New Coach, Same Standard for SMCC
By
Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
August 27, 2015
By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
MONROE – It would be understandable if first-year Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central head football coach Adam Kipf felt like he was taking over for University of Michigan legend Bo Schembechler a year after the Wolverines won the national championship.
Kipf, a graduate of SMCC, said he doesn’t feel that way at all as he replaces his former coach and mentor Jack Giarmo, a local icon who retired after 17 seasons leading the Falcons, including last year when they won the MHSAA Division 6 title.
“I feel I’m replacing Coach Giarmo after a state title,” Kipf said with a laugh. “Coach Giarmo is a good coach. He spent 17 years here, and I spent 11 years of my life with him on a football field.
“It’s certainly not an easy task, but I’m not trying to be Coach Giarmo. I’m trying to be the best version of myself.”
SMCC got off to a winning start Thursday night with a 62-39 victory at Tecumseh, but it will need more than a season-opening victory to live up to the standard that was introduced by the former coach.
Giarmo’s teams were 144-54 in 17 seasons, made the MHSAA playoffs 13 times and captured five Huron League titles. The Falcons made the MHSAA Semifinals eight times and played for the championship four times, finally winning it all last year – when, at Ford Field, they also ended Ithaca’s national-best 69-game winning streak.
Then, Giarmo decided to step down, and Kipf was chosen as the new head coach.
“It wasn’t a total surprise,” Kipf said of Giarmo’s decision. “He had sort of let on that he might be thinking about it, so when it came out, I wasn’t surprised at all.”
“I don’t think there is any other job out there that would mean as much. There are other jobs that would have a lot of meaning to them, but coaching at your alma mater and having the tradition that we have here – having the success we have here – I think that’s just awesome. It’s tough for me to even put into words what it means to me being back at my alma mater coaching football.” – Adam Kipf
It certainly was not an automatic choice for SMCC to promote Kipf from the head coach on the junior varsity to head coach of the varsity. He went through several interviews before landing the job.
“They asked me, ‘How do you determine success?’ ” Kipf said. “I said, ‘There are two ways. One is wins and losses, and that’s OK. But the other way is seeing what kind of men they become, five, 10, 15, 20 years down the road.”
Kipf, a social studies and religion teacher at Monroe Catholic Elementary School, did not set out to become a coach and teacher. He went to Western Michigan University to play football and was pursuing another field, but he left after one year.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and then I got involved in coaching in 2003 with one of my former coaches,” Kipf said. “He was coaching his son in the Monroe Catholic Youth Organization, and he got me into it, and I enjoyed it. The next year, he went to Monroe High as an assistant and I went with him, so I ended up coaching two years there.
“One Friday night after a game at Monroe, two coaches talked me into going into coaching. They said teaching was going to be my best bet to get into coaching.”
With that in mind, Kipf went back to school and attended Eastern Michigan University. In 2010, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in secondary education. By that time, he was back with SMCC coaching the offensive and defensive lines on the junior varsity.
Kipf had been an offensive lineman and defensive tackle from 1998-99 at SMCC. He played for Giarmo and then joined his coaching staff in 2006, giving him a unique insight into the mind of the man who was most responsible for building the successful program.
“He was a stickler for details,” Kipf said. “He coached every last little detail, and I am finding myself on offense doing the same thing. Jack and I will talk, and I will seek advice on plays and blocking and things like that. We talk probably once a week football-related, and we will talk more than that about other things. We still talk football.
“He isn’t going to distance himself from the program. He has strong roots here. I think he misses football. I don’t know if he would admit it, but he misses football.”
“We’ve basically kept the same concepts that Coach Giarmo kept, but we’ve added a lot of new traditions into it. We’re getting new traditions. We’ve got a couple of new decals on our helmets, and originally we had our straight gold helmets.” – senior running back Justin Carrabino
When Kipf played at SMCC, the helmets were green with decals of yellow birds on them. Lately, the helmets have been without decals, but the birds have returned this year.
