Reusse: Ruth Sinn, pioneer athlete and coach, retiring as Tommies legend

The move to Division I starting with the 2021-22 athletic season guaranteed that St. Thomas was going to have to figure out its hockey arena problem. The men’s and women’s teams were sharing an old-style, very small arena in Mendota Heights. It was substandard for Division III, much less for hosting top-level collegiate competition.

“We knew there would be a new arena of some kind for hockey,” Ruth Sinn said. “We didn’t know how much it would involve our basketball teams.”

Sinn had led Tommies women’s hoops since the 2005-06 season, in both versions of Schoenecker Arena — the first lasting from fall 1981 to spring 2010, and the second opening in the fall of 2010.

She had phenomenal success in Division III, posting a 355-88 (.801) overall record, regularly winning the MIAC regular-season and/or playoff title and taking three teams to that level’s Final Four.

On Wednesday, Feb. 11, I was in her office a few hours before the Tommies defeated Oral Roberts in a Summit League game in the new Lee & Penny Anderson Arena, and Sinn said:

“Isn’t this phenomenal … from not knowing what a new arena would mean for basketball five years ago, to having this for both our program and Johnny’s program?

“Our players — they can go in the practice arena and shoot anytime they want to."

“I’m just so happy for Johnny and how well his team has been playing in the Summit,” Sinn said. “He’s a great person, a great Tommie. That always will be the best thing about 21 seasons coaching here — the young women I had a chance to work with, watch develop as players and people, and my colleagues here."

As her visitor, I said: “Talked with Steve Fritz today. He’s actually on a vacation with his wife. Five quick minutes and all he talked about was his admiration for you as a coach and a person.”

Sinn paused for a moment, then said: “How lucky was I to have Steve Fritz as the athletic director, as the boss, during most of my time here? All-time Tommies — athlete, coach, administrator and as a person … Steve is No. 1."

There was a lot of Tommies dislike left behind in the MIAC, with a share of that tied to some football scores in the 2010s. There are also Gophers followers retching over the positive “press” St. Thomas has received for becoming Minnesota’s second Division I program.

Well, tough luck. Sinn is merely validating what many have observed on frequent visits to the college squeezed onto about 80 acres on both sides of Summit Avenue in St. Paul.

Whatever, Sinn will be another who goes down as a Tommies legend, first as a pioneer athlete, then as a coach — achieving great success in D-III, then taking those same athletes into the Summit in 2021-22, where Aaron Johnston’s mighty South Dakota State Jackrabbits and a few other solid programs were waiting.

Earlier this week, Sinn announced she would be retiring as the Tommies coach at the end of this season. Honestly, you wondered whether this was tied to the ambitions of athletic director Phil Esten (some other head coaches didn’t last after the D-I transition), and she was asked:

“Are you really ready for this?”

Sinn gave a committed look and said: “Am I going to miss it? Of course. The competition still drives me. I can’t sleep for hours after games. But am I ready? Yes, I am. My husband, Phil, and I have four kids, seven grandkids, and there’s another that will be here shortly.”

What a basketball story Sinn has to tell her players, perhaps on the bus ride back from Sioux Falls after her final Summit League tournament at the end of February.

Ruth Opatz became an early star for the Tommies and was inducted into their Hall of Fame as a player.

Sinn became a high school coach and was the head coach at Hill-Murray from 1987 to 1989. She then made a very sound decision — applying for and getting the job at Apple Valley.

“I had Carol Ann Shudlick that first season … as great and as dedicated a player as you could hope to have," Sinn said. “And then she had three younger sisters. The Shudlicks, mom, dad, the daughters, what a wonderful family.”

Sinn was hired by Fritz to take over St. Thomas in 2005. Early this week, she held a team meeting and announced these would be her final weeks as the Tommies coach.

Jada Hood, from Roseville, a well-traveled transfer and now Sinn’s last point guard, said:

Alyssa Sand, a 6-foot-3 sophomore standout from Albany, said:

“Coach put so much into basketball. She cares so much about the game, about her players and about St. Thomas, her school back to the ’80s.

“It has been a few shocking days for all of us.”