The 2012 Mariucci Award winner, as the state’s Class AA coach of the year, Ken Pauly is in his second stint behind the Red Knight bench and recently finished his 27th season as a high school hockey coach and 24th season at BSM.
Pauly was the Red Knights' head coach for 14 years before taking over at Minnetonka in 2004. He stayed on with the Skippers for three seasons before returning to BSM for the 2007-08 season.
A Red Knight assistant coach for three years, Pauly took over the reins of the Red Knights in 1990 and began building one of the elite programs in the state, leading the team to Class A state titles in 1999 and 2001. Upon returning to BSM, he took the team to its first Class AA state tournament, claiming third-place honors in 2008, and won the program's first AA title in 2012.
During his 20 years as the Red Knights' bench boss, Pauly has amassed three state titles, 10 conference championships and has compiled a 354-159-16 record, making him the winningest coach in the program's 55-year history.
From 2004 to 2007 he was the head coach at Minnetonka, where his Skippers won the 2006 Classic Lake Conference title and advanced to Class AA state tournament for just the second time in the school's history, and its fourth state tournament appearance overall, claiming the consolation title. He was named the Section 6AA coach of the year for his efforts and was also named Minnetonka High School’s 2006 Coach of the Year.
In his 23 years as a head coach, Pauly has put together a 398-190-23 record. In 2007, he was honored as a twenty-year member of the Minnesota Hockey Coaches Association, for which he currently serves on the Executive Board of the as the organization’s president.
His 300th career win came at the St. Louis Park Rec Center, Jan. 8, 2009, when the Red Knights defeated St. Louis Park, 4-1. His 300th win at BSM came Jan. 29, 2011, as the Red Knights defeated Holy Angels, 8-6.
Pauly has also worked with USA hockey's development program, where he served on the Regional 16- and 17-year-old staffs at the Olympic Training Centers in Marquette, Mich.; St. Cloud, Minn.; and Lake Placid, N.Y.
In 2009, Pauly won his second Minnesota Wild 3M Excellence in Coaching Award, an honor he also received in 2007 while coaching Minnetonka.
An award-winning teacher, Pauly teaches full time in BSM’s social studies department and earned the school’s Faculty of the Year Award in 2012. A member of the school's hall of honor, he served as BSM's commencement speaker in 1997.
Pauly earned a bachelor of art's degree in history from the University of Minnesota in 1989. He and his wife, Anne Marie Dominguez, an English teacher at BSM, reside in Plymouth with their children, Caroline, 12, and A.J., 9.
