Brighton Coach's Impact 'Immeasurable'
By
Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com
October 7, 2020
By Tim Robinson
Special for Second Half
Paul Moggach has never been much for looking back.
And as he begins his first season away from the Brighton hockey program in more than three decades, he’s still looking ahead.
“I’m thinking about what I’m going to miss more than the mark I left,” he said in a phone conversation last week. “I guess I enjoyed so much of the time I had, the opportunity to coach at Brighton, I’m thinking more how I fill the time and the things I'll miss.”
Moggach (pronounced MUG-uth) retired as Brighton’s coach this past summer after 25 seasons and having led five teams to MHSAA Division 1 championships. He compiled a record of 466-172-47 during that period.
But that’s not what he remembers most, nor why he wants people to remember him.
“I would like them to remember the teams and players who played for me and my assistants, more than me,” Moggach said. “We have so many blessings and opportunities in our lives, and hockey was one for me and hopefully for the players and assistants I worked with.”
One of those assistants was Kurt Kivisto, who joined the Bulldogs originally as a team manager more than 20 years ago and was a player at Brighton. He eventually won a national championship at Michigan State before rejoining the program as an assistant coach a decade ago.
“The No. 1 thing I’ll take from him is sticking by your beliefs and not sacrificing those beliefs for the team,” said Kivisto, who was named Moggach’s successor in September. “He sticks by those beliefs and ... he’s not willing to sacrifice that even if it could hurt the team. The character and integrity he has, how he treats people with fairness and what he believes is right is the biggest thing I’ll take.”
A stepson, Damon Whitten, played for Moggach at Brighton and at MSU before becoming an assistant coach and eventually the head coach at Lake Superior State, where he is in his eighth season.
Asked about Moggach’s impact at Brighton, Whitten said, “I’m not sure you can measure it. Your mind goes to the hockey players who have come to Brighton, and that’s a big part. But I think it goes beyond that. The money they’ve raised over the years for different families in need, for example. He’s had a big impact, and the players he had were a big part of that, but it goes well beyond that, and he did it the right way. Thirty-plus years (in the program), and I’m not sure you can count more than a handful of times where he made a bad decision or handled things poorly. He did things the right way, every day, all of the time, and I think it’s why he was so successful for so long.”
The team’s charitable works were mostly kept under the radar – Moggach’s reasoning being his players had been given much, it was their turn to give back, and he didn’t want people thinking they did those things for publicity.
Moggach joined Rick Bourbonais as an assistant at Brighton in the mid-1980s, then switched roles with him for the 1996-97 season.
He realized Brighton’s potential in the 1992-93 season, when the Bulldogs upset perennial state power Trenton in the Class A Quarterfinals before losing to Detroit Catholic Central in a Semifinal.
“That, to me, said, at least in my mind, that we can do this,” Moggach said. “It’s not impossible.”
He slowly began to build the program, getting good players and a schedule that would challenge them.
“You get the players by building a good culture,” he said. “Back in the day, when I started, we weren’t very disciplined and our league wasn’t very disciplined. So I think we realized we had to build that, and I could have an influence on building that in Brighton.”
Along with the culture, Moggach looked for an edge whenever he could find it. He was talked into making a trip to the Keweenaw Peninsula by one of his player’s parents, and found enormous benefits for his team, both competitively and in team bonding.
“It’s a lot about the little things we do,” he said, “that we find joy in, and create those opportunities. Creating the little moments really can build to bigger moments. We played capture the flag one day in about two feet of snow.
“Almost killed them,” he added, chuckling. The exhausted players didn’t have much left for the game that night, but spending time together for four days in a bus and hotel room always brought the team closer on and off the ice.
That first UP expedition also led to more teams making the trip, for team bonding and a glimpse of a part of the state, and themselves, they might never have seen otherwise.
“We didn’t do that for long,” he said. “But we always came back saying we were better together because of that experience.”
Bob Nelson had three sons play for Moggach, and Nelson’s wife, Kris, was president of the team’s booster club during their involvement over nearly a decade in Brighton hockey. Nelson also coached the program’s younger players for five seasons.
“We got to know the Moggachs really well,” he said. “It was a good experience, both as a coach and as a parent as well.”
Moggach introduced other things, including an emphasis on nutrition and off-ice training, that players resisted at first until they saw the benefits.
