Inglis Finds Next Home at MHSAA
December 4, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The theme chosen by Portage Northern’s student section for its hockey Regional Final in 1989 was “Kings of the Ice,” and as such they wore Burger King crowns as a sign of the royalty their classmates soon would earn.
Just before team captain Cody Inglis accepted the championship trophy, he skated to his friends and was anointed as well as one placed a crown upon his head.
Golden cardboard and all, Inglis received his team’s prize and circled the ice.
Inglis returned home that night eager to discuss the highlights with his dad Bill, a former professional player and one-time coach of the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres. But there was only one thing Bill had to say – and it’s a principle that’s continued to guide Cody throughout his career in high school athletics.
“I was really looking for his input and congratulations, and he looked at me and said very succinctly, ‘There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things. And you chose the wrong way,’” Inglis remembered this week. “At the time, I couldn’t see it with the perspective of a 17-year-old kid. But now I look back on it as the most valuable life lesson I’ve ever gotten.
“I knew he was proud of me. But the lesson he was trying to impart on me was doing things the right way is much more important than winning.”
Inglis has been doing things the right way for two decades while serving first at Suttons Bay and then Traverse City Central High School. He’ll bring a winning list of achievements and wealth of knowledge when he joins the Michigan High School Athletic Association staff as an assistant director in January.
Inglis, 42, has served as athletic director and assistant principal at Traverse City Central since February 2008, taking over after 11 years as athletic director at Suttons Bay. He also has served as secretary for both the Big North and Northwest Conferences and for 13 years as the northern Lower Peninsula representative of 125 athletic directors for the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.
Inglis will serve as the MHSAA’s director of ice hockey, girls and boys cross country, girls and boys golf, and girls and boys bowling. In addition, he will assist in the direction of girls and boys skiing and girls and boys track and field, and be in charge of the junior high and middle school committee. Inglis also will assist with the administration of the MHSAA’s Coaches Advancement Program and provide his expertise as an instructor.
“We had more than 100 candidates, including a half dozen of the finest ADs in America – not just Michigan. They couldn’t be any better,” MHSAA Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts said. “Cody’s selection was based in part on his being just a slightly better fit to the job description we had in mind.
“He’s had to do some tough things as an administrator. But he’s got a personality that causes people to rally around him.”
On the move
Inglis’ dad, Bill, spent 50 years in pro hockey, most of his final 20 as general manager of the Kalamazoo K-Wings, and Cody grew up in lockerrooms around future pros like Ron Hextall, Dirk Graham and Marty Turco. When the Toledo Goaldiggers won the IHL’s Turner Cup when Cody was in sixth grade, he got to carry the cup through downtown. The family moved 17 times, and prior to the stop in Kalamazoo, Cody had never lived anywhere longer than 2½ years.
Inglis graduated from Portage Northern High School in 1989 and went on to Hope College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education and his teaching certification. He also was the captain of Hope’s 1992 men’s cross country team and captain of the men’s track & field team in both 1992 and 1993, and earned academic All-America honors for cross country.
Given his ties to pro hockey, Inglis might have had an opportunity to follow his dad. But it wasn’t for him. After graduating from Hope, Inglis enrolled at Western Michigan University to study sports management. He went to class for one day and withdrew – his heart just wasn’t into it.
Instead, Inglis hooked up with his Portage Northern cross country coach Bill Fries and found what he did want to do – coach, and in doing so, teach athletics.
The rest is northern Lower Peninsula history.
Inglis hooked on at Suttons Bay as a 23-year physical education teacher and head cross country and track & field coach, and two years later took over the athletic department.
“I was thrown into the fire right away, but I had a desire to be in sports somehow and coaching was a passion of mine,” Inglis said. “It was kinda sink or swim. I realized the craziness and hecticness of it, but it was something I embraced. I was lucky to have the opportunity to do it at Suttons Bay, to grow there and have people who were willing to let me make some mistakes, learn from my mistakes and become a better administrator.”
