Tag Archives: Athletic Coaches

PA’s Chuck Heberling: Teacher, coach, NFL referee, veteran

Posted on by

Chuck Heberling was a teacher, a coach, an NFL referee, and a veteran of WWII. Photo credit: Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame

Many outstanding educators also serve as excellent sports officials. One of these is Chuck Heberling, a Pennsylvania teacher and coach who was also a distinguished official for the National Football League (NFL).

Chuck was born on April 28, 1925, in Pittsburgh. After his graduation from Perry High School, he served during WWII as a fighter pilot in the United States Navy. At the conclusion of the war, he enrolled at Pennsylvania’s Washington & Jefferson College, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in 1949. There he was a multi-sport athlete, lettering in both football and baseball.

After earning his college degree, Chuck accepted a position as a teacher and the coach of the football and basketball teams at East Washington High School. During the 1970’s, he served on School Board of the North Allegheny School District.

For 15 years, Chuck worked as a football official at the high school and college level. He also spent 23 years as an official in the NFL. For 16 of those years he was the crew chief. And as if that were not impressive enough, he was the referee for two of the most famous games in professional football: The Hail Mary in 1975 and The Drive-In in 1987. He also served as an alternate on the crew of officials for the Super Bowl XIII and the Super Bowl XXI, and as the replay official for the Super Bowl XXIII.

In 1976, Chuck became the Executive Director of the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPISL). At that time, the WPIAL was rapidly growing as one of the top scholastic organizations in the country. In 1992, Chuck inaugurated the WPIAL Scholar-Athlete program. During the next few years, the program awarded scholarships to more than 50 students from more than 40 high schools. Chuck retired from the WPIAL in 1997 after 21 years. Today, the WPIAL serves as a model around the county for high school athletic organizations.

In 2002, Chuck was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. In 2007, he was inducted into the Washington & Jefferson College Hall of Fame.

Chuck Heberling died of natural causes on Dec. 9, 2019, at his hime in McCandless, Pennsylvania.

Florida educator Connie Lane Lewis earns honors from DKG

Posted on by

Florida educator Connie Lane Lewis has been named a Key Women Educator by the Alpha Kappa Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International. Photo credit: DKG Alpha Kappa Chapter

It is always my pleasure to write about an outstanding educator who has made significant contributions to her learning community. Today, I write about Connie Lane Lewis, an outstanding teacher from Tallahassee, Florida. She has been named a Key Women Educator by the Alpha Kappa Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International (DKG).

DKG ia a prestigious professional organization that promotes the professional success of women educators. The organization works to improve professional preparation, to recognize women’s work in the teaching profession, and to fund scholarships for teachers who need support to improve their professional skills.

Connie Lane Lewis worked much of her career as a professional educator at Florida University High School (FSUS), a laboratory school sponsored by Florida State University located in Tallahassee. The school is often referred to as Florida High, although the facility actually serves students in grades kindergarten through 12th grade. She taught there from 1971 to 2004.

At FSUS Connie taught dance, archery, rhythmic exercise, gymnastics, tumbling, and computer science to students at both the elementary and secondary levels. In addition, she served as the high school’s coach for track and field and cheerleading. Furthermore, she served as a choreographer for middle school and high school musicals at FSUS. In addition to her work in the classroom, Connie served as the Membership Chair for the Florida State Association for Health, Physical Education, and Dance. She retired in 2004 after 35 years of teaching.

In addition to the recognition she has earned from DKG, Connie earned a Florida State Service Award in 1980. She was named District Teacher of the Year at FSUS in 1988. She also earned a Florida Retrofit for Technology Grant in the amount of $200,000, and she was named a finalist for an Alan Shepard Technology in Education Award in 2001.

Even in retirement, Connie is very active. Currently she serves as the Communication Chair and Webmaster of DKG’s Alpha Kappa Chapter. In addition to DKG, Connie belongs to the Beta Beta Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa and serves as the organization’s newsletter editor.

Connie earned her Bachelor’s degree in Physical Education at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She earned her Master’s degree in Physical Education and Dance from Florida State University. She also earned a Certificate in Computer Science.

To learn more about the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, click on this link: DKG.

Iowa’s Brett Hoyer: Exceptional baseball coach and math teacher

Posted on by

Math teacher and Head Baseball Coach Brett Hoyer of Cedar Rapids, Iowas, was inducted into the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches’ Hall of Fame in 2024. Photo credit: The Cedar Rapids Gazette

We are hot in the middle of baseball season, so how about shining a spotlight on an exceptional baseball coach today? One such coach is Brett Hoyer, a teacher and coach at John F. Kennedy High School located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Brett’s tenure as Head Baseball Coach at spans a total of 34 seasons. He has spent 31 of them at Kennedy. In addition, he has served the school as the Offensive Coordinator for the varsity football team. And he also teaches a variety of mathematics courses at the school.

The talented coach led his baseball team, whose mascot is the Cougars, to 14 state tournaments, and to the Class 4A State Championships four times over the past three decades. There his teams captured the first-place honors twice, in 2015 and in 2024.

Brett says his work with high school students, both in the classroom and on the field, is very rewarding. “I know some people dread their jobs, and I’m not one of those people,” he said in an 2014 interview. “I really enjoy working with young people, both in the mathematics classroom and certainly coaching. It makes it awfully easy to get out of bed in the morning and come to work,” he continued. His love for the job has been rewarded. For his work as a coach, Brett was inducted into the Iowa High School Baseball Association Coaches’ Hall of Fame in 2014.