He savored conversations with referees and opposing coaches before the games and even the occasional reporter after games.
But his first priority was the players. At times he would erupt in practice at a player or, more commonly, the team, and the boys soon learned to hear the message, not the volume. But for a couple of seasons, they also wrote some of his wilder statements down in a notebook after practice.
One year, they read some of them at the banquet, and after each one, Moggach’s wife, Sharon, would look at him and ask, “Did you really say that?”
Moggach would laugh and confess to remembering he had actually done so, then laughing.
“He knew part of what made the program good was his relationship to the players,” Nelson said. “If it was a good time, he wanted to enjoy it, even at his own expense at times.”
Moggach has staying in the background this offseason, letting Kivisto shape the team.
Asked if he were willing to fully switch coaching roles, as he and Bourbonais did a quarter-century ago, Moggach laughed.
“No,” he said emphatically. “Rick wasn’t in his 70s when we made the switch. Kurt needs his time. I’ll be there if he needs me.”
Moggach, who is 74, still works fulltime as the University of Michigan’s director of risk management.
He plans to spend more time with his wife and watch his grandsons play hockey, as well as catching some Lake Superior State games.
“I was really blessed to have Rick and Brownie (longtime assistant Mike Brown) along for the ride, and then to get Kurt involved,” Moggach said. “They weren’t the only ones, but they were the kids for me.
“The other thing is the support from the Brighton (High School) administration, the teachers, and our community. There are more people to thank than I could ever bring up. I do think that, all together, it was a great run. It couldn’t have been any better.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Recently-retired Brighton hockey coach Paul Moggach celebrates the 2018 Division 1 championship game win over Saginaw Heritage at USA Hockey Arena. (Middle) Former player Kurt Kivisto, left of Moggach during the 2018 Semifinal win over Detroit Catholic Central, served as an assistant before assuming the head coaching job in September. (Below) Brighton's 2018 championship was its fifth under Moggach. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Differing Paths Led East Kentwood Stars to Olympics, but All Included Finals Titles
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
August 19, 2026
When one of his eighth-grade teachers trotted out an assignment to write down an ultimate goal, Brian Hyde didn't even flinch.
Even then, Hyde knew that one day he badly wanted to be an Olympian.
Eight years later, that's exactly what happened for the former East Kentwood distance runner. One of three Falcons to become Olympians, Hyde wound up starring at East Kentwood and William & Mary University before performing in the 1,500-meter run during 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta.
"I was in middle school when I first wrote that as a goal," said Hyde, now a pilot for the Utah-based Sky West Airlines. "Like a lot of people, I grew up watching the Olympics, and it was always a dream for me to run there. It was a long-term goal and there are a lot of things you have to go through to make that happen.
"But I think it's good to have goals for things you really want to do. You don't really have to share them, but it's good to have those goals."
Hyde, a 1991 East Kentwood grad, joins hockey player Mike Knuble, who graduated in 1990, and shot putter Tia Brooks-Wannamacher, a 2008 graduate, as former Falcons who went on to the Olympics. What's unique about their stories isn't that they all became Olympians, but the radically different routes all three took to the Games.
All had major success in high school as Hyde won the 1991 Lower Peninsula Division 1 1,600-meter run (4:12.74), Brooks captured the 2008 shot put with a toss of 48-0.5 and Knuble scored 115 goals in 57 career games while helping the Falcons to the 1990 Class A title.
All landed in the Olympics in different ways. For instance, Hyde said his No. 1 goal growing up was always to run in the Olympics. He trained fiercely with that in mind from an early age. While Brooks had designs of becoming a sprinter like her idol Marion Jones, East Kentwood coaches convinced the 6-foot Brooks that her track & field future was more likely as a thrower. A 34-year-old Knuble was on the backside of a 16-year NHL career when he finally earned the opportunity to skate in the 2006 Torino Winter Games in Italy.
Knuble said he had a "stick-to-it-ness" that led to his Olympic participation, Hyde said he grinded out long, solitary hours running on a track, and Brooks credits her Olympic story to a combination of natural athleticism and astute coaches who correctly saw her future more clearly than she did.
All took major steps toward the Olympics post-East Kentwood. Hyde went on to become the school record holder in the 1,500 and 1,000-meter runs at William & Mary, Brooks was a two-time NCAA champ in the shot at Oklahoma and Knuble tallied 96 goals over 114 games at Michigan before becoming the 76th player taken in the 1991 NHL draft.
