'Retired' Periard Still Finding Ways to Serve Suttons Bay

By Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com

May 28, 2021

When Doug Periard retired in August, some thought he had done it all as a teacher, coach, mentor and athletic director for Suttons Bay Schools.

Retirement has proven many wrong.

He did intend to stay on as the baseball coach at least thru the 2022 season. He also thought he’d help out some with the bus driver shortage using the CDL (Commercial Drivers License) he’d recently obtained. Substitute teaching sounded good to him too. 

So he came back in October. He immediately took on an emergency assignment, coaching the school’s 8-player football team to a win over Manistee Catholic Central. He also drove the bus to the game.

“Doug is that kind of guy ... when there is a need to filled, Doug will fill it for you,” said Andy Melius, principal at Suttons Bay. “The community means a lot to him, and the school means a lot to him. He bleeds red and white.”

Also since returning, he’s served as a K-1 gym teacher, filled in at the school’s front desk and headed up the district’s COVID-19 testing as the Quarantine Officer.

On Tuesday, Periard will coach baseball after driving the bus transporting the Norsemen to Buckley to begin postseason play. It’s no different than what he’s been doing all spring.

However, some questioned if Periard could handle bus driving and coaching on the same day.

Doug Periard“It’s been interesting,” Periard said with a little laugh. “I was a champion at taking a nap (on the bus as coach).  

“I would be asleep before we got to the split in the road and wake up when we got there,” he continued. “So, there was some real skeptics out there wondering if I’d be able to both drive and coach when I got there.”

Periard has hopes of hitting the 400-win mark before giving up baseball. He’s compiled a 379-280-18 record since taking over the Norseman baseball program on a “temporary” basis in 1998. It was supposed to be only until another coach was found. He had coached the JV squad the year prior.

And, there’s something else about Periard very few people know. Someone who does is Christine Mikesell, Suttons Bay’s assistant athletic director. Mikesell’s five boys at one time or another played sports coached by Periard.

“Every kid is important to Doug,” noted Mikesell, who is stepping down in June. “He really has a big heart for those that are struggling, and he makes a pathway for a kid to achieve if they take it.

“He is one of those kind of guys you want on your side because he is a team player ... a real team player when it comes to the school and athletics and coaching.”

Mikesell has seen him help lots of high schoolers who end up graduating perhaps without knowing how much help Periard provided.  He often made sure kids had a white dress shirt so no one was left out on the school’s game day dress-up tradition. He’s also paid for lunches and arranged transportation for students coming from hard-life circumstances.

“I have seen him go well out of his way,” said Mikesell. “I know a lot of it is his own pocket.

“He has eyes, and he watches,” she continued. “He finds the one that is struggling, and he goes and brings them as part of the team.”

Periard became AD in 2008, a year he will never forget. It was marked by the stock market crash and he, along with his wife Anne, was dealing with his daughter Grace’s new diabetes diagnosis. The economic circumstances also threatened his continued employment as a teacher.

The job loss did not materialize. Grace is now in college. And, she was the 2020 recipient of the Suttons Bay High School Berserker Award presented to Norse athletes who have competed in three sports every year of high school.

The award was created several years back by Periard. Now he hopes his son Hugh, a junior pitcher and three-sport athlete, will follow his sister’s footsteps and be similarly recognized next spring.

“I stole the (Berserker) idea from my little brother who was the AD at Birch Run,” he admitted. “I am proud to have gotten the thing rolling. 

“I think playing three sports is vital to a small school and development of young people.”

Periard’s legacy also will include strong co-op developments, including the establishment of NorthBay, and keeping a great football tradition alive while the school struggled with declining enrollment. The co-ops are established for all sports with Northport and include Leelanau St. Mary’s in boys and girls track & field and soccer.

Doug PeriardPeriard guided the Norsemen’s move to 8-player football in 2017. The previous season, Suttons Bay had to forfeit the majority of its games because it did not have enough players to compete in 11-player.

Mikesell’s son Baylor was one of seniors who missed out as part of that 2016 team. Another son, Lucas, was a star player in the school’s run to back-to-back 8-player Division 2 runner-up finishes the last two seasons.

“My son lost his senior year because we were still 11-man, and we couldn’t field a team,” she said.  “Doug is a problem solver and comes up with solutions outside the box.

“He did tons of research on it to get us in a place (where) we could participate in football because he saw that the risk of losing football here at the school, what a damaging thing it would be.”

Periard is most proud, however, of the behavior of the student body during athletic contests. His game management included a “bristle” – a knowing look – passed on from his grandfather to his mother and ultimately to he and his brothers.

With his simple bristle he was able to instantly, and non-verbally, communicate to the students they’d better stop what they’re doing.

“They bought into my stern look when they were in any way at all not cheering for their team,” he said. “They knew they should be cheering for their teams and not being disparaging against their opponent, and only treating opponents with class.”

Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Doug Periard enjoys a moment surrounded by enthusiastic Suttons Bay student fans during his tenure. (Middle) Periard, also the baseball coach, with son Hugh, daughter Grace and wife Anne a few years ago. (Below) Even in retirement, Periard remains a mainstay in Suttons Bay. (Top and middle photos courtesy of Doug Periard; bottom photo by Tom Spencer.)