After his graduation from Regina High School, Brett earned his Bachelor’s degree in Education at Wartburg College, a private liberal arts college located in Waverly, Iowa. He was in his junior year there when he made his decision to become a math teacher and athletic coach. He earned his Master’s degree at University of Iowa located in Iowa City. He retired in 2024 after a total of 36 years in the profession.

To learn more about Brett Hoyer, watch could watch this podcast interview of him posted on YouTube.

Teacher, coach, and Columbine hero Dave Sanders

Posted on by
Dave Sanders

Terry Lee Marzell examines plaque honoring slain educator Dave Sanders at the Columbine Memorial in Littleton, Colorado. Photo credit: Hal Marzell

While visiting the Denver area in 2018, I had the unique opportunity to visit the Columbine Memorial which honors the innocent lives lost in the Columbine High School massacre. There I paid homage to Dave Sanders, a truly heroic teacher who lost his life during the shooting.

Dave was born on October 22, 1951, in Eldorado, Saline County, Illinois. He was the youngest of five children. Sadly, his father passed away when Dave was only four years old. Following his father’s death, the young boy was raised by his widowed mother in Newtown, Indiana.

Even as a youngster, Dave excelled at athletics. Known for being a consistent and dependable player, he participated in basketball, baseball, and cross country. After his 1969 graduation from Fountain Central High School in Veedersburg, Dave enrolled at Nebraska Western Junior College in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, where he earned his Associate’s Degree. He then transferred to Chadron State College in Chadron, Nebraska. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Education from Chadron in 1974.

That same year, Dave accepted his first teaching position at Columbine High School in an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, near the Denver suburb of Littleon. There he taught business classes, including typing, keyboarding, business, business law, and economics. He also worked with other teachers in the Business Department to organize career days and arrange for guest speakers to visit classes.

Dave Sanders

Chalkboard Hero, teacher, and coach Dave Sanders. Image  courtesy of Conie Sanders

But it was as a coach that Dave truly excelled. Early in his career he coached boys’ baseball, basketball, cross country, and soccer. In his later years, he coached girls’ basketball, softball, and track. In 1995, Dave’s girls’ softball team reached the Class 5A state finals, and the same year, his girls’ basketball team qualified for a coveted berth in the annual Sweet 16 Tournament. “His ability to coach was not so much about his ability to do the sport, but about his ability to analyze the mechanics of the sport, the kinesiology of it,” colleague Joe Marshall once described. “It didn’t matter what he coached. He coached kids, he didn’t coach a sport. He truly devoted himself to the athletes,” Joe continued. In addition to his coaching responsibilities for Columbine, Dave and his colleague, Rick Bath, coached basketball camps, softball tournaments, open batting cage sessions, and a B league girls’ softball program during the summers.

Dave’s career as a teacher and coach spanned 25 years. Tragically, this outstanding educator and coach was shot and killed on April 20, 1999, when two students carried out a mass shooting at Columbine High School. During the massacre, the intrepid teacher organized an evacuation of the area, led a group of approximately 200 students to safety, and warned unsuspecting teachers and students in other classrooms of the danger. He is credited with saving at least 200 lives that fateful day before he succumbed from his gunshot wounds.

For his heroism, Dave Sanders was honored in 1999 with the ESPY Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award. The same year, he was recognized by the National Consortium for Academics and Sports with the Giant Steps Award for Male Coach. You can read more about him in my second book, Chalkboard Heroes.

Basketball coach Billy Hicks to be inducted into Kentucky’s HS Sports Assoc. Hall of Fame next month

Posted on by

The late Billy Hicks, one of the nation’s most outstanding basketball coaches, will be inducted into the Kentucky High School Sports Association Hall of Fame next month. Photo credit: Scripps Media

Our nation’s young athletes are indeed fortunate to be mentored by many outstanding coaches. One of these was the late Billy Hicks, a famed boy’s basketball coach who will be inducted into his state’s Kentucky High School Sports Association Hall of Fame next month.

In a career that spanned a total of 38 years, Billy’s teams logged a record of 1,021 wins and 268 losses, the most wins of any boys’ basketball coach in the history of Kentucky high school basketball. He taught and coached at Evarts High School, Harlan Independent, and Corbin Independent, all located in Eastern Kentucky. At Corbin, Billy won one regional title. He spent the last 25 years in Georgetown, Kentucky, where he coached at Scott County High School. He led his Scott County High Cardinals to the Sweet 16 in his first year there. In all, he won six 8th Region titles and seven 11th Region championships in 25 seasons at Scott County. The Cardinals reached seven Boys’ Sweet 16 finals, where they won it all in 1998 and 2007.

Billy was born on August 23, 1952, in Harlan County, Kentucky. He was one of 11 children born into a coal mining family. As a young man, Billy decided to become teacher and athletic coach in order to avoid a life of working in the coal mines. Even as a youngster he was a natural athlete, excelling in basketball, baseball, and softball. His athletic talent landed him a scholarship to play basketball at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he graduated in 1974. Billy retired in 2019.

Sadly, this Chalkboard Champion passed away on December 3, 2023, of natural causes. at the age of 71. But his legacy continues in the Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame, The Billy Hicks Classic, and the Tyler Hicks Scholarship Fund.