New Coach, Same Standard for SMCC
By
Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
August 27, 2015
By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
MONROE – It would be understandable if first-year Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central head football coach Adam Kipf felt like he was taking over for University of Michigan legend Bo Schembechler a year after the Wolverines won the national championship.
Kipf, a graduate of SMCC, said he doesn’t feel that way at all as he replaces his former coach and mentor Jack Giarmo, a local icon who retired after 17 seasons leading the Falcons, including last year when they won the MHSAA Division 6 title.
“I feel I’m replacing Coach Giarmo after a state title,” Kipf said with a laugh. “Coach Giarmo is a good coach. He spent 17 years here, and I spent 11 years of my life with him on a football field.
“It’s certainly not an easy task, but I’m not trying to be Coach Giarmo. I’m trying to be the best version of myself.”
SMCC got off to a winning start Thursday night with a 62-39 victory at Tecumseh, but it will need more than a season-opening victory to live up to the standard that was introduced by the former coach.
Giarmo’s teams were 144-54 in 17 seasons, made the MHSAA playoffs 13 times and captured five Huron League titles. The Falcons made the MHSAA Semifinals eight times and played for the championship four times, finally winning it all last year – when, at Ford Field, they also ended Ithaca’s national-best 69-game winning streak.
Then, Giarmo decided to step down, and Kipf was chosen as the new head coach.
“It wasn’t a total surprise,” Kipf said of Giarmo’s decision. “He had sort of let on that he might be thinking about it, so when it came out, I wasn’t surprised at all.”
“I don’t think there is any other job out there that would mean as much. There are other jobs that would have a lot of meaning to them, but coaching at your alma mater and having the tradition that we have here – having the success we have here – I think that’s just awesome. It’s tough for me to even put into words what it means to me being back at my alma mater coaching football.” – Adam Kipf
It certainly was not an automatic choice for SMCC to promote Kipf from the head coach on the junior varsity to head coach of the varsity. He went through several interviews before landing the job.
“They asked me, ‘How do you determine success?’ ” Kipf said. “I said, ‘There are two ways. One is wins and losses, and that’s OK. But the other way is seeing what kind of men they become, five, 10, 15, 20 years down the road.”
Kipf, a social studies and religion teacher at Monroe Catholic Elementary School, did not set out to become a coach and teacher. He went to Western Michigan University to play football and was pursuing another field, but he left after one year.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and then I got involved in coaching in 2003 with one of my former coaches,” Kipf said. “He was coaching his son in the Monroe Catholic Youth Organization, and he got me into it, and I enjoyed it. The next year, he went to Monroe High as an assistant and I went with him, so I ended up coaching two years there.
“One Friday night after a game at Monroe, two coaches talked me into going into coaching. They said teaching was going to be my best bet to get into coaching.”
With that in mind, Kipf went back to school and attended Eastern Michigan University. In 2010, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in secondary education. By that time, he was back with SMCC coaching the offensive and defensive lines on the junior varsity.
Kipf had been an offensive lineman and defensive tackle from 1998-99 at SMCC. He played for Giarmo and then joined his coaching staff in 2006, giving him a unique insight into the mind of the man who was most responsible for building the successful program.
“He was a stickler for details,” Kipf said. “He coached every last little detail, and I am finding myself on offense doing the same thing. Jack and I will talk, and I will seek advice on plays and blocking and things like that. We talk probably once a week football-related, and we will talk more than that about other things. We still talk football.
“He isn’t going to distance himself from the program. He has strong roots here. I think he misses football. I don’t know if he would admit it, but he misses football.”
“We’ve basically kept the same concepts that Coach Giarmo kept, but we’ve added a lot of new traditions into it. We’re getting new traditions. We’ve got a couple of new decals on our helmets, and originally we had our straight gold helmets.” – senior running back Justin Carrabino
When Kipf played at SMCC, the helmets were green with decals of yellow birds on them. Lately, the helmets have been without decals, but the birds have returned this year.