“To me, that bird, I worked so hard when I was a freshman to get that bird when I got to varsity,” Kipf said. “It was a thing of honor because you took those birds off at the end of the year and kept them. I still have them in scrapbooks.
“We have brought those back. With the gold helmet we’ve got green birds, but we didn’t put them on until two days before the first game.”
The decals on the helmets might be the easiest change to notice, and Kipf said there won’t be a lot of others made right away.
“I don’t know that I want to bring a whole lot different to the program,” he said. “I’ve added a few things here and there that are a little different than last year, but I’m not prepared to share that.
“We might throw the ball more, but finding people to catch and throw isn’t an easy task, especially since in the last 14, 15 years in the system it has been 95 percent run. I’m a big proponent of, ‘If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.’ ”
Not every change is going to be related to strategy or scheme. Everyone has a different personality, and Kipf’s high-intensity style could light a spark under the Falcons.
“He’s very vocal and gets into it with the players a lot,” senior guard/linebacker Hunter Coombe said. “He gets us hyped. He’s very intense. It’s good.”
The word intense seems to go hand-in-hand when describing Kipf.
“Practices are run with a lot of intensity,” Carrabino said. “There is a lot of physicality, but there is with a lot of defenses. You can tell by the tone of practice that it’s a lot different.”
“I don’t feel pressure coming off a state title because I know what we have and what we are capable of. People have high expectations and expect success. To me, success is more than a state title. If we go 14-0 but don’t get better, it’s a state title but it’s not successful. I want kids who are going to compete and get better every day, and at the end of the season, if they are better football players, better student-athletes, better Catholics, better Christians, than we’ve done our job. That’s success.” – Adam Kipf
Success breeds expectations, and MHSAA championships sometimes breed unrealistic expectations. Teams don’t win an MHSAA title every year.
The Falcons have made the playoffs 14 of the past 16 years with double-digit win totals during nine of them. The program has become not just recognized regionally, but statewide.
The players reflect the attitude of a new season and a new challenge and said they refuse to look back.
“We have to totally forget about last year,” Coombe said. “This is a new team with the same goal, obviously, but we aren’t thinking about it. We’ll just go week-by-week and game-by-game.”
Carrabino, who rushed for 1,300 yards and 17 touchdowns last season, echoed those comments.
“I think you have to prove yourself every year,” Carrabino said. “Nobody has a set spot. You just have to give your all in practice.”
Senior quarterback/defensive back Austin Burger feels the same way.
“We feel no pressure at all,” he said. “We feel like we’re a different team from last year, but we are trying to keep the tradition.”
Tradition is important at SMCC. Giarmo was a player on the 1980 team that went 9-0 but failed to land a spot in the playoffs.
Kipf is one of three brothers who played football for the Falcons. It’s family.
“We’ve got 12 years in my family of playing football at this school, and now this will be my 10th of coaching football at this school,” he said. “Twenty-two years I’ve been a Falcons football supporter either through my family or myself, so it certainly means a lot to me.”
Maybe it’s the tradition – or maybe it’s the “band of brotherhood,” as Burger called it – but something special seems to happen to a bunch of young football players who don’t necessarily look like they should be championship football players.
“We don’t always have the best athletes or the biggest athletes or the fastest athletes, especially in this day and age,” Kipf said. “We have kids who are undersized for the most part, but they have heart and they work hard, and that’s what made our program successful over Coach Giarmo’s tenure. Between him and (former defensive coordinator) Scott Hoffman, they brought out the best in guys.
“They had guys on the field you would think had no business being on a football field. They bring out the best in our kids, and our kids give them everything they’ve got in order to succeed.”
Chip Mundy served as sports editor at the Brooklyn Exponent and Albion Recorder from 1980-86, and then as a reporter and later copy editor at the Jackson Citizen-Patriot from 1986-2011. He also co-authored Michigan Sports Trivia. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Monroe St. Mary’s coach Adam Kipf and his captains stand together earlier this month (from left to right): Hunter Coombe, Justin Carrabino, Kipf, Riley Woolford, Mitchell Poupard and Austin Burger. (Middle) The Falcons’ helmets will feature decals again after going without during the program’s recent past.
