2-Time Champ as Player, Haut Putting Further Imprint on SMCC as Coach
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
August 16, 2022
MONROE – After leading the Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central volleyball team into the Division 3 championship match last season, coach Cassie Haut had to apply for the Kestrels coaching job.
That’s because when SMCC reached the Finals in 2021, Haut was officially the co-head coach with Karen O’Brien.
“Oh, yeah, I had to go through the interview process and everything,” Haut said. “I met with the athletic director and other school officials. I was excited when I got the job.”
Haut certainly earned it.
SMCC officially billed Haut and O’Brien as co-head coaches when the 2021 season began. Haut was in charge of the team’s day-to-day activities and O’Brien – who led SMCC to Division 3 Finals titles in 2019 and 2020 – would help out as often as possible after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer for the fourth time.
O’Brien ended up being around the program often, including during the Kestrels’ postseason run.
When the season ended, however, O’Brien stepped aside, paving the way for a new coach to lead the ultra-successful SMCC program that has reached 10 Finals since 2003, and won seven of them.
Haut doesn’t feel added pressure as the next SMCC coach to maintain that level of success.
“I love it,” she said. “I’m honored to be able to be part of this legacy.”
Haut played basketball, softball and volleyball at SMCC and was part of two championship volleyball teams – in Class C in 2012 and 2014 – under head coach Diane Tuller. The 2015 SMCC grad also had an outstanding career at Eastern Michigan University, earning all-freshman team honors for the Mid-American Conference and twice being named first team all-MAC. In 2018 she was named the MAC Tournament MVP.
Soon after Haut’s college graduation, O’Brien – who was an SMCC assistant during Haut’s high school senior year – called her and asked if she wanted to be part of the program now as a coach.
“It was something that I always thought of doing,” Haut said. “After graduating, I remember thinking ‘What’s next?’ Coaching was something I felt I wanted to do. It helps keeps me part of the game that I love.”
SMCC graduated several seniors from the 2020 championship squad and had to do some rebuilding in 2021. O’Brien was there to put together some of the pieces, then helped mentor Haut as she guided the team through much of its 36-12 run. During the MHSAA Tournament run, O’Brien would funnel postgame questions to Haut, preferring to stay out of the limelight.
It was still, however, a dual coaching role until Haut took over the job.
“I was building up practice plans and ideas for the season just in case I was hired,” Haut said. “I had some things in my mind that I wanted to do. It’s nothing too crazy, but I just added my own touches.
Last year, for example, it was O’Brien who organized summer practices and helped build the regular-season schedule.
“I missed out on those parts of it, so it was something I was looking forward to this year,” Haut said. “It was exciting. We’re still in the same great tournaments that SMCC loves to go to.”
Haut is meshing the experiences she had as a player and coach to form her own coaching style and program.
“All of the coaches I’ve played for and coached with have a slightly different idea of the game,” she said. “The game has evolved in different ways. As I have gone through high school and college as a player, I felt like I learned more depth to the game every year. Then, since I’ve been coaching, I feel like it’s gone to another level.”
Before this season started, Haut had her players write down their goals.
“I want to learn everything I can about the girls,” she said. “It’s not just about volleyball, but life. My college coach really believed that. I’m excited to be part of these girls’ lives.”
Haut comes from an athletic family and has been around sports all her life.
Her father Chris played baseball at the University of Toledo. Her sister Mikayla was a four-time all-state volleyball player and Miss Volleyball finalist, and is coming off a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Rookie of the Year award at Fairfield University in Connecticut. Sister Maddie earned all-conference honors and helped Ave Maria University win its conference title a year ago. Brother CJ was an outstanding basketball player for the Air Force Academy.
SMCC is primed for more success this year. Haut welcomes back a solid senior group that has already showed off its leadership skills. The Kestrels will be among favorites as they seek to make a fourth-straight trip to Battle Creek.
“From the time we got into the gym, they have been leaders,” Haut said.
Two freshmen played key roles a year ago, McKenna Payne and Jessica Costlow. Payne rang up 465 kills, 360 digs and 86 aces during her ninth-grade season while Costlow had 414 kills, 275 digs and 59 blocks.
Last year, SMCC lost in the Division 3 Final to Reese. After taking a 2-0 lead in the match, the Kestrels dropped the final three games 25-15, 25-21, 16-14.
“I like a lot of what I saw in the scrimmage. It was good to get some different lineups together, and we have a deep bench,” Haut said. “I see a ton of potential with this team.”
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) Cassie Haut, middle, talks with her Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central team last season as co-varsity coach with Karen O’Brien, right. (Middle) Haut signals to her teammates while starring at Eastern Michigan. (Top photo by Tom Hawley. Middle photo courtesy of the EMU athletic department.)
Longtime Coach Lukens Remembered for Building Champions, Changing Lives
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
September 27, 2024
The results speak for themselves as there were conference, Regional and MHSAA Finals championship and runner-up finishes.
But those accomplishments are not necessarily why Don Lukens will be remembered by most. It will be for the lives he touched and successes his student-athletes found after graduation.
Lukens impacted two communities separated by 200 miles during multi-decade coaching tenures for multiple high school programs.
