Coaching Advancement
March 21, 2014
Over the past nine months we have marched down the field in our effort to enhance the health and safety preparation of those who coach school sports. There have been two big plays during this offensive drive.
Last May, the Representative Council adopted the requirement beginning in 2014-15 that all assistant and subvarsity high school coaches must complete the same rules/risk management session as high school varsity head coaches, or, in the alternative, complete one of several free, online health and safety programs posted for this purpose on MHSAA.com.
Last December, the Council adopted the requirement beginning in 2015-16 that all high school varsity head coaches must have current certification in CPR.
It’s my hope that we will not fumble now that we’re in the red zone, that we won’t drop the ball before crossing the goal line on this current health and safety drive focusing on enhanced preparation of coaches.
The next play the Representative Council is considering is to require that all persons hired for the first time at any MHSAA member high school as a varsity level head coach must have completed the Coaches Advancement Program Level 1 or 2.
More than 10,000 people already have done so; and other people who want to be high school varsity head coaches have more than two years to complete this requirement.
Finishing this drive won’t put Michigan’s high school coaching standards at the head of the class; but it will keep us in the classroom of best practices for coaches education. The standard of care is advancing nationwide and on all levels of sports.
Coaches Hehs, Ritz Honored by NFHS
January 12, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Two championship-winning Michigan high school coaches were honored Monday by the National Federation of State High School Associations Coaches Association.
Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart girls tennis coach Judy Hehs and Wayland softball coach Cheri Ritz were recognized as National Coaches of the Year in their respective sports after both led their teams to MHSAA championships during the 2014-15 school year.
The following brief bios on Michigan’s winners include excerpts from coaching philosophies they were asked to submit after being identified as candidates:
Judy Hehs has coached girls tennis at Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart since fall 1996 and served as co-coach of three MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 championship teams over the last four seasons, including last spring. She also coached the school's varsity girls basketball team from 1988-95 and two sports at Detroit Country Day – field hockey in fall 1987 and then junior varsity boys tennis (while also serving as the varsity assistant) from spring 1988-2000. Hehs was inducted in 2015 into the Michigan High School Tennis Coaches Association Hall of Fame and her girls tennis teams have a record of 141-16-14. She also serves as Sacred Heart’s associate head of school and director of the upper school.
“Why do I coach? I coach to give back to the profession of coaching and to the sport of tennis. Tennis has been a large part of my life since I was young. I coach because I can make a difference in the lives of the young women whom I coach – I can help build character and teach resilience, I can bear witness to their individual and team success and I can be present during those moments when hard lessons are learned. I coach for selfish reasons – I love spending afternoons and weekends with young people. In my classroom, the tennis court, the challenge isn’t making great tennis players. It is about building great people. … There is no better place than a tennis court to teach real life lessons – lessons about work ethic, teamwork, problem solving, independence and the moment when efforts turn into believing and believing turns into accomplishments.”
Cheri Ritz has coached the Wayland softball team to two MHSAA Division 2 championships, in 2006 and again last spring. She began her varsity softball coaching career at Middleville Thornapple Kellogg from 1991-94 and has led Wayland since 1995. She ranks 12th in MHSAA history for softball coaching victories with a career record of 818-207. Ritz also teaches in the Wayland Union district.
“Patience, passion, dedication, virtue, teamwork and love are present daily. I will open the minds and hearts of my athletes, and they will treat people the right way. I will enhance their soul by having them grow righteous values from within. We will instill that maximum effort is simply a way of life. … Our goal will be to be as competitive as possible every year. We will compete every year with high expectations of our players, on and off the field. We will control what we can control, such as effort, attitude and the way that we treat our teammates. We will pay close attention to details. We will work on the basic fundamentals every day in practice. Everything matters, from the way we treat custodians and bus drivers to the way we clean our opponent's dugout after a game to the way we warm up before the game. We will win with class in everything that we do!
The NFHS has been recognizing coaches through an awards program since 1982. Winners of NFHS awards must be active coaches during the year for which they receive their award.