1st & Goal: 2023 Week 9 Preview
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
October 18, 2023
Memories are guaranteed to be made this weekend.
Only 288 teams qualify for the MHSAA Football Playoffs. And while the great majority have secured spots in the field to be announced Sunday, there’s still opportunity for last-minute movement this weekend; in 2021, 15 teams joined the field during Week 9, and last season that total was 14.
That also brings us to some potential history being made.
Perry may be on the verge of making the playoffs for the first time. The Ramblers enter the weekend 5-3, playing Bath (also 5-3) and sitting No. 25 on the Division 7 playoff-points average list. Hart also is playing to secure a first playoff berth and sits 7-1 in Division 6, hosting Ravenna (3-5).
Detroit University Prep Science & Math and Jackson Northwest are seeking the same, but likely will need help. University Prep is 5-3 and No. 37 on the Division 3 playoff-points average list, while Northwest is 4-4 and No. 38. The top 32 qualify in each 11-player division, and the top 16 qualify in both divisions of 8-player.
By the end of Saturday night, the field will be known – follow all of the playoff-point average movement in real-time on the Playoff Point Summary page.
How those teams are assigned to Districts and Regionals, and who plays who, will be announced at 6 p.m. Sunday on Bally Sports Detroit Extra. Tune in via your cable provider or the BSD website. Pairings will then be posted to MHSAA.com at 7 p.m., with dates, times and locations for all games added Monday.
(All games below are Friday unless noted.)
Bay & Thumb
Frankenmuth (7-1) at Gladwin (7-1)
This rematch of last season’s Division 5 championship game – won by Gladwin 10-7 on a field goal with two seconds to play – seems a fitting way to roll into these playoffs. Both continued league title streaks this fall, Gladwin with its third-straight in the Jack Pine Conference and Frankenmuth clinching its 12th-in a row in the Tri-Valley Conference. Both have losses against MHSAA championship contenders – Gladwin 56-21 to undefeated Division 5 Pontiac Notre Dame Prep and Frankenmuth 14-8 in its opener to 2022 Division 4 runner-up Goodrich. Both are putting up more than 40 points a game this fall with several new contributors, and depending on how the lines are drawn they could see each other a second time; Frankenmuth is No. 8 in Division 5 playoff-point average, and Gladwin is No. 14.
Keep an eye on these FRIDAY Ogemaw Heights (7-1) at Almont (8-0) - WATCH, Lapeer (5-3) at Davison (8-0), Port Huron (7-1) at Marysville (6-2), Croswell-Lexington (7-1) at Freeland (7-1) - WATCH.
Greater Detroit
Northville (8-0) at Belleville (8-0) - WATCH
The overall Kensington Lakes Activities Association championship is on the line, along with perfect regular seasons for both and Belleville’s 33-game winning streak. Five of eight teams in the KLAA East are .500 or better heading into this weekend, and Belleville outscored all of its conference opponents by a combined 345-18 over the last seven weeks. Northville, champion of the KLAA West, is the Tigers’ next challenger and another good one – the Mustangs are actually No. 2 in Division 1 playoff-point average, while Belleville is No. 6. Keep in mind, this again could be just the first round between these two over the next few weeks.
Keep an eye on these FRIDAY Birmingham Groves (6-2) at Birmingham Seaholm (7-1) - WATCH, Grosse Pointe North (6-2) at Grosse Pointe South (7-1), Detroit Denby (8-0) at Warren De La Salle Collegiate (6-2). SATURDAY Detroit Cass Tech (6-2) vs. Toledo Central Catholic (9-0) at Ford Field
Mid-Michigan
East Lansing (6-2) at Grand Ledge (6-2) - WATCH
The Capital Area Activities Conference Blue is one of few with title possibilities remaining, as East Lansing clinched a guaranteed share against Holt last week but Grand Ledge and DeWitt are both just one game back with this one (and DeWitt’s against Lansing Waverly) to play. East Lansing had won four straight over its longtime rival before the Comets prevailed 45-30 last season. After opening 0-2 against opponents that remain a combined 12-4, East Lansing has churned to 42 points per game over its last six games while giving up just 70 points total during that time. The Comets’ league loss came to DeWitt, 41-38 in Week 6, and they fell to Lapeer as well a week later before rebounding against Okemos to set up this title-share opportunity.
