Lessons Passed Down the Coaching Tree
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
July 18, 2013
Lessons, like legends, are meant to be passed from generation to generation.
And just as parents hand them down to their children who then do the same, coaches teach athletes the best of what they learned as athletes themselves. Some of those athletes then become coaches as well, and in turn, educate a next group of teenagers growing up in part through their participation in sports.
As we begin to turn our eyes toward another school year beginning next month, here are a few favorite lessons taught by four recent participants of the MHSAA’s Coaches Advancement Program – with back stories on how they learned those lessons themselves and explanations of why passing them on continues to be important.
We are family
Steve Brooks
Ypsilanti boys basketball
Bio: Brooks led the Ypsilanti High School program the last 10 seasons, guiding the Phoenix last winter to its first Regional championship since 1981. He has been selected as the first boys basketball coach for the newly-formed Ypsilanti Community Schools, a merger of the former Ypsilanti and Willow Run districts. Previously, he coached three seasons at Inkster and also led that program to the Quarterfinals.
Lesson learned: Brooks was in fourth grade when he and a friend happened to ride their bike past Flint Northern’s football practice field during one of coach Fred Crawford’s training sessions. The noise and excitement and especially the defensive coaches yelling first caught the kids’ attention; Brooks and his friend ended up watching through the fence until Crawford approached and asked if they’d like a closer look. “He said, ‘Hey, you’re going to be a Viking one day, aren’t ya?’ It was so simple. But it made an impression on me as a young man, the pride and tradition of going there,” Brooks said.
Brooks’ family later moved to a neighborhood in Flint Northwestern’s district. But when the school boundary was redrawn before his junior year – and he had his choice of staying or attending Northern – Brooks remembered saying he would be a Viking one day and made the switch. Building togetherness remains a major focus of Brooks’ Ypsilanti program today, 49 years after Crawford first invited him into Northern’s football family.
Lesson taught: “At any time, our players can come in and talk about personal things and feel like they can let stuff out and it won’t go further than the people it’s entrusted to,” Brooks said. Making a connection to players begins early through his middle school coaches and remains key to building that familial trust.
It’s a philosophy that goes to Brooks’ core. “When you’re starting to coach nephews and younger brothers of players you’ve had, it’s that same type of feeling and promoting of family,” Brooks said.
Do the right thing
Heather Prentice
Portage Northern competitive cheer
Bio: Prentice has coached Portage Northern the last eight seasons and guided the 2007 and 2008 teams to the MHSAA Finals. Total, she’s coached cheer since 1986, including previous tenures at Climax-Scotts and Laingsburg.
Lesson learned: Prentice learned more from what she felt her high school experience lacked. She loved cheering – but decided as a coach to take an active role in the lives of her athletes. “I’ve matured the older I’ve gotten, and I think what’s become more important the older I’ve gotten is putting more of the focus on what I want my kids to leave with,” Prentice said.
“I’m not a parent, and I’m a person in their lives for a very short time,” she added. “But it’s a very significant period in life, and I try to carry myself as I would want them to remember me.”
Lesson taught: To that end, Prentice focuses on mixing plenty of fun with the hard work and lessons she teaches. Integrity ranks high on that list.
She’ll point out during workouts that if an athlete does 23 jumping jacks instead of 25, only that girl will know. But cutting corners, if it continues, tends to catch up with a person.
The payoff is finding out those lessons have paid off.
“The great thing about coaching for so long is you get letters or emails back from kids; ‘I thought of you today when I was disciplining my 3-year-old child,’ things like that. Or, ‘I went in for a job interview and they asked for one of my qualities. And I said I have integrity. I do have integrity, and you taught me that.’ Those are the cool moments,” Prentice said. “They really did hear me; they did hear what I am saying.
Accept responsibility
Duane Enderle
Birch Run girls and boys soccer
Bio: Enderle has coached Birch Run’s girls program since its start, and this spring led the Panthers girls to the District Final for the second time during the program’s six-season history. He also coached the boys for four seasons before taking the last two off, but will return to their sideline this fall.
Lesson learned: Enderle was a sophomore starter on his South Hagerstown, Md., team during one of the first seasons under eventual longtime coach Mike Tesla. At one point that season, Enderle didn’t make a Saturday practice – and during the next Monday’s game never left the bench.
“I learned at an early age it doesn’t matter how good you are. There’s always a consequence,” Enderle said.
Lesson taught: He’s noticed the last few seasons, both on the high school and club soccer fields, a growing number of players unable to control their emotions. “They get yellow cards and come out of a game for 10 minutes, and if it’s one of the good players it ends up hurting the team,” Enderle said.
