Recent Whiteford Grad Ovall Leading Bobcats' Inaugural Girls Golf Team
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
September 2, 2026
Addison Ovall might be the youngest varsity head coach in the state of Michigan this fall.
Ovall, who graduated in June from Ottawa Lake Whiteford, had barely taken off her cap and gown when she found herself as the new head coach of the Bobcats girls golf team. She’s also a pioneer of sorts – she helped lead the crusade for Whiteford to field a team in that sport for the first time.
The five girls on the squad tee it up for the first time Tuesday.
“I always wanted to start a girls golf team while I was a student here, but there didn’t seem much interest in it,” Ovall said. “Once I graduated, I shared my story about having played on the boys team and I think that garnered some interest. It’s something I’ve always wanted.”
Ovall was going to golf in college, but a traffic crash during which she suffered a broken wrist put those plans on the backburner. For now, her work on the course is dedicated to helping five novice golfers learn the game.
“That just led me here to coach,” she said.
Ovall learned the game when she was a kid from her father.
“Ever since I was little, I had a club in my hand,” she said. “It seems like I’ve been playing forever.”
She started high school in Toledo and played on a girls golf team as a freshman at St. Ursula Academy, a private school in northwest Ohio. She moved to Whiteford as a junior and was set to be a one-person golf team in the fall of 2025 with her mom as the head coach. That’s when she was injured in the crash and couldn’t continue the season.
Whiteford athletic director Miranda Green went through the MHSAA to get clearance for Ovall to join the boys team in the spring.
“She had played in one competition in girls golf, then got hurt,” Green said. “I had to write a letter to the MHSAA, and she was approved to play on the boys team, but she had to sit one match. She was excited to still be able to play.”
Ovall said it was a difficult transition.
“It was terrifying, to be honest,” she said. “I had to hit from the men's tees, had to learn everything, but I think it made me a better golfer and a better person overall. I met new people, which was cool. I had college opportunities, which was awesome.”
Her season was hampered by the wrist injury, but she didn’t let it stop her. It did get in the way of playing at the college level, however.
“It was sort of difficult, but I was better off for it,” she said.
While still in high school she started lobbying other girls in school to sign up for golf.
“Toward the end of the year we had girls start showing interest in it,” she said. “That was really cool. When the school asked me to come back to coach, I was pretty nervous. I didn’t think anyone was going to come to tryouts.”
She ended up having five girls join the squad, which gives them enough to compete in dual matches and tournaments.
“It’s just been fun to get to know the girls,” she said. “We are a very young team. We are just starting out so we are trying to see what our strengths and weaknesses are.”
While the first match isn’t until next week, they have been playing daily at Whiteford Valley Golf Club, the same home course the Whiteford boys team plays on. Ovall said they typically spend an hour on the driving range, then chipping and putting for the last 45 minutes of practice. One day a week, the girls play nine holes.
“It is good to see how the game is coming together and to see what we need to improve on,” she said.
Because there are so few members on the team, Ovall can spend about 15 minutes with each golfer daily.
“After we play a round, the next day I will focus on what their biggest weaknesses were on the course,” she said.
Ovall said teaching the game is a rewarding experience.
“We have one girl who is an experienced golfer, but everyone else is really brand new to the game,” she said. “We want them to go out and have fun. We’re all able to hit the ball, which is good. Right now, we just keep going over everything getting ready for that first tournament and going over all of the rules. We’ve had a month to prepare.”
Charlie Weiser is one of the freshmen on the team. She said she decided to go out for golf because her whole family golfs. The team is getting to know the rules and having fun together, she said. In practice, she likes to focus on driving and putting, but is getting pretty good with her 8-iron.
“I just started at the beginning of summer, but it’s been going pretty good,” she said. “There have been good days and bad days.”
Green said she didn’t have any apprehension about turning the new program over to Ovall.
“Honestly, it was a no-brainer,” she said. “She is the perfect person to do it. I’m excited for her. Hopefully she can keep the program growing.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a news and sports reporter at the Adrian Daily Telegram and the Monroe News for 30 years, including 10 years as city editor in Monroe. He's written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. He is now publisher and editor of The Blissfield Advance, a weekly newspaper. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) This fall’s Whiteford girls golf team is the school’s first. Top row: Coach Addison Ovall. Middle row: Grace Grosteffon and Avee Ingram. Bottom row: Addy Emch, Charlie Weiser and Brenna Allen. (Below) Ovall. (Photos by Doug Donnelly.)
1st Day of Practice Begins Final Run for Father & Son Ostipow at Forest Hills Northern
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 12, 2026
GRAND RAPIDS – For one obvious reason, no player on the Forest Hills Northern football team has received more wake-up calls from the head coach over his lifetime than Owen Ostipow.
But the one he and a handful of his teammates received about 4 p.m. Monday may prove memorable – especially if it ends up setting the tone for a successful fall.
The first practice of this season was set to begin at 3:45 p.m. That’s when Ostipow and others arrived, thinking they were early. That not being the case, and a few conversations over the confusion later, the Huskies headed to the goal line where varsity head coach Eddie Ostipow – Owen’s dad – opened what was to be his final first day of practice, at least for a while, by sending his team through push-ups and sprints as a reminder to sharpen up immediately for the work to come.
