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.
Let's Not Forget These Winning Coaches
December 15, 2015
By Ron Pesch
Special for Second Half
Buried deep within the MHSAA’s list of coaches with 200 career football wins is the name Oscar Johnson. Sharp eyes will note that Johnson began his coaching career in 1925 – 90 years ago.
Following graduation from Western State Normal School (today, Western Michigan University) in Kalamazoo, Oscar E. Johnson coached two seasons at Mount Pleasant High School before moving on to Muskegon Heights in 1927. Known by his nickname, like most from the time period, “Okie” coached multiple sports including football, basketball and baseball. After 37 years (1927 to 1963) and six mythical gridiron championships (as well as three Class A basketball titles), he retired and moved to Baldwin.
During a teacher’s strike in 1979, Johnson, now in his 70’s, came out of retirement to coach Baldwin’s football team for four contests, earning three wins against a single loss. In 40 seasons, Johnson’s teams posted 209 victories against 106 defeats and 28 ties.
In 1975, his was the lone name that would have appeared on the MHSAA’s list of coaches with 200 football wins.
In 1980, Bill Maskill, a graduate of Michigan State University and head coach for six seasons at Sheridan, then Galesburg-Augusta for 29 years, was the second to join the list. Jack Castignola, who started his coaching career in Ohio before becoming varsity coach at Monroe Catholic Central and then Trenton, was added to the list in 1981.
They were followed by Dick Mettlach, long of Crystal Falls and that school’s successor, Crystal Falls Forest Park, Jack Streidl who led Plainwell for 37 seasons, and Dick Soisson, who coached for a combined 41 seasons at Owosso St. Paul, Kalamazoo St. Augustine and Kalamazoo Hackett. Each posted his 200th win in 1984. Leo “Smokey” Boyd, who coached 40 years at Standish-Sterling, Saginaw Sts. Peter and Paul and Saginaw Nouvel, notched his 200th win in 1985, becoming only the seventh coach to accomplish the task in 90-plus years of high school football in Michigan.
Only two additional names were added over the next five years. Walt Braun, long of Marysville, joined the exclusive group in 1986. Al Fracassa, who spent a combined 46 seasons coaching at Royal Oak Shrine and Birmingham Brother Rice and turned down the chance to join Muddy Waters’ coaching staff at MSU in 1980, picked up his 200th win in 1988. That brought the list to nine total.
Twenty five years later, the list totals 58 names. So what changed?
Of course, it was the addition of the MHSAA football playoffs, which debuted in 1975.
A look at two coaches helps illustrate the issue.
Fracassa, the list’s current leader in all-time wins with 430, took 29 seasons to tally his first 200 victories. It took only 23 more seasons for him to gain the next 200. Farmington Hills Harrison’s John Harrington took 24 years to total 200 wins, but picked up his 400th after only 20 more.
Between 1960, Fracassa’s first season, and 1988, Fracassa’s teams played an average of 8.30 games a season. Between 1970, Herrington’s first year and 1993, the year of his 200th, his teams averaged 9.64 games per season.
Between 1988 and 2011, when Fracassa won his 400th game, his teams played an average of 11.61 games a season. Between 1994 and 2013, Herrington’s 400th, his teams played an average of 11.09 games per year. Fracassa’s teams compiled 68 victories in the MHSAA postseason. Herrington’s teams lead the state with 87 victories in the state playoffs.
Simply put, with the arrival of the postseason, it became easier to get to 200.
While no one would debate the accomplishments of any of the 58 gentlemen on the list, all but a few benefit from a baseline that few others who coached only 40 years before them were unlikely to reach.
Of course, those previous years included an amazing array of mentors. In hindsight, perhaps the list should include a mark for coaches from who assemble 150 varsity wins during the regular season only.
Johnson, and many others on the current list, certainly fall within such a category. But so would people like Ted Sowle, who, according to extensive research by former state historian Dick Kishpaugh, compiled a combined 171-47-10 mark between 1937 and 1963 as varsity coach at Grant, Algonac, Cathedral Prep in Erie, Pa., and Grand Rapids Catholic Central. At the time of his retirement from coaching in 1963, he ranked second in the state on the career wins list, behind only Johnson.
Ray Rynberg, a Grand Rapids Union and Central Michigan graduate, began his coaching career at Cedar Springs in 1939. After 12 years, he stepped away from the coaching ranks to pursue a degree in school administration from the University of Michigan. In the fall of 1955 he returned to the sidelines at Grant. He remained for 21 years, compiling a record of 189-62-9 (including seven unbeaten seasons) surpassing Sowle on the list upon retirement following the 1975 season.
Elmer Engel, who is honored in Bay City with his name attached to the city’s beautiful football stadium, also would appear on such a list. A three-year starter at the University of Illinois, Engel arrived in 1950 and installed the T-formation. He worked the sidelines for the Wolves through the 1972 season, compiling a 165-34-8 record and mythical Class A state titles in 1958, 1965, 1967, 1969 and 1972 according to the Associated Press polls ranking the state’s top teams.
Traverse City’s Jim Ooley led the Traverse City Trojans to a 164-56-4 regular season record (and a 179-60-4 record overall). Muskegon’s C. Leo Redmond led the Big Reds to a 156-29-13 record and six mythical Class A state titles between 1923 and 1946.
Certainly, there are others, many long-forgotten by most to the sands of time, who would qualify for the list. But who are they?
Incredibly successful coaches, like Flint Northern’s Guy Houston, would still fall shy. Playing in the incredibly tough Saginaw Valley Conference, Houston’s teams posted a remarkable 148-41-13 mark in 24 seasons as head coach of the Vikings. Nick Annese, who rolled up a 55-29-2 mark (including 38 straight victories) in 10 seasons at New Lothrop, then led Corunna to a 91-32-3 mark over 14 seasons but falls several games short.
So will many other of the state’s more well-known names, like Lloyd Carr, best known for his years at the University of Michigan, (who served as an assistant at Detroit Nativity and Belleville, before becoming head coach at Westland John Glenn for a few years), University of Nebraska’s Bob Devaney (who spent years 14 years coaching in Birmingham, Keego Harbor, Saginaw, and Alpena) and Colorado’s Bill McCartney (who assisted under his brother Tom at Detroit Holy Redeemer, then served as varsity football and basketball coach at Dearborn Divine Child). All moved on to the college game as assistants before reaching 150 high school wins.
Nick Annese’s son, Tony, who coached at Montrose, Ann Arbor Pioneer, Jenison and Muskegon tallied 169 regular season wins (and 195 victories overall) at the prep level before moving on to the college ranks at Grand Rapids Community College, then Ferris State University.
Can you name others, missing from the list of 200-game winners, with 150 varsity victories in the regular season? If so, contact me at the e-mail address below.
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (From left) Longtime Bay City coach Elmer Engel with a player from the 1968 Bay City Central yearbook, legendary Grant coach Ray Rynberg from the Muskegon Chronicle and championship-winning coach Jim Ooley of Traverse City.