“To me, that bird, I worked so hard when I was a freshman to get that bird when I got to varsity,” Kipf said. “It was a thing of honor because you took those birds off at the end of the year and kept them. I still have them in scrapbooks.
“We have brought those back. With the gold helmet we’ve got green birds, but we didn’t put them on until two days before the first game.”
The decals on the helmets might be the easiest change to notice, and Kipf said there won’t be a lot of others made right away.
“I don’t know that I want to bring a whole lot different to the program,” he said. “I’ve added a few things here and there that are a little different than last year, but I’m not prepared to share that.
“We might throw the ball more, but finding people to catch and throw isn’t an easy task, especially since in the last 14, 15 years in the system it has been 95 percent run. I’m a big proponent of, ‘If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.’ ”
Not every change is going to be related to strategy or scheme. Everyone has a different personality, and Kipf’s high-intensity style could light a spark under the Falcons.
“He’s very vocal and gets into it with the players a lot,” senior guard/linebacker Hunter Coombe said. “He gets us hyped. He’s very intense. It’s good.”
The word intense seems to go hand-in-hand when describing Kipf.
“Practices are run with a lot of intensity,” Carrabino said. “There is a lot of physicality, but there is with a lot of defenses. You can tell by the tone of practice that it’s a lot different.”
“I don’t feel pressure coming off a state title because I know what we have and what we are capable of. People have high expectations and expect success. To me, success is more than a state title. If we go 14-0 but don’t get better, it’s a state title but it’s not successful. I want kids who are going to compete and get better every day, and at the end of the season, if they are better football players, better student-athletes, better Catholics, better Christians, than we’ve done our job. That’s success.” – Adam Kipf
Success breeds expectations, and MHSAA championships sometimes breed unrealistic expectations. Teams don’t win an MHSAA title every year.
The Falcons have made the playoffs 14 of the past 16 years with double-digit win totals during nine of them. The program has become not just recognized regionally, but statewide.
The players reflect the attitude of a new season and a new challenge and said they refuse to look back.
“We have to totally forget about last year,” Coombe said. “This is a new team with the same goal, obviously, but we aren’t thinking about it. We’ll just go week-by-week and game-by-game.”
Carrabino, who rushed for 1,300 yards and 17 touchdowns last season, echoed those comments.
“I think you have to prove yourself every year,” Carrabino said. “Nobody has a set spot. You just have to give your all in practice.”
Senior quarterback/defensive back Austin Burger feels the same way.
“We feel no pressure at all,” he said. “We feel like we’re a different team from last year, but we are trying to keep the tradition.”
Tradition is important at SMCC. Giarmo was a player on the 1980 team that went 9-0 but failed to land a spot in the playoffs.
Kipf is one of three brothers who played football for the Falcons. It’s family.
“We’ve got 12 years in my family of playing football at this school, and now this will be my 10th of coaching football at this school,” he said. “Twenty-two years I’ve been a Falcons football supporter either through my family or myself, so it certainly means a lot to me.”
Maybe it’s the tradition – or maybe it’s the “band of brotherhood,” as Burger called it – but something special seems to happen to a bunch of young football players who don’t necessarily look like they should be championship football players.
“We don’t always have the best athletes or the biggest athletes or the fastest athletes, especially in this day and age,” Kipf said. “We have kids who are undersized for the most part, but they have heart and they work hard, and that’s what made our program successful over Coach Giarmo’s tenure. Between him and (former defensive coordinator) Scott Hoffman, they brought out the best in guys.
“They had guys on the field you would think had no business being on a football field. They bring out the best in our kids, and our kids give them everything they’ve got in order to succeed.”
Chip Mundy served as sports editor at the Brooklyn Exponent and Albion Recorder from 1980-86, and then as a reporter and later copy editor at the Jackson Citizen-Patriot from 1986-2011. He also co-authored Michigan Sports Trivia. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Monroe St. Mary’s coach Adam Kipf and his captains stand together earlier this month (from left to right): Hunter Coombe, Justin Carrabino, Kipf, Riley Woolford, Mitchell Poupard and Austin Burger. (Middle) The Falcons’ helmets will feature decals again after going without during the program’s recent past.
