COMMENTARY: Public Act 184 a Real Loser for School Sports in Michigan
By
Mark Uyl
MHSAA Executive Director
October 20, 2022
There is a crisis in Michigan schools today that centers on one problem:
Not having enough people.
In discussions with school district personnel, we are being told there has never been a more difficult time for finding people than today. All of us are searching high and low to find coaches for athletic teams, and officials, referees and umpires to administer those games in an orderly and safe way. Dig a little deeper, and school districts are desperate to find those willing to serve as substitute teachers and bus drivers.
Because of this current reality, we continue to be dumbfounded over the approval of Public Act 184 this past summer. This created a new set of retirement rules stipulating that a retiring teacher or administrator cannot be rehired to serve as a coach until after a nine-month waiting period. Even more frustrating: Individuals who had served as high school coaches for many years, who retired from the classroom last June but had planned to keep coaching for a few more seasons, are being told they cannot do so. Those coaches are sidelined, and for no sensible reason.
Cheri Ritz has been the varsity softball coach at Wayland High School since 1995. Cheri has won numerous championships, and has been a model coach and great leader of students throughout her career. Cheri retired as a teacher in June and planned to keep coaching the softball team for a few more years, making a small fraction of what her classroom salary was before retirement. Under the “old” retirement law, Cheri could have retired in June and been detached from the district for 30 days, and then returned and worked for the district in any capacity as long as she was making less than 30 percent of her compensation at the time of her retirement. Under PA 184, this scenario can no longer happen.
In the state of Michigan, we have hundreds of recently-retired school people who want to continue to be some of our best coaches, making pennies on the hour for their time. Now they simply aren’t allowed to do so because of a law that had no intention of impacting coaches and school sports. Cheri is just one example. The same issue has found several more longtime, successful coaches including Northville’s golf coach Chris Cronin and cross country & track field’s Steve Porter at Milan High School.
For the past few months, the MHSAA has met with the Office of Retirement Services, representatives from the Governor’s office and even the bill sponsor of PA 184. Every single conversation revealed the fact that coaches were not even part of the discussion when this new retirement law was passed. In other words, recent retirees continuing to coach were not the issue, but yet this new law now treats coaches as some sort of enemy with zero phase-in period, modification or even the ability to seek a waiver of this new law which became effective immediately on July 25, 2022. We have tried to work within the system to seek some commonsense approaches and solutions to this problem, but to no avail as of yet.
We need your help. We need you to contact the Governor’s office and your State Representative and State Senator’s offices. Let them know PA 184 needs to be fixed now. We need to find a way to let these individuals continue to coach and lead our student-athletes. Let them know our kids cannot play their games without individuals who want to coach, and let them know our kids will miss out on learning valuable life lessons if these coaches are not allowed to continue.
And let them know that PA 184 could not have been passed at a worse time given our most valuable resource – people – is at an all-time low.
PHOTO: Wayland softball coach Cheri Ritz, front right, accepts the Division 2 championship trophy in 2015.
Loy Norrix Mourning Death of Longtime Coach, Teacher Duckett: 'He's All Knight'
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
January 19, 2026
KALAMAZOO — Theophlis Duckett, known to generations of students and alumni as the more familiar “Ted” Duckett, dedicated 57 years of his life as a teacher and coach at Loy Norrix High School.
After his unexpected death Jan. 8, people will have a chance to show their respect and share memories at a community celebration of life, Saturday, Feb. 14, from 11 a.m.-noon (with doors opening at 10:30 a.m.) at the Loy Norrix auditorium.
At age 79, Duckett continued to teach three classes of physical education as well as coach the Knights girls and boys track & field teams.
“There aren’t many educators who have worked as long as he has, especially all those years in the same building,” said Andrew Laboe, Loy Norrix’s athletic director. "He connected with kids very well. He had a generational following: kids, parents, their grandparents, their great-grandparents.”
Some memories of Duckett bring a laugh from Laboe, who said he and Duckett had a running joke about his years as a Knight.
“I’m 55 years old and I told him I was negative-2 (years old) when he started working here,” Laboe laughed. “I believe he was a parapro or a locker room aide when he started here.
“In the teachers union seniority list, he is listed as 1969-70 for his first year teaching.”
Laboe said in losing Duckett, the school and community have lost a great resource for his knowledge of the history of the school and the people connected to it.
“He knows everybody,” Laboe said. “He was a consistent person in the lives of the kids he taught every day. Kalamazoo is not small like a lot of small towns around us, but it’s not very big, either.
"Ted knows everybody. You could get help from Ted on everything about children, who are they related to, who they are connected to, who can we contact to help them in any situation. That’s very helpful.”
During his tenure at Loy Norrix, Duckett coached football, basketball and track.
“He’s definitely a good sprinter coach for track,” Laboe said. “He was a fixture at Loy Norrix forever. He’s all Knight.”
Duckett’s coaching tenure included developing several all-state football players. Among those were sons Tico and Todd, who continued their football careers at Michigan State and then the NFL.
Tico Duckett played for Washington while Todd was a first-round selection by Atlanta in 2002, and he also played for Washington, Detroit and Seattle.
Laboe laughs when he looks back on his first meeting with the coach.
“My first year (at Loy Norrix) was 2004,” Laboe said. “Ted came into my office the first day. I said, ‘Hi Mr. Duckett, how are you? I’m Andrew Laboe.’”
He told Laboe he already knew.
“He said, ‘I just want you to know you have one year to get all the information out of this head that you need to run this athletic department because I’m retiring in one year.’”
No matter how much Laboe got out of Duckett’s head that first year, it didn’t matter.
“I’ve been here for 22 years and he was still here. It’s crazy,” Laboe recalled.
“He’s one of a kind. I don’t think it will ever be replicated in my career. There’s not people like that anymore that are that dedicated to one school like Ted Duckett was to Loy Norrix.”
(Photos courtesy of the Duckett family and Loy Norrix High School/Knight Life.)