He said this year’s Birch Run team saw a different side of him as he pushed accountability a little bit harder. It’s a lesson that doesn’t lose significance, even as athletes change over the years and push boundaries in different ways.
“That’s the biggest thing I try to pass on to them, their own self-responsibility and accounting for all of their actions,” Enderle said. “Everything they do always has consequences.”
One for all
Kim Crum
Mattawan girls lacrosse
Bio: Crum is a 2002 Mattawan graduate and played three seasons for the highly-successful softball program led by coach Alicia Smith. Crum just finished her third season coaching the school’s girls lacrosse team after previously coaching the Kalamazoo United team for three seasons.
Lesson learned: Being part of a team is a full commitment to those teammates, something Crum works to instill in her players each spring. She learned that in part as an athlete under Smith – who last season led Mattawan to its second MHSAA championship in three seasons. “With a group of teenage girls, a group of any teenagers for that matter, they form cliques and opinions of people before they get (on a team),” Crum said. “When we were on that team, there were people that didn’t agree, didn’t get along. But when we set foot in practice, for a game, we were part of a team and it didn’t matter what happened outside of there during the day. I try to tell the kids that now.”
Lesson taught: Instead of finishing practices with “1-2-3-Wildcats,” the team’s mascot, Mattawan closes with “1-2-3-Family!” Crum’s emphasis on “team commitment” also has grown through working with her assistant Matt Stephens, the school’s football coach during the fall.
Playing a high school sport often means seeing those coaches and teammates as much or more than family during that three or fourth-month span. Some of Crum’s lacrosse players have played together in the past or together on other sports teams. But she and Stephens are quick to remind them that each team, each season, is a new group with new dynamics to learn.
“Every time we do something, we look at it as how it affects the group,” Crum said. “We have to figure out how each other work. ... Be patient. By the end, we’ll figure things out.”
PHOTO: Ypsilanti boys basketball coach Steve Brooks (far right) celebrates with his team this March after leading the Phoenix to its first Regional title since 1981. (Photo courtesy of Randy Castro, Ann Arbor Journal.)
Forsythe Honorees Give All to Educational Athletics
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
April 6, 2021
At one time during his four tenures as a Michigan high school athletic director, Leroy Hackley Jr. hosted MHSAA Finals in tennis and track & field and Districts in baseball, softball and soccer – all on the same day.
Another time, a neighboring athletic director hosting a Regional basketball game called because a dunk had just broken a backboard. An hour after Hackley took the call, the entire game had been moved to his school and play resumed.
Patti Tibaldi moved to Traverse City in 1995 already a high school and college basketball coaching legend and with district-wide administrative duties her next mission after also having served as a college assistant athletic director.
But with West High School set to open for the 1997-98 school year, and the most experienced applicant for the girls basketball varsity job having no more than seventh-grade experience, she stepped in again to build another program and make sure that generation of students received a great experience as well.
For nearly the entirety of their careers, and in multiple roles, Hackley and Tibaldi have been immersed in improving educational athletics. To celebrate their continued dedication and contributions over the years, they have been named honorees for the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s Charles E. Forsythe Award for 2021.
The annual award is in its 44th year and named after former MHSAA Executive Director Charles E. Forsythe, the Association's first full-time and longest-serving chief executive. Forsythe Award recipients are selected each year by the MHSAA Representative Council, based on an individual's outstanding contributions to the interscholastic athletics community.
Tibaldi spent 40 years in educational athletics at Comstock Park, Grand Rapids West Catholic and Traverse City West and also Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, serving as a coach, athletic director and physical education specialist. Hackley has spent the last 22 years of more than 40 in sports as an athletic director at Byron Center, Jenison, Grant and currently Muskegon Orchard View, as well as serving as an MHSAA-registered game official for 37 years. Both are recognized statewide among the best in their various fields.
“Patti Tibaldi has given more to athletics in our state at the small college and high school levels than perhaps anyone over the last 40 years,” MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said. “She was a pioneer in small-school college basketball at Aquinas College, and my wife Marcy played against her there, and 30 years ago you could see that passion for women's sports that was unmatched. During her time at Traverse City West, her passion for kids was unchanged, and most of her students had no idea she had been that pioneer. She was a trailblazer for women in leadership positions in coaching and administration.
