John Raffel
Sports Scene
Jessica Haist admits that she probably borrows a lot of her coaching techniques from her father, Kent Ingles.
Considering that Kent Ingles is among the most successful coaches in west Michigan high school boys’ basketball history, she’s borrowing from a very highly-respected source.
Haist played basketball at Greenville, from where she graduated in 1996. She is in her first year as the head girls’ basketball coach at Big Rapids after serving several seasons as assistant to Dawn Thompson, who is now head softball skipper at Ferris State University.
Haist started coaching while attending Alma College in the late 1990s and has been at it for about 13 years.
Kent Ingles is in his eighth year at Big Rapids, where the Cardinals have won two Central State Activities Association crowns, including one in 2008-09 when they were 20-0 during the regular season.
Ingles had retired from coaching at Greenville and took a year off, then was hired at Big Rapids.
“If you’re in my family, that’s what you do,” he said. “My brother coached and my nephews coached. It’s kind of like the family thing. She fell in love with it at an early age. She likes it. It was good to her. I’m proud of her, she’s a daughter who has done a lot of good things in her career. In addition to the coaching, she’s a really good role model to our young kids in school and our young female athletes. That’s important. She understands the responsibility that comes with that.”
“It’s something I’ve been around and something I’ve been a part of,” Haist said. “I obviously have that passion for being around the sport and being with the kids and wanted to give back to student-athletes and help them enjoy the game as much as I do.”
Both Haist and her dad think that her coaching resembles Kent’s.
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Ingles laughed. “I think so. She volunteered and coached with Dawn for a number of years and has been around the family tradition for awhile. She’ll do a good job. She probably does resemble [my coaching.]”
“I like to press, get up and down the floor, shoot the 3-pointer, the same type of style,” Haist said.
She added that when time permits, she and her dad do talk basketball and will cover various areas.
“We have a great relationship, we always have,” Haist said. “I played for him and now I’m coaching with him. I couldn’t ask for a better role model. The relationship has grown and matured, as I have. He’s a great guy. I’m very proud to be his daughter.”
Ingles didn’t coach his daughter in basketball at Greenville, but he did coach her with the Yellow Jacket softball team for four seasons.
Haist keeps a busy schedule with coaching and teaching in the communications department at the high school. She’s also a mother, and her husband, Tim, is the Big Rapids superintendent of schools.
Ingles started coaching at Greenville in 1969 and was drafted into the Vietnam conflict when he was 23. He returned to Greenville as an assistant from 1972-75, went to Cedar Springs for two years, started coaching the Greenville varsity in 1977-78, and stayed there through the 2002-03 season.
Ingles noted two huge changes in coaching basketball in the past 40 years.
“One of them are parents with rosy expectations for their kids and sometimes unrealistic expectations for their kids,” Ingles said. “All parents want their kids to succeed; I did, any parent does. Sometimes there’s a difference between [expectations] and reality. I’m not saying with all the kids. It’s a few very vocal people.
“In the old days it was ‘do as the coach says.’ Sometimes now, the coach is always wrong. It isn’t everybody, just a small minority of people, but they’re very vocal. That’s one of the big changes.”
Demands off the court for basketball coaches have increased, Ingles noted.
“Some of that is directly related in the switching of the seasons,” he said, referring to the court-ordered switch of girls’ basketball from fall to winter in 2007-08. “We practice less now as a team. If you ask other coaches, they would tell you the same thing. I’m not mad at the girls. It’s legislation.
“But 98 percent of people and coaches in the state wanted to keep it the way it was. But legalities the way it was…unfortunately I think both teams have been hurt, and I think the girls more so than the guys. Fighting for gym time is incredible. We may practice 9 o’clock one night and be back in the gym at 6 in the morning.”
But the desire to coach keeps Ingles on the job.
“I love kids,” said Ingles, who planned to coach a December 17 alumni game in Greenville with about 40 of his former players. “They were anxious to see me, and I was anxious to see them. I have received more from my kids than what I gave them. I’ve been very blessed. It’s been a game that I love around kids that I love.”