Keep on Coaching
February 1, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
A few weeks ago, I finally got my first chance this season to watch a friend coach his basketball team. After guiding some others at the lower levels, this is his first time running the varsity – something he wasn't sure he wanted to do with a 1-year-old just learning to walk, but a challenge he ended up taking on to the benefit of all those involved.
Simply put, he’s good. I've seen a lot of teams and a lot of coaches over the past 15 years, and although I wouldn't know much of what to do if I were walking the sideline, I felt pretty qualified in telling him I was impressed – even if he didn't buy that I was offering an unbiased opinion. The best news is he’s gone from not sure about this a few months ago to talking about next season.
We know, at least anecdotally, that coaching continues to get more challenging. The time commitment has grown substantially to make running a program a year-round endeavor in a lot of sports at a lot of schools.
That commitment – especially for coaches with children of their own – was a main reason referred to in a New Haven Post-Chronicle story Saturday that noted 23 football coaching openings in Connecticut at one point this offseason. That state has 146 football teams – meaning roughly 15 percent will have new leaders this fall.
And that got me thinking about my friend, about how glad I am he’s given this a shot, and how I've seen so many others either not do so, or not stick around long despite having some pretty nice success.
A study published last winter in Interscholastic Athletic Administration magazine – a product of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association – noted some predictable results of a study that sought to determine the biggest challenges faced by first-year high school coaches.
The toughest according to the study was balancing the demands of coaching and teaching, experienced by nearly half the respondents – 98 percent of which coached high school teams and 81 percent of which are teachers.
The next six reasons all were noted by at least 30 percent of those in the study – personal fatigue, securing community support, securing and caring for facilities and equipment, parental contact, keeping non-starting players motivated, dealing with schedule interruptions and motivating athletes to achieve consistent, peak performance.
Nothing there is earth-shaking, and most if not all of these challenges are faced by high school coaches regardless of how long they've been in the field. But I got a little more perspective from some of the 32 items that ranked as least challenging to the first-year leaders – keeping in compliance with state and league regulations, dealing with substance abuse issues, teaching sport skills and creating a positive team atmosphere – things that seem most important, and yet appear to be easiest to do. I’m not sure what that tells us – but I think it tells us something.
Click to check out the entire three-page breakdown of the study, plus the researchers’ recommendations to remedy some of what first-year coaches face.
Giving back to Saginaw
I love reading about high-level athletes – like a star-studded group of alums from Saginaw – giving back to where they got their starts.
Pittsburgh Steelers star LaMarr Woodley made a big impact before the start of this school year by donating $60,000 to cover all participation fees for athletes in his former school district. The Saginaw News’ Hugh Bernreuter writes today about how Woodley (Saginaw High), the Philadelphia 76ers’ Jason Richardson (Saginaw Arthur Hill) and former Oakland Raiders standout Stu Schweigert (Saginaw Heritage) have combined to give more than $865,000 back to their home communities.
Bernreuter also mentions the non-monetary contributions of the Golden State Warriors’ Draymond Green (Saginaw High) and former Indianapolis Colts receiver Blair White (Saginaw Nouvel).
Click to read more about it.
Quote(s) of the Week
While rifling through more papers on my desk, I found an article from the Washington Post from Sept. 2011 titled “How high school sports save our schools.” I was drawn to it in part because I spent more than a decade in a newsroom, and it was a piece by a reporter covering education who instead of reporting on school boards and the like, delved into the importance of interscholastic athletics to education as a whole.
He spoke of how participation continues to grow even as resources dwindle, and of data supporting that extracurriculars like sports are more effective than academic classes in teaching leadership, teamwork, time management and “other skills crucial for success in the workplace.” Later, he mentioned a study noting that those who participate in extracurriculars earned more a decade later.
Click here to read the entre piece. These passages struck me most.
“Coaches might be the only faculty members still allowed by our culture and educational practice to get tough with students not making the proper effort. They have the advantage of teaching what are essentially elective non-credit courses. They can insist on standards of behavior that classroom teachers often cannot enforce because the stakes of dismissing or letting students drop their courses are too high. …
“Students do better in activities they choose. If we provide more of them, led by committed adults … that can make a difference. We know the bad news about education. Dropout rates are high. Achievement scores are stagnant. But sports participation is going up, despite pressure to cut it back. Let’s cheer about that and look for a way to draw in more students.”
Cochran, Jenison Rising Among Elite of Inaugural MHSAA Boys Volleyball Season
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
May 27, 2026
JENISON – Quinn Cochran never envisioned that one day he would have the opportunity to compete for a state championship while playing volleyball.