Century of School Sports: Connection at Heart of Coaches Advancement Program

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

November 19, 2024

As we believe that educational athletics are an extension of the academic classroom, it’s important to recognize as well that coaches – similar to teachers during the school day – are another first point of contact for more than 170,000 high school athletes and thousands more who play middle school sports in Michigan.

For two decades, the MHSAA’s Coaches Advancement Program has served as an avenue to provide our coaches with a variety of tools to assist in working through issues they encounter daily while building up their teams and building these relationships.

Past Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts, when writing about the CAP program in 2017, noted “the thousands of dollars and hours that the MHSAA devotes to CAP demonstrates this organization’s belief that nothing – absolutely nothing – is more important in the process of educational athletics than the quality of the coach-athlete connection.”

That commitment and dedication to the coach-athlete connection continues as the MHSAA moves through its 100th anniversary year.

Through the end of the 2023-24 school year, coaches had completed 41,167 sessions within the eight-level program since its creation for the 2004-05 school year. Counting this past weekend’s CAP 1 and 2 courses taught at Detroit Henry Ford, another 1,167 sessions have been completed since the start of the 2024-25 educational year.

The CAP program is broken into nine levels, each addressing a set of topics:

  • CAP 1: Coaches Make the Difference, The Coach as Teacher, Sports Medicine and First Aid.
  • CAP 2: Effective Communication, Legal Responsibilities, Psychology of Coaching.
  • CAP 3: Additional Coaching Responsibilities, Effectively Working with Parents, Managing Time and Energy.
  • CAP 4: Understanding Athletic Development, Strength and Conditioning, Preparing for Success.
  • CAP 5: Healthy Living, Teaching Emotional Toughness, Resolving Conflicts in Athletics.
  • CAP 6, 7, 8 & 9: Current Issues and Topics in Educational Athletics.

Those who complete the program receive a level of certification after their first 12 hours (completing CAP 1 and 2). Through this past school year, 2,295 individuals have advanced through CAP 5 – earning them themselves CAP Masters Certification. From that group, 476 have advanced through CAP 6, 100 through CAP 7 and 87 through CAP 8, with the first class to complete that module in 2015-16. CAP 9 was created this fall.

Perhaps just as notably, 20,960 individuals have completed CAP 1 over the last two decades. Completion of either CAP 1 or CAP 2 became a requirement for first-year varsity head coaches beginning with the 2016-17 school year, and predictably numbers have climbed since that time with 12,515 completing CAP 1 over the last eight school years.

The program is constructed and coordinated by MHSAA Assistant Director Kathy Vruggink Westdorp, who joined the MHSAA staff in 2004 after several years as a principal, athletic director, teacher and coach in Grand Rapids and Forest Hills public schools. She lives the program’s philosophy of providing CAP training “anytime, anywhere” across the state, and over just the last five months CAP 1 alone has been delivered at 19 schools plus during 14 dates at the MHSAA office in East Lansing. Flint Kearsley isn’t on the list of CAP 1 hosts this year, but instead welcomed in 45 students for a CAP 5 session in early August.

Additionally, colleges and universities in Michigan are licensed to present up to five levels through their undergraduate or graduate studies, and eight are scheduled to do so again this school year.

The faculty for 2024-25 includes well-known leaders in Michigan educational athletics, officiating and sports medicine. Instructors include past and present athletic directors, principals, officials, coaches, college professors, athletic trainers, leaders from the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA) and MHSAA staff.

For more information, see the Coaches Advancement Program page.

Previous "Century of School Sports" Spotlights

Nov. 12: Good Sports are Winners Then, Now & Always - Read
Nov. 5:
MHSAA's Home Sweet Home - Read
Oct. 29:
MHSAA Summits Draw Thousands to Promote Sportsmanship - Read
Oct. 23:
Cross Country Finals Among MHSAA's Longest Running - Read
Oct. 15:
State's Storytellers Share Fall Memories - Read
Oct. 8:
Guided by 4 S's of Educational Athletics - Read
Oct. 1: 
Michigan Sends 10 to National Hall of Fame - Read
Sept. 25: 
MHSAA Record Books Filled with 1000s of Achievements - Read
Sept. 18:
Why Does the MHSAA Have These Rules? - Read
Sept. 10: 
Special Medals, Patches to Commemorate Special Year - Read
Sept. 4:
Fall to Finish with 50th Football Championships - Read
Aug. 28:
Let the Celebration Begin - Read

PHOTOS Clockwise from top left: (1) Former Ypsilanti Community and current Wayne Memorial boys basketball coach Steve Brooks (far right) celebrates with a trophy-winning team. (2) Brighton girls lacrosse coach Ashton Peters raises the Division 1 championship trophy in the spring. (3) Pontiac Notre Dame Prep volleyball coach Betty Wroubel applauds during pre-match introductions. (4) Trenton baseball coach Todd Szalka (middle) huddles on the mound during last season's Division 2 Semifinals. (5) Past Calumet athletic director Sean Jacques (left) passes the Class C championship trophy to his girls basketball coach in 2015. All five have received levels of CAP certification.