1st & Goal: 2022 Football Finals Review
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
November 29, 2022
There were the highest-scoring Finals performances on record, and one of the closest finishes of all-time.
Greats who will immediately go down in history played their final high school games. Others continued to write their championship stories.
Four teams made repeat trips to their season’s final days. But most who earned the opportunity during these MHSAA Playoffs stepped on championship turf for the first time, and 45,000 fans watched them do it.
Another Michigan high school football season came to a close over the last two weekends, with 8-Player Finals on Nov. 19 and 11-Player Finals this past Friday and Saturday.
MHSAA.com covered all 10 championship games, with quick recaps and links (click on the game scores) to those stories below followed by notations of performances entered into the MHSAA Finals record book and a report on some of the main storylines to emerge as those championships were being decided.
Finals in Review
11-Player Division 1: Belleville 35, Caledonia 17 - Read
Belleville sophomore quarterback Bryce Underwood was awe-inspiring again in leading the Tigers to their second-straight championship to close a 14-0 season. He threw for 155 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 149 yards and a score. Caledonia led as late as the final minute of the third quarter before Belleville scored the game’s final 21 points.
11-Player Division 2: Warren De La Salle Collegiate 52, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central 13 – Read
De La Salle repeated as Division 2 champion again following the lead of quarterback Brady Drogosh, who completed an astonishing 21 of 23 passes for 249 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 152 yards and three scores. Forest Hills Central was playing its first championship game since 1994, with this its only defeat of the season.
11-Player Division 3: Detroit Martin Luther King 56, Muskegon 27 – Read
The Crusaders made their third championship game appearance with Dante Moore as starting quarterback and repeated as Division 3 champion as he threw for 275 yards and four touchdowns, completing 21 of 26 passes. Jameel Croft Jr. returned the opening kickoff 96 yards, and King never trailed on the way to its sixth championship. Muskegon moved up the Finals appearances list and now sits tied for sixth all-time with 13.
11-Player Division 4: Grand Rapids South Christian 28, Goodrich 0 – Read
South Christian completed its first perfect season with its first Finals championship since 2014. The Sailors took a 14-0 lead during the second quarter and doubled it up in the fourth, as quarterback Jacob DeHaan was among the weekend’s stars with 266 yards and a touchdown passing and 99 yards and a touchdown rushing. Goodrich was making its first Finals appearance.
11-Player Division 5: Gladwin 10, Frankenmuth 7 – Read
Gladwin’s Treyton Siegert drilled a 21-yard field goal during the final seconds to clinch the Flying Gs’ first Finals championship and a 14-0 season. Frankenmuth also had entered undefeated and seeking its first Finals title. As anticipated, defense dominated as the teams combined for just 424 total yards and 15 first downs, plus 11 punts.
11-Player Division 6: Grand Rapids West Catholic 59, Negaunee 14 – Read
This was another close game at halftime – Negaunee made it 14-14 on the first kickoff return of the second half, before West Catholic scored 45 unanswered points. Running back Timmy Kloska became one of the stars of the weekend as well with 241 yards and four touchdowns rushing as his team handed the Miners their only defeat of the season.
11-Player Division 7: Jackson Lumen Christi 15, Traverse City St. Francis 12 – Read
The Titans avenged a 42-35 Week 2 loss to the Gladiators to finish off their rebound from an 0-3 start this season, earning the program’s 12th Finals championship. St. Francis took a 12-0 lead into halftime, but Lumen Christi scored the only touchdowns of the second half including the eventual game winner with 7:05 to play.