Knuble said dates, age and even past resumes cannot define an athlete.
"Most Olympic athletes would be in their 20s," said Knuble, who would play 34 games with USA Hockey and scored a goal and had an assist in the Torino Games. "But there was a stick-to-it-ness for me. Guys can get written off – that's how I looked at it. You can get passed over when you're 30, and I didn't want to get written off. I wanted that door to stay open for me. I had kind of a career resurgence in my thirties."
Brooks, who retired from competitive track & field when she was 27, had exactly zero thoughts of becoming an Olympian until the January before the 2012 Summer Games in London. But after winning an NCAA shot put title in 2011 along with placing sixth at the Moscow World Cup and 13th in the world at Beijing's World Games, Brooks began considering London qualification.
"The coaches saw something in me and pushed me," said Brooks-Wannemacher, now a projects manager for the Grand Rapids-based Marvelous Style Outreach program. "They thought I had the potential of being an Olympian. I don't want to say it was happenstance, but I really didn't know much about the Olympics. I was competitive and grew up playing all sports and had a sibling rivalry with my brother where we would make up games to play."
Hyde said he became an Olympian through sheer hard work, dedication and sacrifice. He would miss Friday night Falcons football games, for example, because he was in bed making sure he had enough energy for a Saturday meet. Combine that sacrifice with a burning desire to make the Games and the talent he had as a runner, and Hyde said he was able to meet his personal goals.
"I loved to compete and trying to win," he said. "Sometimes there is a grind to it, but in running you're the only one out there. I would tell myself I'm doing this because I have a meet on Saturday and I want to win. You work, have these long-term goals because you tell yourself, 'I can do this.'
"I have no regrets for my career. You control the things you can control. You tell yourself no one is going to outrace you. It's not like you're not having fun, but I'd never miss a workout. Six days a week with Sunday being my rest day."
Knuble, Hyde and Brooks-Wannemacher agree that it's that work, dedication and looking big picture are keys. Lose sight of one, and it can have a domino effect.
"There are times when you're out there working and no one is watching, no one is paying attention," Knuble said. "But you have to put that work in. It's all about figuring out what you did wrong and then getting back at it."
Brooks-Wannemacher called the desire to become an elite athlete "watering a seed." In her case, the seed was the knowledge that the only way a young girl from a one-parent family was going to college was through an athletic scholarship. Places like Michigan and Michigan State had no interest, and the only offers came from Oklahoma and Central Michigan. While the dream was to emulate Marion Jones, Brooks bowed to the suggestions of East Kentwood coaches who said shot put was a ticket to a free education.
"I had a long talk with my mother and coaches, and they said this is the only way to college," she said. "So I started throwing the shot, broke the freshman record at Kentwood, became a Regional and state champ and I kept going. But people had to believe in me.
"It got so that I enjoyed the process. I had a natural talent, but I would push my body to the limit. But for me, the motivation was going to school for free."
Success aside, all overcame major hurdles to achieve it. Hyde suffered a swelling of the spine and terrible pain caused by a tightening of back muscles and wasn't able to finish a race five months before the summer Olympics. Brooks at one point suffered from a narrowing of the spine and bulging discs in her back amid suggestions from doctors she give up throwing a shot. Knuble was physically healthy, but he had to overcome the life-altering experience of dealing with the death of his father when he was 15.
But all say the dedication to athletics, the people they met along the way, great teammates and the will to succeed helped them to greater things.
"There are moments when it's just you and nobody else," Knuble said. "There's no person out there with you, no teammates telling you what to do, how to act, what to eat. For me, being on a team was structure.
"Timing for all of us is huge. You want to be at your peak when you're competing. You want to beat your best for that one race, that one throw, that one game. For me, I had a body of work to work from. I think the others did, too."
PHOTOS Clockwise from top left: East Kentwood’s Tia Brooks-Wannamacher prepares to launch the shot. Brian Hyde (front) takes a relay handoff for William & Mary. Mike Knuble holds up one of the many trophies the Falcons earned during his time on the ice. (Middle) Brooks-Wannamacher as a high school senior. (Knuble and Hyde photos courtesy of those individuals. Brooks-Wannamacher photo from MHSAA archives.)