Accomplished College Coach Giving Back to HS Track at Salem
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
April 23, 2021
PINCKNEY – John Goodridge has coached athletes of just about every level imaginable.
"My passion for coaching is just as high as ever,” said Goodridge, 72, recently named the head boys track & field coach at Salem High School in Canton. “It’s been fun. You really do come full circle.”
It’s been a tremendous coaching journey over the past 50 years for Goodridge, a New York City native. It was not long after retiring from Eastern Michigan University in the fall that Goodridge got the coaching bug again. It started when he began attending cross country meets in the Ann Arbor area. Soon he realized he wanted to continue coaching and spoke to one of his former EMU athletes who was coaching at Salem and had found out the job as boys track coach was going to be open.
"At some point, late in my career, I had the notion that someday I’d come back and coach high school, where it all started,” Goodridge said. “In the fall, after I retired, an EMU alum who coached at Pinckney High School invited me to his home opening cross country meet.
"It was enough being out there and seeing the young kids that it brought me back to 40-50 years ago. I spent the fall, every week, going to various local cross country meets. Just observing, just to see if I thought it was something I wanted to do.”
Ultimately, Salem athletic director Tim Baechler hired Goodridge, who has an incredible resume as a track & field and cross country coach. From coaching Olympic athletes to the United States team at the World University Cross Country Championships in Austria, Goodridge has coached world class athletes and NCAA championship-level contenders for decades.
High school coaches have always had a special place in Goodridge’s heart. One reason is he interacted with coaches from across the country while recruiting athletes to compete for him at Michigan State University (1979-1982), Wake Forest University (1984-1999) and Eastern Michigan (2001-2020). Another reason is that he started out coaching at that level.
"It’s natural,” he said. “A lot of people think college is a higher level and that kind of stuff, but I’ve always told people that being a high school coach is such an important role and opportunity to work with young people.
"In many cases it’s the most special relationship. A high school coach sets the tone. You are introducing the sport to young kids. That’s quite a responsibility.”
Goodridge graduated from Long Island University in 1972. He and wife Francie (Kraker) met in the northeast while working for a shoe company. They returned to her native Ann Arbor while she was an elite world class athlete. Francie ran on U.S. Olympic teams in 1968 and 1972 and owned a world record in 1967.
While in grad school, Francie was offered the position of track coach at Ann Arbor Huron but couldn’t accept it because she was still an amateur athlete and couldn’t profit from that status and remain eligible for the Olympics.
Instead, she suggested to the Huron athletic director that the school hire her husband. His coaching career was launched.
"We were two young people, trying to get through school on part-time jobs,” Goodridge said. “We didn’t even have a car. (Coaching) was a source of income.”
While coaching high school track, they also coached younger athletes on club squads, before moving to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where they both were hired as coaches – Francie as the women’s track coach and John the men’s. After a short stint there, they returned to Ann Arbor and both took on roles at Ann Arbor Greenhills.
Both coached for years. Goodridge had a long tenure at Wake Forest, coaching both cross country and track & field at a time when the Demon Deacons had unparalleled success in school history with 14 individual Atlantic Coast Conference champions and seven All-Americans. Francie coached at Wake Forest as well.
The couple returned to Michigan in the early 2000s, with Goodridge taking over the Eastern Michigan cross country program and serving as an assistant track coach. He later became the head track coach. During his time at Ypsilanti, he directed numerous Eagles squads in both sports to conference titles. During his distinguished career, he coached conference cross country championship teams in the Mid-American, Big Ten and Atlantic Coast Conferences. He was the MAC Coach of the Year 13 times in cross country and coached 22 NCAA track & field All-Americans.
This season he has more than 100 athletes on the Salem boys track & field team. He’s having a blast with it, especially with the freshmen athletes who are just starting out learning about track.
"Some of them may not be the most talented, natural athletes but they want to be part of the team,” he said. “They might not be able to make another team, but they want to be involved in athletics and be on a team. It’s been very intellectually challenging and inspiring to come up with new things for ninth graders, to make it fun and not let them get discouraged.
"They put a smile on my face just about every day. I hope it’s going to be keep me a young 72 and a young 73 and as long as I keep doing this.”
Goodridge also is building relationships with other area coaches. He’s not been afraid to seek out advice.
It’s been a long time since I designed workouts for the young ones,” he said. “It’s fun to sort it out, to my own approach to training, with that age group. All athletes respond differently to training and intensity and what you give them. The age of the athlete is a factor in that. It’s been a long time since I had experience working with freshmen. That’s been fun.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) John Goodridge, center, retired in the fall from coaching the men’s track & field team at Eastern Michigan University. (Middle) Goodridge also served as coach of the men’s cross country team. (Photos courtesy of the EMU athletic department.)
'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.
“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.
Periard 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.)