Inglis has supervised a group of more than 100 coaches while at Traverse City Central, plus a group of more than 20 teachers and staff as part of his assistant principal duties.
He’s managed more than 100 MHSAA Tournaments, including Ski Finals, Football Semifinals and Hockey Quarterfinals, and a variety of lower tournament levels for hockey, wrestling, track and field, cross country, basketball and golf.
His programs have achieved plentiful success under his leadership. Traverse City Central won the Big North Conference all-sport award every year from 2008-12 and earned six MHSAA Finals team championships during his tenure. The varsity programs have produced 34 academic all-state awards over the past three school years – including 14 in 2012-13 – and 62 percent of the student body was involved in athletics last school year.
While at Suttons Bay, Inglis led an athletic program that won the Northwest Conference sportsmanship trophy nine times and earned two MHSAA Finals championships. He also redeveloped athletic boosters programs, oversaw construction projects and was instrumental in the rewriting of athletic policies at both schools.
He was recognized in the spring with the MHSAA’s Allen W. Bush Award, which recognizes those who serve in high school athletics but do not always receive attention for their contributions.
Mentor to follow
Inglis was instrumental in the creation and later served as an assistant coach for the Traverse City Bay Reps ice hockey team, a co-operative headed by Traverse City St. Francis High School that’s now been in existence 15 seasons. He also was named Division 4 Girls Cross Country Coach of the Year in 2002 by the Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association after leading his team to a runner-up finish at the MHSAA Finals.
Inglis coached a string of girls cross country teams that made the top 10 at MHSAA Finals five straight seasons, plus 25 all-state athletes in cross country and track and field including three individual MHSAA champions.
He has been a member of seven MHSAA sport committees, including for ice hockey. He’s been a frequent presenter at the MIAAA’s annual conferences, covering topics including fundraising, budgeting, organizing successful tournaments, balancing multiple roles and responsibilities, leadership and technology. He’s also taught MIAAA Leadership Training Courses.
Of little surprise, Inglis has been greatly impacted by growing up following his dad. While mother Jeris was the rock of the family, Bill was Cody’s idol and made a significant impact on the manager Inglis has become.
“My dad was so good at the way he treated people. I just saw how he treated them, whether it was the Zamboni drive or an assistant or secretary, he treated them with so much respect,” Inglis said. “That’s the part I’ve really taken from him, how he treated people and the relationships he made. How you treat people in athletics is so key; they’ll treat you the same way back, I’ve found most of the time.”
Inglis received minor degrees at Hope in business administration and communications, and has completed a number of courses toward a master’s in athletic administration from Ohio University.
He is married to Carrie (Ham) Inglis, an MHSAA Finals cross country individual champion for Big Rapids in 1987. They have three sons.
PHOTO: (Top) Traverse City Central athletic director Cody Inglis converses with a member of his staff Tuesday. (Middle) Inglis shares a laugh with an official before Tuesday's girls basketball games. (Photos courtesy of Rick Sack.)
'Anyone Can Save a Life' Aims to Prepare
July 28, 2015
By Rob Kaminski
MHSAA benchmarks editor
It was 2008 when Jody Redman and staff at the Minnesota State High School League developed an emergency action plan to provide guidance and procedure in the event of sudden cardiac arrest during scholastic athletic competition.
The desired response from schools upon receipt of the plan was, well, less than enthusiastic.
“Only about 40 percent of our schools used the information and implemented the program,” said Redman, associate director for the MSHSL. “Our focus was completely on sudden cardiac arrest, that being the worst-case scenario regarding athletic-related health issues.”
The MSHSL asked the University of Minnesota to survey its member schools, and results showed that the majority of schools not on board simply felt a sudden cardiac arrest “would never happen at their school.” Naive or not on the schools’ parts, that was the reality – so Redman went back to revise the playbook.
“We expanded the plan to deal with all emergencies, rather than specific incidents,” Redman said. “Now it’s evolved so that we are prepared to deal with a variety of situations which put participants at risk. We shifted gears and got more schools to participate.”
Did they ever. And not just in Minnesota.
