On April 11, 2024, Elkhorn North Activities Director Luke Ford announced Michael Kroupa will assume the head girls’ basketball coach position.
Elkhorn North’s former head coach, Ann Prince, announced her retirement on March 25, 2024 via X (formerly Twitter). Her retirement came after her fourth state championship title. Michael Kroupa is leaving his current head coach position at Omaha Central to replace Prince.
“He is a really exciting person to bring in to fill the shoes of Coach Prince,” Ford said. “He has the experience, the background, and the expertise to pick up where she left off and do great things, so I’m excited for him.”
“I’m extremely honored and privileged to be the head coach at Elkhorn North, there are some pretty big shoes to fill and I hope we can keep this tradition going,” Kroupa said in a statement. “I’m just excited to continue to build on what Coach Prince has started already and really get to know the community and start working with the younger kids in the district.”
In the first four years, since the school opened, former head coach Ann Prince and her team appeared in and won four state championships. In a similar fashion, Michael Kroupa and his squad at Omaha Central have appeared in three of the last four class A state tournaments.
Kroupa was hired by Omaha Central High School in 2019 after spending five years at Central Community College and another two years at Cedar Bluffs High School. He was the head coach at all three schools.
Kroupa’s multiple tenures of coaching have proven successful time and time again.
“Before he got there, Omaha Central, the program—the winning, the losing—they were in tough times… he turned that around in a significant way,” Ford said.
The year before he was hired at Central, their girls basketball team had a record of 4-19. Just two years later, Kroupa had flipped the narrative and took the team to the 2021 state tournament where they ended the season 23-4.
In 2022, they were back in the state tournament with a record of 24-4 and then again in 2024 with a 19-7 record. After flipping Omaha Central’s program around, Kroupa resigned in late March with a 91-30 record, looking for his next challenge.
During the interview process, it was Kroupa’s coaching style that stood out to Ford.
“They were playing as one, not as individuals,” Ford said. “They were caring more about ‘we,’ than ‘me,’ and he preached that.”
Kroupa will also take on Coach Prince’s teaching assignment as physical education teacher at Elkhorn Grandview Middle School.
He attended Hamline University in St. Paul Minnesota where he majored in physical education. Kroupa played football at the university for just over a year before suffering an injury and hanging up the cleats. Even though he was no longer playing, Kroupa still participated with the team as a coach’s assistant.
He continued on to pick up multiple assistant coaching positions across Minnesota before moving to Omaha. When he moved to Omaha he took a job at Brownell Talbot to kick off his head coaching career.
He is married to Molly with a daughter, Julia, and a son, Alex.
We are proud to announce that Michael Kroupa has been selected as the Elkhorn North High School Head Girls Basketball Coach. @ElkhornPS_ENHS @ENHSWolfPack @ElkNorthGBB pic.twitter.com/BBsscvZVQl
— ENHS Activities and Athletics (@ENHS_Activities) April 11, 2024
