Joseph Coaching Tree Continues to Bloom
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
May 17, 2017
STERLING HEIGHTS – Annis Joseph died last year at the age of 92, and the former baseball coach, husband, father and grandfather supplied his extended family stories to tell that will last a lifetime.
Ryan Joseph is one of his grandsons and forever in debt to the person who created such a love for sports, whether playing or coaching, for so many members of his family.
One such story touched Ryan at an early age and represents a chord that connects this family through more than 60 years of coaching.
Ryan Joseph, 29, is in his second season as the varsity baseball coach at Utica Ford. Back in the mid-to-late 1990s he watched East Detroit’s baseball team, coached by his father, Matt, play against Ferndale, coached by his grandfather.
“My dad ran a squeeze play to win the game,” Ryan said. “It was a play my grandfather used all the time, and my dad learned from that. The newspapers were there, taking pictures afterward of my dad and my grandfather together. That was the first memory I have of my grandfather.”
Annis Joseph coached for 53 years, and most of his time as a coach was spent on a baseball diamond in Ferndale. He and his wife, Josephine, raised seven children, four boys and three girls, and all of the boys played a variety of sports throughout high school. All also eventually became coaches.
Matt Joseph is the seventh child, and what his father started in the 1940s, coaching and working with the youth in the area, will continue for years to come.
Matt Joseph and his wife, Darlene, have three children, and all three are coaches. Matt is in his 32nd season. He’s currently the head coach of two varsity sports at Utica Ford, softball and girls basketball. He’s also a counselor at the school.
“Sports has always been a big part of my life,” Matt said. “I love it. I love coaching. I love working with young adults, and the camaraderie you build with coaches and referees. (Being a coach) has helped me in my life. You have to have patience (to coach). It’s becoming a family thing.”
His son is not only the baseball coach at Ford, but he just completed his first season assisting his father with the girls basketball team. Ryan started coaching in 2010 at Jeanette Junior High in Sterling Heights working with the eighth grade boys basketball team. He also coached freshmen baseball at Sterling Heights Stevenson for five seasons before going over to Ford. Ryan also coached football for four seasons including one at the freshmen level at Stevenson. This season he started coaching a 13-and-under summer league baseball team as well.
Matt’s eldest daughter, Emily, 27, just completed her fifth season as the girls junior varsity basketball coach at Macomb Dakota. Emily is also a mathematics teacher at the school.
The Josephs’ third child, Teresa, 25, just completed her third season as the girls varsity basketball coach at Grand River Prep in Kentwood near Grand Rapids. Teresa also teaches math at the school.
Matt, 54, began his career in education as a math teacher. He graduated from Madison Heights Bishop Foley in 1981, and he said there was a math teacher he had as a junior who sparked his interest in the subject.
His children followed his lead, all except his son who chose a slightly different path. Ryan is a French teacher.
One of Matt’s brothers, Mike, switched careers after a spell. He quit his job, went back to college and earned his teaching certificate. Mike teaches at Hartland and is the girls varsity golf coach there.
It’s in the blood.
“I knew in high school I wanted to be a teacher,” Matt Joseph said. “I love what I do. I wake up and it’s not a chore going to work. I knew I wasn’t going to make a lot of money. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
The other male offspring of Annis and Josephine are Dave, 64, and Ray, 63. Mike is the eldest son at age 69.
Dave and Ray spent a majority of their careers coaching girls basketball. Dave spent the last 12 seasons as the varsity coach at Bishop Foley before recently resigning. Ray was Dave’s junior varsity coach the past 21 seasons.
“My dad started it all,” Dave said. “He owned Annis Market on 9 Mile (Road) and Hilton in Ferndale. He coached federation ball, and each team had to have a sponsor. The market was ours for a number of years. Growing up we would go along with Mom and Dad to the ball field. My dad coached, and my mom would sell concessions. So we were in sports all of our lives. We all started at a very young age. My dad coached me until I was 18. It was fun. Those were great times.”
Dave Joseph said what he’ll miss most is watching the improvement of the players coinciding with the improvement of the teams. What happened in between was what adults would call the foolishness of youth, what Dave termed ‘giddiness’.
Matt has had the most success. He started coaching at the varsity level in 1990 at East Detroit as he ran both the baseball and boys basketball programs. From 1996-2000 he coached three varsity teams adding girls basketball to the list. After the 2000-01 school year, Matt left East Detroit and accepted a counseling position at Ford. He remained the baseball coach at East Detroit, and in 2004 he was hired as the girls varsity basketball coach at Ford.
It was during this time that Ford’s baseball coach Dan Barnabo switched over to coaching softball. It took Barnabo time to convince Matt to make the same switch.
“He convinced me to help him,” Matt said. “At first I said, ‘No, I’m a baseball guy.’ I finally did it. Then we switched again. (In 2011) I became the head coach and Dan’s my assistant. And he still is.”
As a school, Ford has never been to an MHSAA Softball Final, but Matt took his Falcons to the program’s first Semifinal in 2014 as Ford lost in Division 1 to Portage Central, 1-0.
Ford is 20-4 this season, ranked No. 6 in the state coaches poll, and could play No. 2 Macomb Dakota, last season’s Division 1 runner-up, in a District Final.
Dave Joseph’s teams didn’t make it as far as Matt’s in softball, but Dave’s 2013-14 Bishop Foley team did win the Detroit Catholic League C-D title.
And success is measured in many more ways than District or league titles. As a person, Matt Joseph is content. He’s lived a good and happy life and is proud of where he came from and the guidance he and his wife gave their three children.
“I just believed in what I was doing,” he said. “And my kids did all the things I did when I was growing up. They came with me to East Detroit as a water boy or water girl and a bat boy. It’s what we did as a family. And they all played at least two varsity sports.”