Keep an eye on these FRIDAY Goodrich (7-1) at Williamston (6-2), McBain (5-3) at Fowler (7-1) - WATCH, Harbor Beach (7-1) at Beal City (8-0) - WATCH, Berrien Springs (5-2) at Portland (8-0).
Northern Lower Peninsula
Traverse City Central (4-4) at Traverse City West (3-5) - WATCH
The annual Patriot Game between these neighbors at their shared Thirlby Field will no doubt have the same festive feel this weekend, but with different factors in play. Both are among three teams tied for second in the Saginaw Valley League Blue that’s already been clinched by Mount Pleasant, and instead both are battling for some level of playoff opportunity – Central is No. 29 in Division 2 playoff-point average, and West may only be able to play spoiler sitting at No. 41. Central last missed the playoffs in 2013, but has won this rivalry matchup four straight seasons although only 14-13 a year ago. West saw a similar run of postseason success end a year ago and has improved by a win this season – and adding one more no doubt would give the Titans something to build on for 2024.
Keep an eye on these FRIDAY Elk Rapids (4-4) at East Jordan (5-3) - WATCH, Grayling (5-3) at Lake City (6-2), Clare (6-2) at Petoskey (5-3) - WATCH. SATURDAY Muskegon Catholic Central (5-3) at Traverse City St. Francis (3-4) - WATCH.
Southeast & Border
Addison (8-0) at Napoleon (8-0)
It's tough to rank any game above Saline/Lake Orion below, but these two also are undefeated and meeting for the overall Cascades Conference championship in the first season after the league split into divisions. These teams have split their last six meetings – Napoleon winning 36-18 last year to finish off an outright Cascades title – and both soundly defeated their three mutual opponents on the way here. This will provide one last strong test heading into what surely will be tough playoff brackets for both. Napoleon is tied for No. 2 in Division 7 playoff-point average, but No. 1 Jackson Lumen Christi and No. 5 Clinton could be opponents soon. Addison is No. 7 in Division 8 playoff-point average with No. 1 Ottawa Lake Whiteford and No. 6 Hudson possibly down the road.
Keep an eye on these FRIDAY Hudson (7-1) at Clinton (7-1) - WATCH, Chelsea (7-1) at Dexter (6-2), Lake Orion (8-0) at Saline (8-0) - WATCH. SATURDAY Battle Creek Harper Creek (6-2) vs. Jackson Lumen Christi (7-1) at Ford Field.
Southwest Corridor
Paw Paw (8-0) at Niles (7-1) - WATCH
From a trophy perspective, this might be the most significant 11-player game in the state this weekend – a winner-take-all for the Wolverine Conference championship. Along the way, they’ve guaranteed an end to Edwardsburg’s league title reign at nine straight – including the last seven in the combined Wolverine after the league previously was split into divisions – and both contenders have left no doubt they are the elite in the league this fall. After opening with a 55-0 win over St. Joseph and then taking its lone loss to Stevensville Lakeshore, 15-14, Niles has outscored its other six Wolverine opponents by a combined 335-37, with three straight shutouts heading into this matchup. Paw Paw hasn’t had a game closer than three touchdowns all season and has outscored its other league opponents by a combined 227-53.
Keep an eye on these FRIDAY Union City (6-2) at Buchanan (5-3) - WATCH, Hastings (6-2) at Battle Creek Pennfield (4-4), South Haven (5-3) at Kalamazoo United (5-3), Stevensville Lakeshore (5-3) at Portage Central (7-1).
