Felix Leaving Hillsdale Having Blazed Path to Statewide Success, Respect
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
September 15, 2021
HILLSDALE – Every time Jordan Bollin would prepare his Dundee Vikings boys basketball team to play Hillsdale, he would rename all of his plays. That’s because Brad Felix, the longtime Hillsdale coach, knew them all.
“He had his teams so prepared,” Bollin said. “We’d call out a play and they would know exactly what we were doing. I had to rename all my plays, then quiz my kids over them before we played them. He’s such a great coach.”
Felix stepped down this week as the Hornets’ head coach, ending a coaching career that spans more than 30 years.
“I think he is the best coach I’ve coached against,” Bollin said. “When I got the job at (Temperance) Bedford, the first thing I did was call him up and basically interview for an hour, asking about practice plans and this and that.”
Citing a health issue as one of his reasons for retiring, Felix said it was still a difficult choice to make.
“It is a decision I don’t take lightly,” Felix said. “I feel like there has been a death in my family. The sadness I am feeling is pretty intense.”
Felix didn’t come to Hillsdale from the Upper Peninsula to turn around Hornets boys basketball. But, over the past couple of decades, Felix has helped transform Hillsdale boys hoops into a program known for adding hardware to its trophy case on a regular basis.
The Bessemer native was a four-sport athlete in high school, but that’s where his playing days ended. He graduated from Northern Michigan University in Marquette and landed a job teaching in Hillsdale, at the opposite end of the state, within a few miles of the state line.
It was the Hillsdale athletic director who approached him about coaching.
“He came to me and said, ‘We need a freshmen girls coach and freshmen boys coach; are you interested?’” Felix said. “The rest is history.”
Felix coached both boys and girls at freshmen and junior varsity levels for several years before landing the varsity girls job with the Hornets. He guided that program from 1998 to 2002. His final season with the girls he also became the boys head coach. He’s coached the Hornets boys for the past 19 seasons.
His teams had success early. Capturing the District title in 2005, in his third season, was a first for the school since the mid-1960s.
He said reviving the boys basketball program was the carrot in front of him.
“No one would last this long if he or she was not experiencing some success,” Felix said. “That surely had a great deal to do with me hanging on this long. I was determined to change the mindset and the culture here, so that was a driving force. Our basketball history here was not very glorious, and I thought I could change that path.”
He certainly did that.
During his 19 seasons, Hillsdale won nine league championships, eight District titles and two Regional championships. The Hornets were consistently ranked among The Associated Press top 10 and if they weren’t on top of the league, they were competing for league championships.
His boys teams went 20-0 during the regular season three times and won 20 or more games seven times. In 15 seasons, his teams won at least 14 games. His record as the boys coach was 318-104. Counting his girls varsity tenure as well, he won 369 games. He was a three-time statewide Coach of the Year.
Opposing coaches have long had a ton of respect for Felix and the Hillsdale program.
“His impact on Hillsdale basketball is something many coaches, like me, only could hope for when we are done,” said Onsted boys basketball coach Brad Maska. “The battles we had, Hillsdale vs. Onsted, were some of the best. I will miss that. He made Hillsdale one of the toughest places to go play. He’s a great coach and person.”
Ida boys basketball’s Jared Janssen coached against Hillsdale at least twice every year in the Lenawee County Athletic Association.
“He had an answer for everything you would try to throw at him,” Janssen said. “He is the toughest coach to prepare for.”
Hillsdale had to overcome its share of obstacles. The Hornets played in four conferences during Felix’s tenure, meaning he often had to learn a new set of opponents. With relatively few schools Hillsdale’s size in that area of the state, the Hornets had to go on the road a lot.
“It is not easy to go to Ida on a Tuesday, get home at 11, hit school the next morning, and then go to Dundee on that same Thursday – only to be back in school again Friday morning,” he said. “Those are taxing weeks for sure.”
There were many great memories on the court, such as coaching seven players who scored 1,000 career points, some surprising District wins, buzzer-beaters and epic defensive battles. The 2013-14 team also appeared in a Class C Quarterfinal. His 24-2 Hornets lost to Muskegon Heights, 59-57.