But with boys volleyball an MHSAA-sponsored sport for the first time this spring, Cochran and his second-ranked Jenison squad will have the chance to do just that as they begin postseason play tonight as one of nearly 120 teams participating in the inaugural postseason.
“I love it,” the 6-foot-2 high-flying Cochran said. “It’s great for us, and the sport is finally getting the recognition it deserves, especially because it’s such a fun sport. It’s also a chance for kids who want to play a spring sport.
“There are some teams that just want to play for fun, and some that want to be competitive and try to win a state championship. That’s what we’ve been focusing on this year. The first few years as a club sport it was just about ‘let’s have fun and get better,’ but now that it’s an actual sanctioned sport we want to go and play and win.”
The Wildcats will play Muskegon Mona Shores tonight in a Division 1 first-round Regional matchup.
A victory would more than likely set up a highly-anticipated match against top-ranked Grand Haven, which Jenison beat recently – handing the Bucs their only loss of the season.
“We have a lot of confidence knowing that we can go in and compete against the top teams in the state,” Cochran said. “We know we can play them and beat them, so if we play like we know we can play then we can definitely win a state title.
“Our toughest battle will be Grand Haven on Friday. They were down one of their top players last time when we played them, but we still can beat them. We didn’t play as well as we could’ve against them earlier in the season, and I think if we can beat Grand Haven then we have a good chance to win it.”
Cochran, an athletic outside hitter/setter, is one of several talented players for head coach Teran Peerboom-Vanderbroek.
Jenison entered today with a sparkling 29-4-1 record.
“They’ve done a really good job all year of kind of dialing in, working hard and improving,” Peerboom-Vanderbroek said. “They’ve really concentrated on where our weaknesses are and then focused on fixing them. We had that big win against Grand Haven and played well against Hudsonville, so this is a hard-working group of guys who have a good chance of making a run if we play well this week.”
Cochran believes that the team’s versatility has been a major factor in their success.
“I think what makes us good is that we don’t have a weak spot,” he said. “Our setting and hitting have been great, as well as our passing, serving and middle blocking. We don’t have a hole in our team, and we are all super solid.”
Cochran, a two-year captain, has been the catalyst of this year’s team after a breakout junior season that garnered all-state second-team honors.
He’s been one of the top players in the state again this season and was recently named a finalist for the Mr. Volleyball Award by the Michigan Interscholastic Volleyball Coaches Association.
Grand Haven’s Caleb Cryst, Saline’s Quinn Burns, White Lake Lakeland’s Zachary Dorbin and Farmington’s Charlie Engelhardt are the other finalists.
“I think it’s very cool to be recognized like that,” Cochran said. “And being recognized as one of the best players in the state is something I’ve worked toward my whole life. Seeing that hard work pay off is definitely a good pat on the back, and helping my team be competitive has been fun.”
Cochran played basketball all four years of high school and baseball until his sophomore year.
His true passion is volleyball, and he’s gradually improved each year while playing on indoor club teams for the past seven.
“We had a beach volleyball court in our backyard, and I loved playing with my dad and his buddies,” Cochran said. “At a young age I knew I could play well against people older than me, and then I took it seriously. I started playing at a high level in club and realized I could play at that level.”
Cochran has been playing beach volleyball since he was 6, and even had the opportunity to play with AVP players Logan Webber and David Ryan in tournaments. “That was definitely fun, and I was grateful for the experiences,” Cochran said.
He will play next season at Cornerstone University.
“I didn’t think about playing in college until my junior year,” Cochran said. “I was playing pretty well, and I didn’t want to be done playing indoor volleyball. I was a little late in the recruiting process, but I narrowed it down and I wanted to be close to home.”
Peerboom-VanderBroek has high praise for Cochran’s character and leadership, but has also been impressed by his ability to adapt to a different role when called upon.
“He’s very selfless as well, and he’s been playing some middle for us, which is definitely not his preferred position,” she said. “It seals up some of our blocking issues, and he can run and pass out of the middle and take control a little bit.
“It has been really great, and I think he’s seeing the team’s success as a result of the move – so I’m really proud of him in that way. It’s not easy to go from a spot that you really shine in to something more uncomfortable, but it makes our team better.”
Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for five years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Jenison’s Quinn Cochran (1) winds up for a kill attempt against Hudsonville this season. (Middle) Cochran, far left, elevates for another kill attempt. (Below) Cochran and his teammates pose for a photo with a trophy in hand. (Photos courtesy of Quinn Cochran.)