11-Player Division 8: Ottawa Lake Whiteford 26, Ubly 20 – Read
These two opened the 11-player championship weekend with a close finish, as Whiteford won the matchup of undefeated contenders with quarterback Shea Ruddy scoring the game winner with just under two minutes to play. The Bobcats opened with two first-quarter scores and led 20-6 early in the third before Ubly made its comeback.
8-Player Division 1: Martin 74, Merrill 24 – Read
Martin claimed its first Finals championship since 1987 led by quarterback JR Hildebrand, who ran for 191 yards and four touchdowns including the game’s first two scores – and whose dad Tracey played on that 1987 team. The Clippers scored the first 20 points and never led by less than 12 the rest of the way. The loss was Merrill’s only one this fall.
8-Player Division 2: Powers North Central 66, Mendon 26 – Read
The Jets extended their 8-player record winning streak to 37 games with three championships while enjoying the final game of quarterback Luke Gorzinski’s career. He’s guided all three of those championship teams and this time threw for 207 yards and four touchdowns, and ran for another score, despite playing through a knee injury.
Records Report
A number of longtime powers returned to Ford Field, as seven of the 16 finalists in 11-player made at least their eighth appearance in a championship game. Jackson Lumen Christi moved up to a tie for third on that list with its 15th appearance, and as noted above Muskegon moved into a tie for sixth with its 13th title game berth. In 8-player, Powers North Central became the first to play in at least five Finals – and win at least five championships. Lumen Christi is now tied for second on the 11-player championship list with 12 titles, one back of record holder Farmington Hills Harrison.
Both the 8 and 11-Player Finals saw team scoring records. In 8-player, Martin set a record with 74 points, while its 43 in the first half ranked second for one half and its 98 combined points with Merrill ranked third for highest-scoring 8-player championship game. North Central’s 66 points were the fourth-most for one team in an 8-Player Final, with its 28 in the first quarter fourth on the single-quarter list, its 41 in the first half third for one half, and its combined 92 points with Mendon also ranking fourth for highest-scoring game. In 11-player, Grand Rapids West Catholic set the Finals record for one team with 59 points, with its 31 third-quarter points ranking third on that list and its 45 second-half points ranking second. King’s 56 total points are tied for second-most in an 11-Player Final, and De La Salle’s 52 points also made that list.
Going along with those 56 points, King’s 529 yards of total offense ranked sixth, and its 24 first downs were tied for 11th-most in an 11-Player Final. De La Salle’s 25 first downs tied for seventh on that list. Martin rushed for an 8-player championship game record eight touchdowns, while its 374 rushing yards was third on that list. Merrill’s 328 passing yards ranked third for an 8-player title game, while North Central’s five TD passes tied for third and its 23 first downs tied for second most.
A pair of eventual winners got started quickly. Jameel Croft Jr. tied the 11-player record for quickest first touchdown on a kickoff return, scoring 15 seconds into the Division 3 Final on a 96-yarder for King. Bernie Varnesdeel found Carter Perry 16 seconds into the Division 6 game on a 72-yard scoring pass to give Grand Rapids West Catholic an early lead – that was the second-fastest passing TD to start a game.
Kickers did their parts during the high-scoring weekends. King’s Terrence Moore and West Catholic’s Carson Beekman tied for the record for most extra points, both making all eight of their tries. De La Salle’s Landon Ryska sits tied for third after making all seven of his attempts. Belleville’s Brayden Lane also made the list with five extra points in five tries. In 8-player, Adrian Mercier earned the second spot on that list with six extra points for North Central.
Quarterbacks again made big statements, especially a pair of stars in their final high school games. King’s Dante Moore made Finals lists with 275 passing yards, four passing touchdowns and 304 total yards, plus his 21 completions tied for seventh-most and his .808 completion percentage ranked sixth for 11-player title games. De La Salle’s Brady Drogosh also completed 21 passes, and his .913 completion percentage is second on that last. His 401 total yards ranked seventh, and he also made the passing yards list with 249. South Christian’s Jacob DeHaan made the passing yards list with 266 and total yards list with 365, and Belleville’s Bryce Underwood also made the total yards list with 304.
