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Borseth Back, Happy at Green BayBy: Graham Hays, ESPN.comDecember 20, 2012It was a phone call Ken Bothof had takenoften during his years at the University ofWisconsin-Green Bay, yet he found himselfflummoxed when the time came forhim to make it.How does the director of one ofthe smaller athletic departments inDivision I ask the University of Michiganif it would mind terribly much if he hiredaway the Wolverines’ basketball coach?The road Kevin Borseth followed to becomethe subject of such a call is constantlychoked with bumper-to-bumpercoaching traffic. Bigger is always better,the grass always greener. Players graduateand move on to the real world. Coachesgraduate to the next rung up the ladder.It’s how Borseth got to Michigan in thefirst place. But to borrow from RobertFrost, the road that ultimately made allthe difference to him was less well worn.He chased a dream, but found what hewas looking for when he retraced hissteps.“I just didn’t enjoy myself where I was at,”said Borseth, who returned to Green Baythis season after five seasons at Michigan.“I didn’t. And not because it was anythingof anybody else’s doing. It was just that Ididn’t enjoy my quality of life. I reallydidn’t. It was very difficult, and I think itweighed on me as a person, it weighedon me as a coach, it weighed on me as aparent. And I think a lot of people couldsee that.“I feel it now. I mean, I get up in the morningand just my mind is clear.”While the pro football team in Green Bayoperates on even footing with competitorsin Chicago, New York and other majormarkets in the most successful league inthe country, life is a little different at thecollege across town.A small operation even by Horizon Leaguestandards, the Green Bay athletic departmentdoesn’t have football money payingthe bills (depending on whom you ask,leaving the gridiron to the Packers waseither Vince Lombardi’s helpful suggestionor a condition of earning the franchise’ssupport when the school was founded in1965). In charge for more than a decadenow, Bothof is adept at doing more withless. No program embodies that morethan women’s basketball. The Phoenixhave won at least a share of 14 consecutiveconference championships. Theyreached the Sweet 16 two seasons agoand flirted with the top 10 in the polls forportions of the past two seasons.No wonder, then, that deep-pocketedsuitors spirited away his coaches, Michigantaking Borseth after the 2006-07 seasonand Illinois taking Matt Bollant afterthe most recent season. Bothof is used togetting those phone calls.This past spring he dialed.After Bollant left for the Big Ten, Bothofcalled Borseth to talk to him about one ofhis assistants at Michigan. But he couldn’tlet his former coach go without asking anotherquestion. There had been rumblingsfor some time in Green Bay that Borsethmight not rule out a return, rumblingsthat picked up steam a year earlier, whenit appeared Bollant would leave forWisconsin. So Bothof had to ask this time,would he be interested in coming back?Borseth suggested his old boss call his currentones at Michigan before the conversationprogressed.“It was different for me,” Bothof chuckled.“I was a little bit, in fact, even nervousabout making the phone call to say, ‘I’mcalling because I would like to visit withKevin about our opening here.’ It was certainlydifferent for me to make that phonecall to them, versus typically it’s comingfrom the other direction.”Borseth didn’t create the Green Baybasketball brand, but the second coach inprogram history perfected it after CarolHammerle steered the program from itsAIAW roots through the NAIA and finallyto NCAA Division I status. Borseth tookover in 1998-99 and made the NCAA tournamentin seven of the next nine seasons.His teams posted a 125-13 record in conferenceplay in that span. With a frenetic,foot-stomping, full-throated coachingstyle that played well in Lombardi’s town,and with rosters loaded with overlookedkids from Wisconsin and Minnesota, hebecame part of the fabric of a programin every bit the same way, albeit on asmaller scale, as Geno Auriemma or PatSummitt.“He’s definitely an entertainer,” saidformer Green Bay standout Celeste(Hoewisch) Ratka, who spent herredshirt season under Borseth’s tutelage.“I remember a lot of fans would comeup to us and say, ‘Wow, even if you girlsweren’t so good, we’d still come just towatch your coach on the sideline.’”Current Phoenix senior Adrian Ritchiesigned with Bollant and played her firstthree seasons for him, but she grew upin neighboring De Pere watching in-stateplayers win game after game for Borseth.“I definitely fell in love with the wholeidea of Green Bay, and he was a big partof that,” Ritchie said. “I always looked upto him and saw how people responded tohim and how the girls really appreciatedhim as a coach and as a person.”The success those teams enjoyed inevitablyled to opportunities to climb thecoaching ladder. Borseth nearly leftonce, reconsidered at the last momentwhen it appeared he was bound for Coloradoafter the 2004-05 season. But