Longtime assistant coach John Tauer has been named interim head men’s basketball coach for the 2011-2012 season after Steve Fritz retired as head coach Thursday.

Tauer is entering his 12th season as a coach, spending the past 11 years as Fritz’s right-hand man. Though his status is currently “interim” head coach, he said he plans on “being here a long time.”

“The university has to go through a national search for any coaching position,” Tauer said. “They decided rather than to do that now, to do it next year. While it’s a one-year thing officially right now … what I’ve been told is that we’re looking at this as a long-term relationship.”

Tauer, who also is a professor in the psychology department, will take on a lighter course load next year as a result of his promotion.

“My schedule is changing,” Tauer said. “I’ll be teaching two classes a year now instead of six, and I won’t be doing as much research. In many ways, I felt like I was doing two full-time jobs at times, certainly during the season. But now, really, basketball will be probably 70 percent of what I do and teaching will be the other part.”

For Tauer, the St. Thomas memories date back to before his coaching career.

“My association with St. Thomas began really more than 30 years ago,” Tauer said. “My dad would take me to the games, not in the old Schoenecker Arena but in the old third-floor gym. Those are my fondest memories of my childhood.”

Tauer said he has enjoyed every moment of coaching.

“I’m a big believer that if you find a job you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life,” Tauer said.

He said there will not be a change in mentality next season, and he is considering hiring new assistant coaches.

“When something’s not broke, you don’t overhaul it,” Tauer said. “Certainly with coach Fritz leaving that leaves a big void, so I’m sure that we’ll add at least one person if not more. We’ll look at that over the next month or so.”

Before coming to St. Thomas, Tauer was a standout athlete at Cretin-Derham Hall. In his junior year, Tauer was a key member of a state championship baseball team, and as a senior, he was the captain on a state championship basketball team. Tauer was named All-State, All-Metro, and Academic-All State in both sports.

“I was never a great natural athlete,” Tauer said. “My high school coach used to joke with me that I couldn’t pass the paper test and that meant I couldn’t jump over a piece of paper. He was only half-kidding. I got by with work ethic and motivation.

“You have certain things in life where you’re like, ‘Wow, that was a dream come true.’ Winning a state championship (at CDH) was a dream come true, winning a national championship here was, and now being the head coach at St. Thomas is another dream.”

After graduating from CDH in 1991, Tauer played four seasons for the Tommies, leading the 1993-1994 team to a Final Four appearance. He also led the 1994-1995 team to a 27-1 record and a MIAC championship. He ranks sixth all-time in the MIAC for 3-pointers made, 14th in career scoring with 1,219 points and 15th in rebounding with 482 boards.

“I think the foundation and the hallmarks of the program then are the same as they are now and the same that we plan on them being,” Tauer said.

Tauer said he feels fortunate for playing under coach Fritz and remembers how their relationship began.

“Our recruiting sort of started in a barbershop down on Grand Avenue,” Tauer said. “We seemed to bump into each other every third Saturday.”

With the bar set high for next season, Tauer said he doesn’t plan on shying away from the high expectations.

“You always have a number of different goals, and some of those are tangible and some of them aren’t,” Tauer said. “The tangible ones always are you want to win the conference. You want to win the conference playoff championship, and you want to win a national championship. Now, there [are] 403 teams so to think you’re going to win a national championship every year is foolish, but I don’t think we’re ever going to shy away from saying that’s one of our goals.”

Brian Woitte contributed to this story.

Ryan Shaver can be reached at shav7005@stthomas.edu.