“Leroy and I were first-year athletic directors together in the same conference in 1999, and it's been a pleasure to watch him grow into one of the most respected voices over the last 22 years,” Uyl said. “At its core, athletics is a people business, and Leroy is all about those relationships. He's a guy who genuinely enjoys going to work every day.
Hackley has served as an athletic director first at Byron Center for five years, then Jenison for seven, Grant for three and Muskegon Orchard View for the last seven. Before those stops he served as director of health, recreation & wellness at Grand Valley State University for 14 years after serving as assistant director of recreation/intramurals for four years at Eastern Michigan University. His first administrative experience came while as a graduate assistant at the University of Iowa serving as supervisor of officials for the recreational services department. He’s also served as an adjunct professor in physical education at GVSU, Aquinas College and Muskegon Community College.
As well as hosting numerous postseason events, Hackley has served on eight MHSAA committees over the years and four years on its Representative Council. He’s been a registered MHSAA official in boys and girls basketball, softball, baseball, swimming & diving, volleyball, cross country and track & field over 37 years and has officiated every collegiate level of women’s basketball including Division I in the Mid-American Conference. He has officiated three MHSAA Basketball Finals and NCAA Division III and NAIA national championship games.
Just this week he changed his spring break plans to step in and host a Boys Basketball Quarterfinal and serve as a manager at MHSAA Semifinals on Wednesday and Thursday at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids.
“I’ve always wanted to step in because I know what it’s like when you need help. I’m one of those guys who doesn’t like to say no. I try to find a way to lend a hand wherever I can,” Hackley said. “I’ve always enjoyed sports; all my free times has been spent watching sports or playing sports, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have a wife who enjoys watching sports. Pretty much my whole live has been centered around recreation and athletics. Coming from a big family (as one of 13 children), that’s one of the things we always did.”
Tibaldi spent 40 years in education and athletics at the high school and college levels, beginning first at Comstock Park from 1973-75 before spending the next six years at Grand Rapids West Catholic where she led the girls basketball team to the Class B championship in 1979 and the softball team to four league titles.
Simultaneously for the final three years at West Catholic, Tibaldi also served as women’s basketball coach, then also softball coach at Aquinas College, where she also became assistant athletic director in 1981. While at Aquinas she led the Saints to a 340-136 record on the court and the National Catholic Basketball Championship in 1984.
Tibaldi then moved to Traverse City Area Public Schools, first as the district’s K-12 physical education coordinator but eventually in multiple physical education specialist roles. She also was named the first varsity girls basketball coach at the new Traverse City West High School from 1997-2011 and served as West’s athletic director from 2004 until retiring in December 2014. As coach, she led the Titans to multiple league and District championships and the final few hundred wins of more than 800 total on high school and college basketball courts.
She’s also played a prevalent role in helping make MHSAA policy over her decades. She’s served on a variety of MHSAA committees, including the Basketball Committee, and served in multiple roles with the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan including as president. She also served at the collegiate level on the NAIA Executive Committee, the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) Executive Council and as part of NAIA Women in Sports Leadership program and the Michigan Women’s Foundation Tribute to Women Athletes Committee.
Tibaldi has received various honors for her coaching and administrative contributions, including the MHSAA’s Women In Sports Leadership Award in 2011. She was The Associated Press’ Class B Coach of the Year in 1981 and twice earned special mention, and she’s a member of the BCAM Hall of Fame. She also was named state Coach of the Year for basketball by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) in 2004, and named Regional Athletic Director of the Year by the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA) in 2011. She also was named BCAM’s College Coach of the Year in 1988 and is a member of the NAIA’s National Coaches Hall of Fame. She earned multiple NAIA District Coach of the Year awards for both basketball and softball and was the WHAC Coach of the Year four times.
“To me, teaching life lessons is everything,” Tibaldi said. “I had great kids, and it makes me proud to see where they’re at – the things they’re doing are mind-boggling, and it makes me really proud. The thing they all tell me is they learned what hard work was, about teamwork and persistence, and resilience. That to me is what’s valuable.”
Tibaldi also co-authored and was granted a $1 million federal grant as part of the Every Step Counts program to provide the Traverse City community with funds to fight obesity, and wrote and coordinated a USDA-funded Michigan Fitness Foundation grant for promotion of healthy school environments in five high-needs schools. She’s been an active volunteer with the Boys and Girls Club and presented at the annual Girl-Tech Conference to encourage young women to choose non-traditional careers. She continues to do work with the Michigan Fitness Foundation.