This summer, the “Anyone Can Save a Life” program, authored by the MSHSL and the Medtronic Foundation, is being disseminated to high schools nationwide with the financial support of the NFHS Foundation. The program will reach schools in time for the 2015-16 school year.
Once received, schools will find that there are two options for implementation, via in-person training or online.
“The in-person method is facilitated by the athletic administrator with the assistance of a training DVD” Redman said. “The important element is the follow through, ensuring coaches return their completed Emergency Action Plan (EAP). With the e-learning module on anyonecansavealife.org, individuals will complete an e-learning module that will walk them through the details of their specific plan, and as they answer questions, the information will automatically generate a PDF of the Emergency Action Plan (EAP) which they can edit at a later date as information changes.”
Schools will find five major components of the program to be received this summer: the first is an implementation checklist for the AD, explaining their role. Next are sections for in-person training, online training and event staff training. The last item contains a variety of resources that will ensure the successful implementation of a comprehensive emergency response to all emergencies.
Generally speaking, the program prompts schools to assemble preparedness teams, broken into four categories: a 911 team, a CPR team, an AED team and a HEAT STROKE team. The groups are made up of coaches and their students who will be in close proximity to all after-school activities.
“The reality about school sports is, at 3:30 every day the office closes and any type of medical support ceases to exist,” Redman said. “We then send thousands of students out to gyms, courts, fields and rinks to participate without systemic support for emergencies. This program puts into place that systemic support.”
Another stark reality is that the majority of schools in any state do not have full-time athletic trainers. Even for those fortunate enough to employ such personnel, it’s most likely the training “staff” consists of one person. That one body can only be in one place at one time, and on widespread school campuses the time it takes to get from one venue to another could be the difference between life and death.
“Athletic trainers can champion the program, but someone needs to oversee that every coach has a completed EAP in place,” Redman said. “For every minute that goes by when a cardiac arrest occurs, chance for survival decreases by 10 percent.”
Thus, it’s imperative to train and grant responsibility to as many people as possible, including student-athletes. In fact, students are a vital component to having a successful EAP. Students will be put in position to call 911, to meet the ambulance at a pre-determined access point, to locate the nearest AED, to make sure emersion tubs are filled for hot-weather practices, and for those who are trained, to assist with CPR. Coaches will identify students at the beginning of the season and prior to an emergency taking place. They will provide them with the details of the job they are assigned so they will be ready to assist in the event of an emergency.
“We have game plans for every sport, and for every opponent on our schedule,” Redman said. “But we don’t have a plan to save the life of a member of our team or someone attending a game at our school.
“This is about developing a quick and coordinated response to every emergency so we give someone in trouble a chance at survival, and then practicing it once or twice a season. We have ‘drop the dummy’ drills where we drop a dummy and evaluate how it went, and how everyone performed. In one scenario, it’s the coach that goes down, and then you have a group of 15- or 16-year-olds standing there. That’s why students have to take ownership of this, too.”
The key to an effective emergency action plan is to utilize and empower students in every sport and at every level to be a part of the response team. Following are brief descriptions of the teams.
The 911 Team
- Two students will call 911 from a pre-determined phone and provide the dispatcher with the location and details of the emergency.
- Two students will meet the ambulance at a pre-determined access point and take them to the victim.
- Two students will call the athletic trainer, if one is available, and the athletic administrator and alert them to the emergency.
The CPR Team
- The coach is the lead responder on this team and is responsible for attending to the victim and administering CPR, if necessary, until trained medical personnel arrive.
- One person is capable of providing effective CPR for approximately two minutes before the quality begins to diminish. Having several students trained and ready to administer CPR will save lives.
The AED Team
- Two students will retrieve the AED and take it to the victim.
- Two students will physically locate the athletic trainer, if one is available, and take him or her to the victim.
The Heat Stroke Team
- Two students identify locations of emersion tub, water source, ice source and ice towels.
- Two students prepare tub daily for practices and events.
For more information, visit anyonecansavealife.org or contact the MSHSL.