Longtime Leader Brodie Still Giving Back

February 10, 2016

By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half 

Joe Brodie played basketball for legendary River Rouge coach Loften Greene in the 1940s, he coached Olympic Trials swimmer Ray Martin in the 1950s and coached University of Michigan quarterback Dennis Brown in the 1960s.

Brodie was the third winner of the MHSAA’s prestigious Vern Norris Award in 1994 for his service as an official. 

So it should come as no surprise that Brodie, 87, is enjoying his retirement in Flat Rock with his wife of 62 years, Margo, their son and daughter and eight grandchildren.

There is, however, an impressive twist: Brodie still has an active connection with high school sports as he occasionally serves as a referee for swimming meets in the Downriver area. Forever humble, Brodie has a simple reply to the question, “Why are you still doing that?”

“I just want to give back,” he said. “Maybe it’s in my genes, I don’t know. Maybe it’s my heredity. I think it’s like playing cards; you have to go with the cards you’re dealt with. I still work out about three days a week.”

Early days

Greene built one of the greatest dynasties in the history of Michigan high school basketball. He coached 41 seasons and won 12 MHSAA Finals championships, including five in a row from 1961-65 and four in a row from 1969-72. Brodie, who also played football and ran track in high school, played on Greene’s third team in 1945-46.

Maybe sensing his calling as a coach, Brodie also helped the program by starting a summer league for younger players.

“There was a park that had an asphalt court, and when he won his first state championship team, those were kids I started in seventh grade dribbling around in circles,” Brodie said, “and the eighth-grader on that team was Blanche Martin, who played football at Michigan State. DeWayne Smith was on the team, too, and he ended up succeeding Greene as the coach.”

After graduating from River Rouge, Brodie went into the service and ended up in Japan. When he returned, Brodie enrolled at Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University), where he played football for three years and basketball for two.

It was while at Michigan State Normal that Brodie became certified in Red Cross life-saving, and that not only led to a job at Torch Lake near Traverse City but paved the way for his involvement with swimming.

Brodie’s first job came as head basketball, head baseball and assistant football coach at Sebewaing High School in 1952. He wore many hats at Sebewaing.

“I made $2,800 and taught seventh-grade geography and eighth-grade science, two ninth-grade biology classes, a study hall and a phys ed class,” he said. “I didn’t get anything extra for coaching, but I met my honey up there. I fell in love and married her and came back downstate. It was instant love.”

In 1953, Lincoln Park High School hired Brodie as a physical education teacher and assistant coach in football, basketball and baseball. Lincoln Park had no idea what it was getting. In 1955, the athletic director asked Brodie to coach the swimming team because of his background with life-saving.

Within a couple of years, Lincoln Park had its first conference championship in swimming, so the athletic director then asked Brodie to take over the struggling basketball program, which had never won a conference championship.

Brodie led Lincoln Park to back-to-back conference championships and an appearance in the MHSAA Quarterfinals in 1961. No Lincoln Park boys basketball team has made it back to the Quarterfinals since that year.

On to administration

After 13 years at Lincoln Park, Brodie accepted a job as athletic director at Southgate High School. Eventually, the position also included duties at Schafer High School, which is closed.

“It was strictly an administrative job, and that got me out of coaching,” Brodie said. “That’s when I had the time to do a little bit of officiating.”

Brodie, who had first registered as an MHSAA official for 1955-56, joined a football officiating crew that went on to work an MHSAA championship game, served on the MHSAA Representative Council from 1978-80 and 1981-83, and officiated swimming meets. And he was never afraid to let his voice be heard.

“Our crew was headed to Jackson to do a playoff game, and the athletic director there was my good friend Dennis Kiley,” Brodie said. “The guys on the crew were getting up there in age, and the game was getting tougher to do. They were going to pay four of us, but I wanted to have an extra official so we could cover the deep passes and said we would still take the pay for four and just split it among the five of us.

“They told us no, but we did it anyway. I was the umpire that night, and I was the deepest umpire you ever saw in high school football. Nobody said anything about it.”

Kiley chuckled at the mention of Brodie.

“Joe was one heck of an athlete; football, basketball, you name it,” Kiley said. “He is a heck of a good guy and was a very good official. He was excellent. I would have hired him anytime.”

Not one to take time off, Brodie found odd jobs in the summer to pick up a little extra cash.

“I’ve worked every summer doing all sorts of things,” he said. “I’ve jumped off milk trucks, things like that.”

No job was too big or too small for Brodie, whose next move was to Davison Middle School in Southgate, where he was principal when he retired in 1986 – 30 years ago.

He didn’t slow down much in retirement.

Every winter for 25 years, Brodie and his wife would go to Arizona, and he could not resist getting involved with athletics. He worked track meets, doing high school and AAU meets. He once was named the official of the year in Arizona and also had a chance to work the Pac-10 conference meet at Arizona State University.

“Here’s a little kid from River Rouge, and I’m lining up guys from Washington, Washington State, USC and Arizona. I felt so humbled being a starter. Where else other than this country can this happen?”

Legacy lives on

Brodie concedes he is slowing down at 87, but slowing down at 87 is a good thing. He and his wife no longer go to Arizona for the winter, so that has opened the door to do a few boys swimming meets in addition to girls meets he often works in the fall.

“I’m not going out and campaigning to referee,” he said. “This year I took the Riverview boys schedule, about four or five meets, and took six to eight middle-school meets – you can’t get officials for middle-school meets – and I had a couple of girls meets that I did.

“I just fill in for people, that’s what I do. I’m not going out and hustling, but I think I’m still sharp enough to do the job.”

Brodie’s legacy lives on, not only in the continued work he is doing but in his son and daughter. Brodie’s son, Bob, has been the head basketball coach at Salem for 26 years and is in the Michigan High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He also has been an MHSAA registered official for 39 years in five sports.

Brodie’s daughter, Jann Stahr, is an MHSAA official in competitive cheer and swimming.

“They are why we don’t go to Arizona anymore,” Brodie said. “Both kids live in Flat Rock. My daughter is about seven houses away, and my son lives about three blocks away.”

The Brodie legacy has more meat to it. In addition to the Norris Award, Brodie is in the Michigan High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame, the Eastern Michigan University Hall of Fame and the Lincoln Park Hall of Fame, which has his bust on display at the Sportsmen’s Den in Riverview.

“I hate saying, ‘I did this,’ or ‘I did that,’” he said. “It’s never been about me. All I ever wanted to do was give back.”

Mission accomplished.

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) Flat Rock's Joe Brodie officiates a swimming and diving meet Tuesday at Riverview. (Middle) Brodie, an official for 61 years, dresses for a football game during the 1970s. (Below) Brodie with the "Brodie Bunch," his family, which includes current officials, coaches, athletes and past coaches. (Photos courtesy of the Brodie/Stahr family.)

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.

Eastern Michigan University cross country

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 DonnellyDoug 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.)