MHSA(Q&)A: Hudson wrestling coach Scott Marry
February 26, 2012
Although updating the records remains a work in progress, it’s fair to say few have accomplished in Michigan high school wrestling what Hudson coach Scott Marry has over the last 24 seasons.
He’s one of just a handful of coaches who have won more than 600 matches – he’s 630-135 after this Finals weekend – and Hudson is one of only three programs to win four or more consecutive team championships since 1988, the first season MHSAA team titles were decided by dual matches instead of the Individual Finals results. The Tigers beat Shelby 33-22 in Saturday’s Division 4 Final at Battle Creek’s Kellogg Arena.
Marry is a Hudson alum, having graduated in 1983 before attending Adrian College. He also coached the junior varsity football team for 11 seasons.
Of roughly 270 students at Hudson High, 27 were on the wrestling team this season, including Marry’s son Devan – who has signed with Eastern Michigan for next season. We caught up with Scott Marry after Saturday’s championship match.
It’s four titles in a row.
I’m numb right now. I’m lost for words. I’m happy for these seniors. Most of these seniors were on that football team (in 2010) that was a state title also, so they’ve won five state titles. They have five championship rings. They were in another (football) Finals against Traverse City (St. Francis, in 2009). So they’ve been in seven Finals contests.
About 10 percent of your school’s enrollment is on the wrestling team. How were you able to create so much interest in the program?
They want to be part of something successful. The kids know that hard work pays off. They really do. This didn’t start this year. I’ve had these kids in the program for years. Every one of these seniors, I’ve known them seven or eight years. They’re my boy’s best friends. That’s a huge advantage.
And I don’t think that just because the senior class was so good that this is going to be the end of Hudson wrestling, by any means. But those seniors had a big part to do with what happened today.
Although you’ve won four straight titles, is this one more special because you know these seniors so well?
Definitely. We’ve been bawling all day. We’ve been hugging and crying and saying good-bye, and promising each other that no matter what – win, lose or draw – we were going to have these same feelings for each other when we were done. But this is a little bit sweeter. I get to say good-bye to six guys that I’ve shared a lot of time with. And in a good way – it’s a positive saying good-bye, not a negative one. I’m going to miss them all.
What keeps you coming back every year?
The student athletes. The community. … I think, to give these kids something to look forward to, something to work for, that’s the least I can do.
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.)