“We played some really good teams to make it there and then fell two points shy in a game where we were huge underdogs,” Felix said.
The 2004-05 team that went 25-1 also played in a Quarterfinal, in Class B. The lone defeat came that night to eventual champion Grand Rapids South Christian.
“Walking on the court at Grand Valley to play that game was a sight I’ll never forget,” he said. “It was just a sea of maize pom-poms with a sea of opposing white ones on the other side. There were 4,000 fans there. That was a just fun.”
Felix said the love of basketball kept him going year after year.
“The strategy and the relationship with the players have kept me in the game,” he said. “The winning helped, but I loved coaching the game and looked forward to each and every season. The most rewarding part of this job has been the relationships I've built with my players that have extended into their adult lives.”
Two of his former players reside in Colorado, where one worked for the Denver Broncos and the other served as an Olympic trainer.
“They flew me out there for a football game and a tour of the Olympic training center,” Felix said. “I was on the field for an NFL game.”
Felix and his wife, Heather, have been married for more than 25 years and have two children, Claire and Adam. He coached Adam. The end of his son’s career was marred by injury, but Brad Felix said having him be a part of the program was a great experience.
“I did get to coach him in at least one season,” Felix said. “His presence on my bench for 12 seasons was so heartwarming for me – he was in the gym and on our bus since he was 5. I swung him through the air on numerous occasions after big wins. He saw a lot.”
It was in June that Felix had a health scare that he says still isn’t over. He said health impacted his decision but wasn’t the ultimatum.
“This will be with me for the rest of my life, unfortunately,” he said. “It weighed into my decision based on all the appointments that I may or may not have in the future, missing practices or games and just the added stress is more than likely not advantageous for me right now.
“I’d be in (coaching) longer if the circumstances had allowed me to.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Hillsdale boys basketball coach Brad Felix, right, hugs his son Adam after Adam’s final game last season. (Middle) Brad Felix and his 2013-14 team celebrate a big win during their tournament run. (Below) Felix huddles with his players during another game over his 19 seasons guiding the boys basketball program. (Top and middle photos courtesy of the Hillsdale Daily News; bottom photo courtesy of the Hillsdale athletic department.)
Young to Lead BCAM's Next Generation
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
November 30, 2018
PLYMOUTH – The Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan recently celebrated its 42nd year – and starting Jan. 1, BCAM will welcome just its fourth executive director.
Tom Hursey, 74, will step down as executive director and hand the gavel over to Dan Young, Hursey’s assistant since 2010.
Young, 50, has been on the BCAM Board of Directors since 1999 and a BCAM member since 1994. He was a boys varsity head coach for 15 years spread over three schools and most recently coached the girls program at Salem (2016-18). He also coaches the boys and girls golf teams at Plymouth.
BCAM got its start in the early 1970s when Hursey, then the boys varsity head coach at Midland High; Ron Vondette, then the boys varsity coach at Carrollton; and other coaches in the Midland-Saginaw area formed the Mid-Michigan Basketball Coaches Association. Hursey and Vondette quickly learned that coaches throughout the state were interested in forming an association, and in 1976 the Michigan High School Basketball Coaches Association was formed. Seven years later, the name changed to what it is known as today – BCAM.
The goal of BCAM and its members is simple – to improve and help the sport grow at all levels.
But the challenges Young faces are quite different from those Hursey confronted when he became executive director in 1997. College recruiting has intensified over the past 20 years, and student-athletes transferring from one high school to another also has become more of a concern for BCAM and the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
In addition, Young said there are other topics his association is currently addressing.
“The buzz right now is seeding,” Young said. “And there’s a committee looking at adding two more games to the season, over the holidays (teams are currently limited to 20 regular season games). Tom and I will meet with (a representative from) the MHSAA to discuss the June camps.”