“Definitely a wake-up call for some of us to just get in line and get order. A lot of the guys were a little late today, me included,” Owen Ostipow said. “Absolutely deserved.”
Most likely, that brief bumpy start will end up as little more than a sidenote as Coach/Dad and his senior all-state candidate son/quarterback ride together through one more season, Owen before heading off to play at Ferris State and Eddie on the way to retiring after 27 years as a head coach in the West Michigan and Greater Lansing areas.
A total of 602 varsity football teams were scheduled to begin practices Monday, as were teams playing every fall sport at every MHSAA member school.
At Forest Hills Northern, that meant the beginning of the end of a recent era.
Eddie Ostipow will be retiring as head coach after this fall and from teaching later this school year, providing more time to watch his oldest son Evan’s football games at Hope College and next season Owen’s as he has committed to sign with the two-time reigning Division II national champion Bulldogs.
Of course, Owen nor Evan nor younger siter Auden were even on the radar when Eddie began his varsity coaching career at Charlotte as a 24-year-old in 1999 and led the Orioles to a combined 47-17 record over six seasons and the Division 3 Semifinals in 2004. He left after that season to coach three at East Kentwood, then returned to Charlotte for five more seasons before taking over at Ada Forest Hills Eastern and building the Hawks toward an 11-2 record and Division 4 Semifinal run in 2015 that remains that program’s most successful finish.
Ostipow moved on to coach Greenville from 2016-18, then took over at Forest Hills Northern in 2019. He enters this fall with a combined record of 116-112 while frequently matching up at his various stops with statewide powers like DeWitt early on, later Rockford and Muskegon, then Grand Rapids West Catholic and these days Muskegon, Mona Shores and Byron Center all during Ottawa-Kent Conference Green play.
On Monday, about 70 players took to FHN’s stadium turf to get things underway, including 45 varsity players. The Huskies are coming off two straight 4-5 finishes, last year after losing 14 players to injuries – including nearly half of those for the season – during the first half on opening night.
But they also return an all-region quarterback in Owen Ostipow, who ran for 1,435 yards and 22 touchdowns last season and threw for eight more scores. And that’s a great way to start anew.
“We’ve got an opportunity. We have a chance to surprise some people,” Eddie Ostipow said. “I like being the underdog sometimes too, so I think that makes it exciting. If you can get your kids to buy into that, I think that’s something that can be really powerful.
“My thing as a coach, I always try to have a perspective of what’s possible for us and then push them like crazy to get there. If we can get every ounce of effort and intensity and focus out of them, then I think we’ve had a great year.”
Of course, as life roles change, perspectives can evolve as well. Ostipow has gone from teaching and coaching kids who were less than a decade younger to turning 52 years old with Evan graduated, Owen on the way and Auden heading into her sophomore year.
His football staff at FHN is a collection of coaches who were part of the program before him and others who were with him at some of his other stops. None go back to his days at Charlotte, but athletic director can – he was an all-state receiver for the Orioles under Ostipow before graduating in 2005. Sherman then played at Northern Michigan, came home to coach with Ostipow at Charlotte and again at Forest Hills Eastern, and he inherited his old coach in taking over at FHN in 2024.
“Coaching, he lives it, probably a bit more than he should. But that’s the hobby,” Sherman said. “His passion, he’s always working on something – he always has some nuance or change, something new he’s trying to learn.
“I joke sometimes, when you have kids sometimes you soften up a little bit, but he’s not soft. We’re going to have expectations (this season), we’re going to have all those things. But as you go through it, and then you become a parent, you sometimes see that lens a little different.”
As a now-veteran coach as well, Ostipow has had opportunities to cheer on former players who have gone on to major accomplishments.
In January, his former quarterback Trinidad Chambliss nearly took Ole Miss past Miami at the Fiesta Bowl, just missing out on a chance to play in the College Football Playoff title game. On the opposite sideline celebrating that 31-27 Hurricanes win was Jack Clark, a member of the Miami staff who starred for Ostipow at Forest Hills Eastern and owns a national championship ring after serving on Michigan’s staff during its 2024 run. Another 2005 Charlotte graduate, Chad Richardson, has a Super Bowl ring from serving as director of game presentation for the Los Angeles Rams during their 2022 surge, and he’s now with the Buffalo Bills in the same capacity as they prepare to open a new stadium. Matt Packowski was a junior on that 2004 Orioles team and now is a Division I college football referee.
There surely will be more to come, and Ostipow did not sound Monday like a coach on his way out. But he’ll do his best to be fan for a while and cheer on the Huskies who came through his household as well before possibly making a return to the sideline when their playing days are done.
“I feel like it’s kinda special. Most people don’t get to get coached by their dad, and I think it’s a little more extra special because I remember when my brother was a senior, and I started on varsity as a sophomore, that was the first time I’d seen (my dad) cry,” Owen Ostipow said. “It was just kinda heartbreaking. You watch (your kids) grow, and then they’re just gone.
“Now it’s going to be me. Maybe we’ll see that again from him, but you never know.”
PHOTOS (Top) Forest Hills Northern coach Eddie Ostipow, far left, watches his senior son Owen (white helmet cap) run the offense during Monday’s first practice of the season. (Middle) Owen Ostipow, far right, runs sprints on the track with his teammates. (Below) Eddie Ostipow works with the Huskies linemen.