Lukens died Sept. 15 at age 90. He was well-known across the state for his coaching as he spent 27 years teaching at Kalamazoo Loy Norrix, where he coached with Ted Duckett, and 33 years coaching at Traverse City Central with John Lober. Duckett, now 78, and Lober, 82, are still coaching today.
Tico Duckett, one of the most accomplished running backs in Michigan State University football history, is one of thousands of kids Lukens recruited into the running world. Duckett, who went on to play in the National Football League, credits Lukens for recruiting first-time track athletes from challenging life situations and turning them into college scholarship recipients.
Lukens knew how to get the best individual performances out his athletes, recalled Duckett, whose high school running career ended with a hamstring injury sustained during Regional preliminary sprints.
“I can tell story after story of kids that he plucked out of class, and they are successful today,” said the first MSU back to rush three times for more than 1,000 yards. “Between him and my dad, they would take kids that had no direction, no future, no hope and bring them in and teach them track and teach kids what you put into it is what you’re going to get out.”
Lukens had graduated from Western Michigan University where he’d participated in football and track. During his 38 years coaching track, Lukens’ teams posted a dual meet record of 220-24, won 20 conference championships, nine MHSAA Regional championships, a Lower Peninsula Class A title and finished runners-up twice.
Lukens’ cross country teams also were impressive with a record of 198-60 during his 34 years of coaching. They won 14 conference championships and 12 MHSAA Regional titles.
Tico Duckett has memories of being recruited to the sport as a child while his father served as an assistant coach at Loy Norrix.
“Coach Lukens would say, ‘I can’t wait ’til you get here,’” the former MSU star fondly recollected. “Coach Lukens loved track – he breathed and ate track.”
Loy Norrix hosts the highly-competitive Don Lukens Relays every May. Duckett attended this year’s meet as he often does. It was Lukens’ ability to recruit and coach track that made the Knights stand out across the state.
“Loy Norrix track was special,” said Duckett, proudly noting the Knights’ dual-meet dominance. “When we would go places and get off the bus, people would literally say, ‘There’s Loy Norrix,’ and they would literally talk about us, and we would show ’em on the track and we backed it up.”
Inside the halls and walls of Loy Norrix, the Duckett name is engraved on trophies and next to track & field records earned by Tico Duckett and his brother TJ, who also went on to play professional football. Ted Duckett took over the head coaching duties when Lukens retired and moved to Platte Lake in Benzie County.
Word traveled fast that Lukens had arrived in Northern Michigan, and he immediately was asked to help Benzie Central by another legendary coach, Pete Moss, who died in 2019.
Lober ran across Lukens at a meet at Benzie and recruited him to coach distance running at Traverse City Central – which at the time had just five athletes committed to participate in those races.
Central had a prior history of success in sprints and field events, but the Trojans won the 1992 Class A title as their distance runners had become competitive enough to start contributing points at the Finals.
“We started coaching together in 1989, and we had 30-plus glorious years together,” Lober said. “We ended up qualifying right off the bat for the state finals, and we went 16 years in a row.”
Lober too was known for his recruiting to the sport.
“When we talked with kids, I’d be talking in one side of the kid’s ear and Don would be talking in the other,” Lober said with a laugh. “By the time we were done, the kid didn’t have a prayer of not joining the team.”
Lukens continued at Central until 2021, stepping aside as he ended 62 years of coaching.
Cody Inglis, now a senior assistant director for the MHSAA, served as Central’s athletic director while Lukens coached. He was well aware of Lukens’s coaching at Loy Norrix as he grew up a distance runner for nearby Portage Northern.
Inglis noted most of Northern Michigan knew very little of Lukens’ resume prior to his coming north. Inglis was coaching and serving as athletic director at the time for Suttons Bay when Lukens first joined the Trojans.
“People in Traverse City didn’t understand the success he had at Loy Norrix,” Inglis said. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, Traverse City Central was good, and they’ll be even better’ and it’s no secret that the reason their cross country program took off was because of Don Lukens.”
Lukens won the inaugural Coaching Legacy Award at the 2019 Traverse City Record-Eagle/John Lober Honor Roll Meet. Going forward, the award will be named after Lukens.
Lukens is survived by his wife Rosinda, daughters Paige Gray of Gladwin, Wendy Pohl of Kalamazoo and Donyelle Hayhoe of Lansing, and five grandchildren: Brynn Rusch, Ian Gray, Westyn Hayhoe, Travis Hayhoe and Lucas Hayhoe.
The Trojans will host a memorial tribute to Lukens the day after next year’s Bayshore Marathon in Traverse City. A graveside service was held for Lukens on Monday at the Benzonia Township Cemetery.
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) Longtime coach Don Lukens, far left, is pictured during the 2015 LP Cross Country Finals with past Traverse City Central runner John Steen (center) and Trojans coach John Lober, with Jane and Jack Steen standings in front. Jane and Jack Steen are current Traverse City Central runners. (Middle) The Niles Daily Star published this 1976 photo of Lukens (back row, second from right) and coach Ted Duckett (back row, center) receiving the championship trophy at the Daily Star Relays from publisher Bill Applebee. (Top photo courtesy of John Lober.)