Tibaldi is a graduate of the former Redford St. Mary’s High School in Detroit and earned her bachelor’s degrees in English and physical education from Aquinas in 1973. She was named Aquinas’ Outstanding Alumni of the Year in 1995 and is a member of that school’s Hall of Fame as well as Grand Rapids West Catholic’s and the Grand Rapids Sports Hall of Fame.
Hackley is a graduate of Culpeper County High School, located southwest of Washington, D.C. He earned his bachelor’s degree in recreation administration from Bethany College in Kansas and his master’s in recreation education from Iowa.
A member of the West Michigan Officials Association (WMOA) and National Association of Sports Officials (NASO), Hackley was co-founder and has been co-director of the Michigan Intramural and Recreation Sports Association (MIRSA) basketball officials camp and served on six committees as part of the National Intramural and Recreation Sports Association (NIRSA). He also was appointed to the Board of Directors of the West Michigan Sports Commission.
He’s also volunteered with Michigan Special Olympics, Georgetown Little League, National Kidney Foundation and Habitat for Humanity, served three years on the Board of Directors for the Downtown Metro YMCA in Grand Rapids and nine years on the Board of Directors at Bethany College.
Hackley was named WMOA Athletic Director of the Year in 2011 and an MIAAA Regional Athletic Director of the Year in 2018. He also has received MIRSA’s Tom Jones Service Award.
Past recipients of the Charles E. Forsythe Award
1978 - Brick Fowler, Port Huron; Paul Smarks, Warren
1979 - Earl Messner, Reed City; Howard Beatty, Saginaw
1980 - Max Carey, Freesoil
1981 - Steven Sluka, Grand Haven; Samuel Madden, Detroit
1982 - Ernest Buckholz, Mt. Clemens; T. Arthur Treloar, Petoskey
1983 - Leroy Dues, Detroit; Richard Maher, Sturgis
1984 - William Hart, Marquette; Donald Stamats, Caro
1985 - John Cotton, Farmington; Robert James, Warren
1986 - William Robinson, Detroit; Irving Soderland, Norway
1987 - Jack Streidl, Plainwell; Wayne Hellenga, Decatur
1988 - Jack Johnson, Dearborn; Alan Williams, North Adams
1989 - Walter Bazylewicz, Berkley; Dennis Kiley, Jackson
1990 - Webster Morrison, Pickford; Herbert Quade, Benton Harbor
1991 - Clifford Buckmaster, Petoskey; Donald Domke, Northville
1992 - William Maskill, Kalamazoo; Thomas G. McShannock, Muskegon
1993 - Roy A. Allen Jr., Detroit; John Duncan, Cedarville
1994 - Kermit Ambrose, Royal Oak
1995 - Bob Perry, Lowell
1996 - Charles H. Jones, Royal Oak
1997 - Michael A. Foster, Richland; Robert G. Grimes, Battle Creek
1998 - Lofton C. Greene, River Rouge; Joseph J. Todey, Essexville
1999 - Bernie Larson, Battle Creek
2000 - Blake Hagman, Kalamazoo; Jerry Cvengros, Escanaba
2001 - Norm Johnson, Bangor; George Lovich, Canton
2002 - John Fundukian, Novi
2003 - Ken Semelsberger, Port Huron
2004 - Marco Marcet, Frankenmuth
2005 - Jim Feldkamp, Troy
2006 - Dan McShannock, Midland; Dail Prucka, Monroe
2007 - Keith Eldred, Williamston; Tom Hickman, Spring Lake
2008 - Jamie Gent, Haslett; William Newkirk, Sanford Meridian
2009 - Paul Ellinger, Cheboygan
2010 - Rudy Godefroidt, Hemlock; Mike Boyd, Waterford
2011 - Eric C. Federico, Trenton
2012 - Bill Mick, Midland
2013 - Jim Gilmore, Tecumseh; Dave Hutton, Grandville
2014 - Dan Flynn, Escanaba
2015 - Hugh Matson, Saginaw
2016 - Gary Hice, Petoskey; Gina Mazzolini, Lansing
2017 - Chuck Nurek, Rochester Hills
2018 - Gary Ellis, Allegan
2019 - Jim Derocher, Negaunee; Fredrick J. Smith, Stevensville
2020 - Michael Garvey, Lawton
PHOTOS: Muskegon Orchard View athletic director Leroy Hackley Jr., left during his time at Jenison High, and retired Traverse City West athletic director and basketball coach Patti Tibaldi are the 2021 Charles E. Forsythe Award honorees. (Hackley photo by Rob Kaminski; Tibaldi photo courtesy of Traverse City Record-Eagle.)