Upper Peninsula
Iron Mountain (8-0) at Negaunee (7-1), Thursday - WATCH
This matchup of Western Peninsula Athletic Conference powers kicks off Week 9 in a big way Thursday, as Iron Mountain dominated in winning the Iron championship and Negaunee came back from a Week 2 loss to claim a share in the Copper. Iron Mountain played in the Copper most recently, until this season, and the league matchups between these two were decided by three points twice and two points once – all Iron Mountain wins – before Negaunee claimed last year’s 19-14. The Miners this time are coming off a 13-6 win over Houghton – which the Mountaineers defeated 56-6 in the opener two months ago – and they’ve had no other common opponent. But what they do have in common are playing styles, as both have dominating defenses and potent run games.
Keep an eye on these FRIDAY Menominee (6-2) at Bark River-Harris (5-3) - WATCH, Gaylord (8-0) at Sault Ste. Marie (5-3) - WATCH, Saginaw Nouvel (3-5) at Manistique (4-4) - WATCH, Kingsford (7-1) at Marquette (5-2) - WATCH.
West Michigan
Hudsonville (5-3) at Rockford (8-0) - WATCH
The Ottawa-Kent Conference Red will be the last of the O-K divisions to fully crown its champion, as Rockford earned a share of the title last week with a 34-13 win over second-place Grandville but needs to down Hudsonville as well to clinch outright. That result over the Bulldogs was Rockford’s closest in league play this season and no opponent league or nonleague has gotten closer than 20 points. But Hudsonville can shake things up and showed the ability with its Week 2 win over East Lansing and narrow loss to Grandville in Week 5. Rockford has won the last eight meetings between this pair, but Hudsonville played the Rams to 42-31 a year ago despite finishing only 3-6. In fact, one more win would assure the Eagles their best record since at least 2019. Rockford sits first in Division 1 playoff-point average, guaranteeing three home playoff games if that position is maintained, while Hudsonville is slotting No. 24 and should benefit playing this game win or lose.
Keep an eye on these FRIDAY Coopersville (6-2) at Allendale (6-2), East Grand Rapids (6-2) at Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern (6-2) - WATCH, Montague (4-4) at Muskegon Oakridge (5-3) - WATCH, Schoolcraft (6-2) at Saugatuck (7-1) - WATCH.
8-Player
Indian River Inland Lakes (7-1) at Gaylord St. Mary (6-2), Saturday
This is also a winner-take-all as these two sit tied for first in the Ski Valley Conference. Inland Lakes has won the league title both seasons as part of it for 8-player football, including last year thanks to a 44-40 win over St. Mary on the way to the Snowbirds finishing second. All of that alone makes this big, but the St. Mary’s season also is on the line. Inland Lakes sits No. 8 in 8-player Division 1 playoff-point average, but St. Mary is No. 18, just outside the qualifying field after losing last week to Rudyard, which sits No. 16. Neither team has missed the playoffs since switching to the 8-player format, St. Mary in 2019 and Inland Lakes in 2020.
Keep an eye on these FRIDAY Posen (7-0) at Au Gres-Sims (7-1) - WATCH, Bay City All Saints (7-1) at Brown City (8-0) - WATCH, St. Ignace (7-1) at Pickford (8-0) - WATCH, Climax-Scotts (8-0) at Pittsford (7-1) - WATCH.
Second Half’s weekly “1st & Goal” previews and reviews are powered by MI Student Aid, a part of the Office of Postsecondary Financial Planning located within the Michigan Department of Treasury. MI Student Aid encourages students to pursue postsecondary education by providing access to student financial resources and information. MI Student Aid administers the state’s 529 college savings programs (MET/MESP), as well as scholarship and grant programs that help make college Accessible, Affordable and Attainable for you. Connect with MI Student Aid at www.michigan.gov/mistudentaid and find more information on Facebook and X (Twitter) @mistudentaid.
PHOTO Ortonville Brandon and Goodrich face off Oct. 6 during a downpour. (Photo by Terry Lyons.)