Evidently Annis Joseph sold more than fruits and vegetables at his market. He was able to convince many in his family that by participating in athletics, and becoming passionate about them, those experiences could lead one to riches not measured in dollars and cents, but where commitment and family are their own rewards.
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously 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) One branch of the coaching Josephs surrounds grandfather Annis, clockwise from top left, Ryan, Matt, Emily and Teresa. (Middle) Annis, left, and Matt Joseph when Annis was coaching at Ferndale and Matt at East Detroit. (Below) Matt Joseph celebrates a basketball championship with daughter Teresa during her playing days. (Photos courtesy of the Joseph family).
Dock Putting Dad's Coaching Lessons to Work as Middleville TK Continues Climb
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
November 3, 2025
MIDDLEVILLE – Denny Dock can't pinpoint the exact moment he thought his football-loving son would follow him into coaching, but the signs were there all along.
For starters, there were the countless hours spent tossing a football around the backyard. Or when his young son, Jeff – not even old enough for middle school at the time – eagerly joined other Stevensville Lakeshore coaches watching film on weekends.
Maybe it was all those Friday nights spent trekking along the sideline as a ball boy for Lancers teams. Another clue might have been the Saturday afternoons the two spent together watching college football, or taking in the NFL on Sundays.
When Jeff got older, it may have been how he readily absorbed tips that helped him become a better quarterback in high school and then at Grand Valley State. It could have even been an early, uncanny ability to grasp the importance of fundamentals.
Put it all together, and it seemed inevitable coaching football loomed in Jeff Dock's future.
"That's very fair to say," said Denny Dock, who is 19th on the state's list of all-time winningest football coaches while also the winningest high school softball coach in the country. "The younger years in football were really positive for Jeff, and that doesn't happen all the time. There are negative things that can happen."
While there might have been multiple signs the younger Dock would one day join the coaching ranks, he admits it was far from a done deal. There were thoughts of becoming a biology teacher, a pastor or maybe even an orthopedic surgeon.
But coaching? Even with his father as a classic example of the positive impact a good coach could spread, Dock said it took years for him to eventually land in coaching.
"It dawned on me that there were a lot of all three of those things in being a coach," he said. "Growing up in sports is what I knew, and I ended up developing a passion for it."
That passion is actually the highest it's been in years as his Middleville Thornapple Kellogg football team this past weekend improved to 7-3, continuing the program's first winning season since 2020 and the best fall since the Trojans went 7-3 in 2018. The Trojans defeated Hastings 28-20 in a Division 2 playoff opener, and a win this Friday at Lowell would give Middleville its first District championship since 2001.
Denny Dock coached football at Hartford from 1981-83, Dowagiac from 1984-87, and then Lakeshore from 1988-2013, returning to lead the Lancers for one more season in 2020 and all together totaling a 270-79 career record, 15 league titles and five runner-up MHSAA Finals finishes.
He has kept his hand in football in aiding his son's Trojans program. He's at all the games to add support, critique, advice, strategy, tips on how practices can best be organized and long talks discussing how continual improvement can be furthered.
It's a two-way street as an old football coach who never had a losing season, and is a member of the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, can remain invested in the game while his son benefits from three decades worth of experience.
Jeff Dock said his father's real value is his ability to spot from the stands the little things that less experienced coaches may miss.
"Play calling, how players are used, maybe a little bit about strategy," Dock said.
After playing for his father, Dock said there's no doubt he's transferred the best of what he learned into his own coaching. The older Dock was not only a highly successful football coach, he's compiled a 1,319-345-2 record in softball with eight Finals titles.
Whether it's about football or the philosophy Dock stresses in his softball program, the advice accepted from his father – who still attends softball clinics for tips on improving the Lakeshore program – is virtually across the board. It begins, however, with how a coach should treat his players.
"I was a manager growing up, and I saw his intensity and a love of his players," Dock said. "He never pushed me in any direction, but he told me about education. He always let me figure it out. One of the coolest things my parents did in raising me was to allow me to figure things out."
As far as the Xs and Os of coaching, Dock said his father prizes an organized practice. In fact, it could even be argued that both Docks enjoy a spirited and productive practice session over the microscope of Friday Night Lights.
"He never had a losing season, and it was ingrained in us just to go back to work and that that work never stops," he said. "He loves practices and being organized. Rule No. 1 with him was to make sure the players are prepared, and that you have to communicate with them. Dad would never belittle us or cuss us out.
"I saw the work he put in, how he'd wake up every Saturday thinking about the game. I saw the nitty gritty of coaching and how it was going to take work."
It was that seemingly endless work, in fact, that Denny Dock made sure his young son understood. Denny had no illusions over the pitfalls of coaching, and the pros and the cons. But before he could teach that to his son the coach, he made sure his son the quarterback understood how athletics worked.
There were challenges as a player and now for his son as a coach.
"He was always a quarterback because I think he liked the ball in his hands," Denny Dock said. "I think he liked the leadership part of the game, understanding the team part, and knowing what he had to do. That always challenged him."
While the challenge of playing is long gone for the younger Dock, the next challenge is building a program which is annually competitive. To do that, Jeff Dock said he accepts what his father knew 30 years ago.
"I'm willing to learn anything from anyone at any time," he said. "I know my dad has always thought about what he can do to become a little better every year. I'm always looking for ways to communicate and do things better. It can always be done better, but how can you get there? How can we do the little things better. That's what I learned."
PHOTOS (Top) Jeff Dock, left, and son Micah – Middleville Thornapple Kellogg’s quarterback this season – stand for a photo at their home field. (Middle) Denny Dock, far left, coaches a base runner during Stevensville Lakeshore’s 2022 Semifinal win. (Top photo by Steve Vedder.)