MHSA(Q&)A: Frankenmuth softball coach Brad Walraven
May 31, 2012
By Brian Spencer
Second Half
Brad Walraven initially wanted to coach baseball. And he planned on staying in his first softball job, at Bay City All Saints, just four seasons – long enough to coach his younger sister through her graduation from the school.
But though the last 33 seasons weren’t part of his original plan, there’s no question they’ve worked out well for hundreds of athletes who have come under his leadership.
Walraven has won four MHSAA softball championships and is among only six high school coaches in his sport nationwide with at least 1,000 career wins, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Walraven achieved that milestone when his Frankenmuth team swept Essexville-Garber 7-2 and 7-0 on May 21.
The victories made the Eagles 27-4 this season – and Walraven 1,000-276 in 33 seasons total, including the first 30 at All Saints. In MHSAA history, his career wins total is behind that only of Warren Regina’s Diane Laffey, who has a 1,048-395-3 record heading into this week’s District tournaments.
Walraven also has won 25 District and 16 Regional championships, and taken 10 teams into MHSAA Finals championship games – including the Eagles last season in Division 3. Frankenmuth now is 32-4 this spring, heading into Saturday’s District on its home diamond.
You started out coaching with the plan of sticking in it for four years. What about the game of softball and coaching it has kept you around for 33?
My priorities in coaching and philosophies have changed (over the years). In my fourth year of coaching, my sister was a senior. That year we turned the program around and started winning games. They were competing. The competition has had me coming back since, along with learning more about the game.
Did you always want to coach softball? If not, what did you want to do?
No; the funny thing is that I graduated from Bay City All Saints after I won a state championship in baseball. After I graduated, I wanted the baseball job at Bay City All Saints, but they said I was too young to coach baseball. However, they did want me to stick around, and they gave me the softball job.
In your 33 years of coaching, what has been the most important piece of advice you’ve been given?
I read this somewhere; if you just keep working hard, good things happen to good people. Though my philosophies have changed, this philosophy has been pretty solid. I’ve also had girls come back from playing with me that say how I had taught them discipline, and that they have carried that with them to the next steps in their lives. As a coach, hearing that from past players is very rewarding.
Are there specific seasons or teams that stick out more than the rest? If so, why?
In 1999, we won states at Bay City All Saints. We set the state record with a 44-3 record. This record I believe is still intact. (All Saints’ 44 wins that spring is now tied with the 2007 White Lake Lakeland team for the most in one season.)
Last year (2011), Frankenmuth got to the Finals and lost in Battle Creek (to Clinton, 4-2 in the Division 3 championship game). It was the first time Frankenmuth had been there since 1991.
What piece of advice can you give to aspiring coaches?
Listening is an important skill. Learn from other coaches. If you think you know it all, you don’t. Every time you go to clinics, you pick up something and learn something new. You must be able to adapt. Every season is different, as you get a new set of players and personalities to deal with.
How long do you plan on coaching?
This is a very open-ended date. I was actually going to quit three times in my career for various reasons, but I’m glad that I stuck it out. Given that my health stays good and I continue to wake up every morning excited about coaching, I would love at least another five years in Frankenmuth.
PHOTOS courtesy of The Frankenmuth News.
Scislowicz Selected to MHSCA Hall of Fame After Decades Serving in Multiple Sports
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
September 18, 2025
Fran Scislowicz admitted he went back and forth about what to say in his speech as he was inducted into the Michigan High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Sunday.
But as the time approached to deliver it, he just harkened back to what was a principal trait during his coaching career: making sure everything was about others and not himself.
“It was a neat experience to be able to say thank you back,” Scislowicz said of what he primarily said in his speech in front of family and friends, including a brother who drove from Colorado for the ceremony. “I can’t find a head coach that doesn’t have that village behind them to support them in so many different ways.”
Scislowicz certainly had a big village throughout a long career in several sports at Rochester Adams. He was the head varsity softball coach for 37 years before retiring from that post in 2024, the head girls basketball coach for 23 years before retiring in 2013, the defensive coordinator on the varsity football team in the late 1980s and early 90s and this season is in his 28th year serving on the chain gang at Adams’ football games.
In this modern age, it’s not easy to find coaches who stick around one school in one sport for a great length of time. It should be noted that the two other coaches from the Detroit area who were inducted Sunday – Troy basketball coach Gary Fralick and Richmond softball coach Howard Stuart – fit that bill perfectly as well.
But having a coach stick around in several sports for such a long time is even rarer, which made Scislowicz an obvious choice to be inducted.
A retired elementary physical education teacher in the Rochester district, Scislowicz developed the dream to teach and coach as a youth while attending practices and games his older brothers were involved in.
“I go, ‘If I could be a physical education teacher during the day and then coach after school, that would be wonderful,’” he said. “I kind of had that passion and idea to do it really young.”
The highlight of his coaching career on the field came during the 1993-94 school year, when both his Adams girls basketball and softball teams made the MHSAA Semifinals. It was the only time those programs made the semifinals during his tenure, and they did so over a span of months.
“I was told back then by some wise, veteran coaches, ‘Fran, you don’t realize how hard it is to do what you just did, and you might never get back,’” he said. “And we didn’t.”
Scislowicz is listed among the state’s winningest coaches on the diamond with a record of 803-487 from 1988-2024. But if his original ambitions had played out, he wouldn’t have had long careers coaching softball and girls basketball at Adams.
While serving as the football team’s defensive coordinator under then-head coach Jack Runchey during the late 1980s and early 90s, he thought he was next in line to become the program’s head coach.
But in 1991, the girls basketball program was a blossoming state power in need of a leader, so Scislowicz gave up football to focus his fall seasons (girls basketball was played during the fall then) on hoops.
More important than his coaching on the court or field was his faith-based mentoring off of it.
Scislowicz to this day is actively involved in the area’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes organization and put together regular meetings before school for students and athletes to attend.
In the end, that’s what he hopes his biggest coaching legacy remains.
“We had a saying that you don’t have to be great to serve, but you have to serve to be great,” he said. “We really tried to give back to kids that way, by serving and doing that way. The wins and losses were going to take care of themselves. It’s the impact of seeing what kids are like at 30, 40 or 50 years old. As I’ve been around one community, trying to be a difference maker is what I enjoy most.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
(Photo courtesy of Fran Scislowicz.)