OTTAWA LAKE, Mich. — Karen Hubbard played four varsity sports as a student at Whiteford High School in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Kris Hubbard was her coach in all four sports.
“When I talk about my coach, I talk about ‘my coach,’ ” Karen Hubbard said, who is not related to the veteran Bobcats coach. “She was my coach for every single sport. She knew everything about every sport, and if she didn’t know something, she brought someone in, and they would help us learn.”
The days of being the varsity coach for Kris Hubbard will come to an end sometime in June. After 41 seasons of coaching the softball team, she has announced she will retire after the season.
It’s been another banner season for Whiteford — it can clinch no worse than a share of the Tri-County Conference championship by winning one of its final two league games — but that’s hardly a surprise. In Hubbard’s 41 seasons, the Bobcats have been consistent, winning 11 league, 23 district, 13 regional, and three state championships. In her Hall of Fame career, she’s amassed 859 career wins. Only two of those 41 teams finished under .500.
Tina (Knaggs) Kiefer not only played for Hubbard, she also had two daughters play softball for the Bobcats. A decade after being the starting pitcher when Whiteford captured its first state championship under Hubbard, Kiefer sat down and wrote her a letter about the impact Hubbard had on her life.
“I think she is someone who believes in her players long before they believe in themselves,” Kiefer said.
Hubbard is a Blissfield, Mich., native who didn’t play varsity sports in high school because they weren’t offered at the time. But she did play basketball, volleyball, and field hockey at Western Michigan University before returning to the area and landing a job as a teacher and coach at Whiteford. She coached track, basketball, and volleyball for several years before stepping down as track coach and helping to create the softball program. In that first season, the Bobcats won the TCC title.
Hubbard gave up coaching varsity volleyball a few years later, but held on to the basketball job until 2003. She’s still the winningest girls basketball coach in league history, with one appearance in a state title game. Hubbard has a 1,409-658 record in 81 varsity seasons of coaching in all four sports.
No matter what the sport, though, her approach to coaching and command for respect never wavered.
“Same expectations, same drive, same speeches, just geared to a different sport,” said Wendy (Adams) Koch, who played basketball and softball for Hubbard and went on to play softball at the University of Toledo. “She knew what to say to get us motivated, motivations for each player. It taught me how to treat my own players and my own daughters.”
Koch now is a youth travel coach and varsity assistant at Northview. She said she finds herself emulating her high school coach.
“I imitate her all the way, everything she does,” Koch said. “I totally imitate her nonstop. She has taught so much through the years.”
Hubbard started working with Koch when she was in elementary school and later asked her to become a manager for the varsity team. By the time she was a freshman, Koch already had spent several years being tutored by her coach.
“It’s amazing the hours she put in just coming in during the offseason,” Koch said. “I still pitched an hour a day, three days a week, and she’d come in and open the gym. I never wanted to let her down. It made it easy to play for her. She was someone you wanted to fight for. That’s why her teams have been successful. The players respected her, and we all wanted to fight for her.”
This year’s team has seven seniors, all of whom have spent four years on varsity, and all of whom started coming to open gyms and Sunday afternoon clinic sessions in the third or fourth grade.
“Think of how long I’ve worked with them,” Hubbard said. “That’s a ton of time.”
It’s paid off.
The Bobcats were 23-3 going into this week’s games. The state tournament starts June 1 and they’re among the favorites to make a long tournament run. They were ranked No. 2 in the most recent Michigan High School Softball Coaches Association poll.
Last weekend, the school, parents, and community surprised Hubbard by announcing the creation of a scholarship in her honor and the news the school would name its annual softball tournament the Kris Hubbard Softball Invitational. The Whiteford softball field already is named Kris Hubbard Field.
She is taking her upcoming retirement in stride.
“I haven’t lost my passion for working with kids,” she said. “I’m still going to be involved.”
Kris Hubbard was pleasantly surprised when about 40 of her former players walked on the field and surrounded her during the scholarship presentation.
“Memories are the best part of coaching,” she said. “It’s about the relationships you build with the players and the community. That’s what it’s all about.”
First Published May 20, 2019, 1:36 a.m.
