Coaches Hehs, Ritz Honored by NFHS
January 12, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Two championship-winning Michigan high school coaches were honored Monday by the National Federation of State High School Associations Coaches Association.
Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart girls tennis coach Judy Hehs and Wayland softball coach Cheri Ritz were recognized as National Coaches of the Year in their respective sports after both led their teams to MHSAA championships during the 2014-15 school year.
The following brief bios on Michigan’s winners include excerpts from coaching philosophies they were asked to submit after being identified as candidates:
Judy Hehs has coached girls tennis at Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart since fall 1996 and served as co-coach of three MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 championship teams over the last four seasons, including last spring. She also coached the school's varsity girls basketball team from 1988-95 and two sports at Detroit Country Day – field hockey in fall 1987 and then junior varsity boys tennis (while also serving as the varsity assistant) from spring 1988-2000. Hehs was inducted in 2015 into the Michigan High School Tennis Coaches Association Hall of Fame and her girls tennis teams have a record of 141-16-14. She also serves as Sacred Heart’s associate head of school and director of the upper school.
“Why do I coach? I coach to give back to the profession of coaching and to the sport of tennis. Tennis has been a large part of my life since I was young. I coach because I can make a difference in the lives of the young women whom I coach – I can help build character and teach resilience, I can bear witness to their individual and team success and I can be present during those moments when hard lessons are learned. I coach for selfish reasons – I love spending afternoons and weekends with young people. In my classroom, the tennis court, the challenge isn’t making great tennis players. It is about building great people. … There is no better place than a tennis court to teach real life lessons – lessons about work ethic, teamwork, problem solving, independence and the moment when efforts turn into believing and believing turns into accomplishments.”
Cheri Ritz has coached the Wayland softball team to two MHSAA Division 2 championships, in 2006 and again last spring. She began her varsity softball coaching career at Middleville Thornapple Kellogg from 1991-94 and has led Wayland since 1995. She ranks 12th in MHSAA history for softball coaching victories with a career record of 818-207. Ritz also teaches in the Wayland Union district.
“Patience, passion, dedication, virtue, teamwork and love are present daily. I will open the minds and hearts of my athletes, and they will treat people the right way. I will enhance their soul by having them grow righteous values from within. We will instill that maximum effort is simply a way of life. … Our goal will be to be as competitive as possible every year. We will compete every year with high expectations of our players, on and off the field. We will control what we can control, such as effort, attitude and the way that we treat our teammates. We will pay close attention to details. We will work on the basic fundamentals every day in practice. Everything matters, from the way we treat custodians and bus drivers to the way we clean our opponent's dugout after a game to the way we warm up before the game. We will win with class in everything that we do!
The NFHS has been recognizing coaches through an awards program since 1982. Winners of NFHS awards must be active coaches during the year for which they receive their award.
MHSA(Q&A): Flint Beecher boys basketball coach Mike Williams
March 30, 2012
Mike Williams had brought Flint Beecher to the MHSAA Semifinals at Michigan State's Breslin Center at the end of both the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons, and also coached the team that made the Class C Final in 2008. All three times the Buccaneers had to settle with great runs, but losses to end them.
But not Saturday.
Beecher and Williams capped one of the best season's in MHSAA history, becoming the 12th team to finish with 28 wins and claiming the Class C championship. Beecher finished with a perfect record, and the championship was the Bucs' first since claiming the Class B title in 1987.
Williams graduated from Grand Blanc High in 1994 before then getting degrees at Ferris State and Eastern Michigan University. He's led Beecher to a 138-61 record over the last eight seasons, and had some powerful things to say after Saturday's win, both about the Bucs' legacy but also about what the win could mean to the entire Flint community.
"I’m just overwhelmed with excitement. Very humbled by this entire process, by this entire season, by the way our kids performed. Just fortunate to be a part of this. We put in a lot of work to get here. It feels unbelievable. I really can’t describe it with words.
"I know we did everything the right way. And we worked from the ground up"
This is the third time in school history (Beecher) finished with an undefeated season. You yopped the last two teams by one game. How does it feel for you guys to do this?
"It’s incredible. The only thing that I can say is we’ve got the full support of all the Beecher alumni, all the supporters that came out. … Everybody was pulling for us to do this. Like I said, it’s humbling to be considered and to be known right up there with all those great teams that have played in the past at Beecher. And to add to the legacy of Beecher, that’s the main thing.
With all things you guys have been through up to this point, not even just basketball, but off the court, on the court, talk about the feeling you guys have to be able to finish it on top and be able to celebrate a victory.
"I think with the things that our kids have gone through and the things our community has gone through, for me this is more than about basketball. This is about these kids' lives. I feel like I’m their father. The toughest part is that this is over. I won’t get to coach Antuan (Burks) anymore. I won’t get to coach Montana (Gooch) anymore. These are like my sons. I put more into their lives than into basketball. We revert everything back to their lives.
"Because you’re looking at some kids that overcome some things that you can never imagine. For them to make it here and accomplish this, it's setting a standard for all the kids in our city that we don’t have to act up. We can achieve. We can be successful. Because too many bad things are going on in our city, and I want these kids to be representatives of our city, of their generation turning around and being positive. And that’s been the biggest thing. It’s been about their lives. For them to accomplish this, it doesn’t even compare to the things they’ve overcome in their lives.
"So we just want to bring it back home and show everybody we can be successful. We don’t have to be in the streets. We don’t have to do things that are getting written about in paper that Flint is known for. Let’s get back to being successful. And our community and the whole Flint area, everybody supported us. Not just Beecher. That’s what I’m more proud of -- that we get to bring some positive attention to our area."