In 8-player, Martin quarterback JR Hildebrand scored 28 points, tied for fourth most, with his four touchdowns tied for third on the overall and rushing TD lists. Merrill quarterback Joe Tack’s 328 passing yards rank third, and his 347 total yards are eighth.
West Catholic running back Timmy Kloska earned statewide interest as his 241 rushing yards made that record list. He also tied for eighth in 11-player scoring with 24 points, tied for fifth with four touchdowns, tied the record for most rushing touchdowns in a quarter with three, and with his four rushing TDs for the game tied for third on that list.
King’s Sterling Anderson Jr. also made the 11-player single-game rushing yards list with 207, and Mendon’s Jack McCaw made the list in 8-player with 211. Merrill’s Kaleb Walker made the 8-player receiving yards list with 213, which ranks second, and Martin’s Gavin Meyers became the first 8-player entry for interceptions in a championship game after snagging three.
Special teams had its share of highlights, with four returns making Finals record book lists. Negaunee’s Phil Nelson brought a kickoff return back 98 yards, ranking third on that list, and Croft’s return noted above is tied for fifth-longest in 11-player. North Central’s Elijah Gorzinski ran back the longest kickoff return in 8-player, 85 yards, for also the fastest score off an opening kickoff in 11 seconds. Martin’s Taegan Harris earned the first 8-player punt return entry with his 94-yarder.
West Catholic and De La Salle became the 30th and 31st teams to not punt in an 11-Player Final.
Last, but certainly not least: The Whiteford vs. Ubly Division 8 Final became the first 11-player championship game to see zero penalties, and of course zero penalty yards. Previously, five games had seen 10 or fewer penalty yards by both participants combined.
Stories Behind the Scores
Up to the Challenge: For the first time, coaches at 11-player championship games were allowed to challenge officials’ calls on a series of pre-determined situations including if a pass was complete or incomplete, if a runner or receiver was in or out of bounds, etc. Two challenges were made over the eight games at Ford Field – including one challenge that didn’t need to be made as it came on a scoring play, and all scoring plays are automatically reviewable. The other challenge confirmed the officials’ original call.
Glad-WIN: Six teams came to Finals seeking a first championship, and Gladwin prevailed with its 10-7 victory over Frankenmuth, another team seeking a first title. Coach Mark Jarstfer took over the program in 2019, with the Flying Gs riding a four-season sub-.500 streak. They finished 1-8 his first year, improved to 4-4 in 2020, then 9-1 last fall on the way to a perfect 14-0 this season. We highlighted some kickers above who made big impacts over the last two weekends, but the biggest kick surely belonged to Treyton Siegert as he drilled the history-making field goal Gladwin people will be talking about for generations.
Legends of the Finals: As noted above, De La Salle’s Brady Drogosh, King’s Dante Moore and North Central’s Luke Gorzinski capped careers that saw all three quarterback their teams to three Finals. Drogosh was 2-1 in championship matchups, completing 40 of 53 passes for 230 yards and five touchdowns and running for 339 yards and five scores over those three games. A four-year starter, Moore was 2-1 in championship games. He completed a combined 54 of 72 passes for 712 yards and five touchdowns in Finals. Gorzinski won all three of his championship games, completing a combined 25 of 48 passes for 447 yards and nine touchdowns. Despite being limited to just one carry because of injury two weeks ago, Gorzinski also ran for 425 yards and six scores in championship deciders.
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PHOTOS (Top) Our collage includes photos from all 10 MHSAA Football Finals. (2) Lumen Christi’s Kadale Williams looks for an opening upfield against Traverse City St. Francis. (3) Drake Buell (7) leads Martin onto the field for the 8-Player Division 1 Final. (4) Gladwin kicker Treyton Siegert connects on the game-winning field goal in 11-player Division 5. (11-Player Finals photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos. 8-Player Finals photos by Cara Kamps.)