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.)
Family Coaching Tree Grows to 3 Generations
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
September 13, 2018
Like father like son, like grandson.
The Grignon football family continued its progression in the coaching ranks this season when Alex Grignon got his shot at being a head coach. Grignon was hired in June as head coach at Walled Lake Western to replace Mike Zdebski, who resigned to take a coaching position in Arizona.
Alex Grignon, 31, represents the third generation from a family of past and present high school head football coaches. And one can’t talk football in Wayne County communities like Dearborn and Lincoln Park without mentioning the Grignon family.
Ted Grignon was the athletic director and head football coach at Lincoln Park in the 1980s. His two sons, Ted and Jamie, played football at Dearborn Edsel Ford and then in college – Ted, a quarterback at Western Michigan University and Jamie, a safety at Grand Valley State. Jamie Grignon is in his third stint as Lincoln Park’s head coach. He was hired in 1994 and stepped aside after the 1999 season, but never left the sport as he went to Dearborn High as an assistant under Dave Mifsud in 2000. Grignon went back to Lincoln Park in 2013 as the head coach and, after taking another brief hiatus, came back last season and remains in that position.
His two sons, Andrew and Alex, played for Mifsud at Dearborn; and in 2004, Alex’s senior season, Dearborn reached a Division 2 Semifinal before losing to Orchard Lake St. Mary’s, 6-0. It marked the first time the program advanced that far in the MHSAA Playoffs.
Andrew switched sports and played lacrosse in college (at Grand Valley), but his younger brother stuck with football. After playing four years at Northern Michigan, Alex was a graduate assistant there working with the offense before joining his father’s staff at Lincoln Park.
The Railsplitters have had their struggles of late, starting this season 0-3 and last making the playoffs in 2015. But in 2013, with Jamie as the head coach and Alex as the defensive coordinator, Lincoln Park ended a 66-game losing streak by defeating Taylor Kennedy, 34-20.
After five seasons at Lincoln Park, Alex went to South Lyon last season as the offensive coordinator, and this season he made the big jump. Walled Lake Western is one of the top programs in the Detroit area and a member of the Lakes Valley Conference, and Grignon has the Warriors off to a 2-1 start.
“He was proud that he was the third generation (of head coaches),” Jamie Grignon said. “When he coached with me, it was a growing process for him. There isn’t anyone who works harder than Alex. Whether it’s watching film, working with the kids after practice or what. He’s full-go.”
Like father like son. Jamie is not one to toot his own horn, but when he was the defensive coordinator at Dearborn people in the Downriver area, and in other football strongholds in the county, knew Mifsud had one of the best coaches calling his defense.
Mifsud is in his sixth season as the head coach at Parma Western after serving 16 in the same position at Dearborn. He was an assistant coach at Dearborn for four seasons before being named head coach in 1997.
Remember those dates. Before Mifsud was able to hire Grignon, the two met as adversaries on the field. Lincoln Park defeated Dearborn, 14-0, during Dearborn’s homecoming, no less, in 1999. That was Grignon’s last season during his first stint at Lincoln Park.
Mifsud didn’t have to twist Grignon’s arm to join his staff at Dearborn. Grignon’s oldest son, Andrew, was set to play for Mifsud in 2000. Alex is two years younger, so Mifsud was secure knowing the Grignons had his back.
“I was in my fourth year when Andrew came through, I hired Jamie and Keith Christnagel, who’s the coach at Woodhaven now,” Mifsud said. “We grew up together, the three of us, as coaches. We racked our brains learning the ropes. I always coached the offense. Keith had the offensive and defensive lines and Jamie the defense. The working relationship with Jamie was excellent. We split up the special teams, though he probably did more there.
“People know of Jamie, and he worked his tail off. On Sundays I’d stop by, you know, just to drop some film off or just to touch base, and his entire dining room would be spread all around with notes on breaking down the other team’s offense and such. Jamie’s a high-energy guy. He’s always thinking.
“Looking at Alex, yeah, I think they are similar. They can’t sit still. They’re always looking for something better. What a great hire (for Walled Lake Western). Alex is so great with the kids. He’s young (31). He’s got great football intelligence. Jamie was like that. He would tweak things in practice. He’d never be satisfied. Alex has that. He’s Jamie but at a different level.”
Mifsud and Jamie Grignon both said that what makes Alex a cut above is his leadership. As good as Alex was athletically as a player, his father said it was his leadership qualities that set him apart.
Mifsud recalled a story, a 2-3 week period, actually, during the 2004 season. The staff had yet to elect captains, and as preseason practices wore on Mifsud and his staff were taken aback by the actions of three seniors, Alex among them.
The coaches didn’t have to blow a whistle to start practice. Those three would have the players ready.
“I looked at my coaches,” Mifsud said. “And said those are our captains.”
Alex said he never thought about being a leader. It just came naturally. He grew up watching football from the sidelines, and later as a water boy, and then at home watching his father gather notes and dissect film footage.
“I was on the sidelines my entire life,” he said. “The leadership, you see it. You watch the players. You know what it takes to be a leader. I tell my players at Western, people want to be led.
“As a youth you don’t realize what level dad is coaching at, but you remember going to coffee shops exchanging film. I’d have my ninja toys with me, and the next minute I’d be holding dummies. Dad didn’t push us. He wanted us to do what we wanted to do. Heck, I was a big-time soccer player. I didn’t start playing football until middle school. For two years I did both.”
By his freshman year, Alex was all in for football. His was one of best classes the school has had for the sport, and Alex recalls that 40-50 of his classmates showed their dedication by increasing their work in the weight room.
Playing with his brother for two years and with his father for all four only made Alex more determined.
“I can’t talk football and family without getting emotional about it,” he said. “Watching your dad work 18 hours on the weekend, turning the pages of his legal pad, he was always doing something. I remember eating eggs for breakfast every day and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch to try and get as much protein in our bodies. I’d get up as a child, and he’d be on his third cup of coffee. He never stopped. He saw us wanting to be around the game, and he helped in any way he could to make us better.
“Everything I know, I’ve seen him do.”
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Walled Lake Western coach Alex Grignon is in his first season as head coach at Walled Lake Western. (Top middle) Alex, left, and father Jamie Grignon when Alex was assisting Jamie at Lincoln Park. (Middle) Current Parma Western and former longtime Dearborn coach Dave Mifsud. (Below) Alex and Jamie Grignon, when both were coaching Lincoln Park, and Alex with his family now as coach at Walled Lake Western. (Photos courtesy of Grignon family; Walled Lake Western photos by Teresa Presty Photography.)