Though just in its preliminary stages, BCAM, in cooperation with the MHSAA, is seriously considering sponsoring a one-day camp for the top players in the state regardless of class. This is in response to the recommendations made last April by a commission led by Condoleezza Rice, the former U.S. Secretary of State, to aid college coaches in the recruitment of student-athletes. Simply put, the NCAA is attempting to limit how much influence AAU basketball has on the recruitment of high school students, and thereby allow high school coaches to have more influence over their players.
These camps, like the MHSAA/BCAM-sponsored Reaching Higher, allow a large number of players, often more than 100, to receive coaching from high school coaches with college coaches in the gym to evaluate. These also feature speakers who address topics such as entrance tests and what it takes to succeed at the next level, academically and athletically.
Young said the next version could be a two-day event, but he does have some concerns.
“We don’t want to disrupt team camps,” he said. “We’d like to run it with the culture of a team camp. It’s still in its early stages, but I think we’d like to get the top 100 or so players, those that are Division I type of players, and have coaches like (Michigan State coach) Tom Izzo, (Michigan coach) John Beilein, Greg Kampe from Oakland and others be there. Maybe it’ll lasts eight hours. Maybe six. We’d have guest speakers, too.
“It’s possible we’d only invite 60 or 70. We’d take the seniors being recruited by Division I schools, as well as the juniors and sophomores.”
The camp discussion is an example of why the transition is sure to be a smooth one. Hursey and Young are of one mind on the vast majority of issues BCAM faces. Though a generation apart, they see eye-to-eye on matters of importance. They discuss which battles should be fought and those they should avoid.
In many ways the transition is similar to that which took place within the MHSAA recently with Mark Uyl taking over for Jack Roberts as executive director. Uyl, 25 years Roberts’ junior, has stated that Roberts has left a legacy, and that he hopes to follow up on that legacy.
“Now that Mark Uyl has taken over, like Dan, a new generation has taken over,” Hursey said.
Hursey and Young are hoping seeding will be introduced within the boys and girls tournaments in the next year or two.
On the subject of transfers, Hursey and Young support the new rule instituted by the MHSAA, which states, in part, that a student who transfers will be ineligible for one full school year at the new school in any sports she or he participated in the previous year at the former school (but eligible immediately in all other sports).
Another concern with regard to transfers is the increasing numbers of top-level players leaving the state and enrolling at prep schools, like Findley Prep in Nevada and others. The most recent top player is Mark “Rocket” Watts who left Old Redford Academy in Detroit and is now enrolled at Spire Academy in Ohio. Watts was considered one of the top candidates for the Mr. Basketball Award, sponsored by BCAM.
Beyond educating players and coaches, and possibly parents, Hursey and Young say there’s little they can do from preventing parents from taking their child out of state.
“It’s a sign of the times,” Hursey said. “Dan and I met with Izzo and we talked for two hours about this. Izzo opened our eyes about it. Take the Old Redford (student). They offer him a beautiful dorm to live in, three square meals and the chance to travel around the country. How are we supposed to compete with that? Izzo said they’re playing 30-to-40 games but that only 10 or so are against the best teams. Those are the ones you see on TV.
“There are a lot of positives for staying with your high school. There’s a lot to be said about high school sports being played at a certain level. And there’s nothing like a Friday night basketball game played in front of 2,000 fans and the place rocking. We just have to keep with what we’re doing. We have to educate the coaches. Some of these fly-by-night operations don’t concentrate on the academic part of school. Yeah, we might lose some of our best players, but there are a lot of good players in this state and there still is great basketball being played. This is not just happening in Michigan. We met with the National (High School) Basketball Coaches Association. It’s a problem throughout the country. How can we compete with millionaires?”
Young said BCAM will continue to do what it does best, and that’s to serve coaches throughout the state and promote and help to improve the game through its many clinics and camps. The website, www.bcam.org, has been improved and updated recently, and provides members and nonmembers alike valuable information.
Tom Markowski is a correspondent for the State Champs! Sports Network and previously directed its web coverage. He also covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Incoming BCAM executive director Dan Young speaks during an event. (Middle) Young and longtime BCAM executive director Tom Hursey, far right, with University of Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein. (Photos courtesy of Dan Young.)