduate assistant, she returned to her alma mater to coach the Bishop Hartley girls basketball team. Just like she did as a player, Roesch excelled as a coach winning two district Coach of the Year honors. She also led the Hawks back to the state tournament in the 1996-97 season.
In addition to playing and coaching, Roesch had another calling within the game of basketball – broadcasting. Roesch joined Ohio State women’s basketball broadcasts as a color analyst in 1992 and continues that work today. She has also worked on various television networks including ESPN, FOX and Comcast commentating for several college and even WNBA games.
After her years of coaching, Roesch set out on a new venture where she could still teach the game to younger generations. Roesch founded Ohio Sports Plus – a basketball training facility in Dublin, Ohio designed for youth players of all skill levels – in the late ‘90s. The goal of the facility is to help players develop long-term skills on the court, and become better people off it. Roesch has coached thousands of players at the facility over its 20-plus years of existence, seeing many go on and have successful careers in college.
As a basketball legend in Columbus, Roesch was inducted into the Greater Columbus Basketball Legends Association Hall of Fame in 2015. Now adding to her already impressive playing and coaching careers, Roesch’s continued work as a color analyst and teacher of the game is the cherry on top of a well deserved induction to the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020.
