HUDSONVILLE, Mich. — Going into his 35th year of coaching high school football, Unity Christian Head Coach Craig Tibbe was inducted into the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association's Hall of Fame last week.
“He said, you’re going to be getting a call. And I said, for what? He said I nominated you for hall of fame. And I said woah”,” said Tibbe.
If you know Craig, this honor will come as no surprise, but for him, it left him in awe.
“It is pretty neat. .Very humbling, I told him how does this work? I didn’t know that you had to nominate someone,” said Tibbe.
Glenn Noble, the long time coach Hopkins, and friend of Craig, was the one who first recommended him for this years award. They were never on the same staff together, just friends through the years as coaches and that makes the honor mean even more.
“The process of it, having been done by Glenn was kinda neat. To think that he saw something for our staff that you know what, something needs to be recognized there,” said Tibbe.
At the awards banquet last week in Metro Detroit, Tibbe along with a dozen other coaches were honored for their dedication to high school football.
“You look down the table and there are 13 other guys that you’re up there with and you start to realize how important that is. And what they’ve done. You listen to their stories and read their stuff and you ask yourself if you deserve to be up here,” said Tibbe.
During his 21 seasons with the Saders, Craig built the program from the ground up. Their first few seasons, they didn’t win a single game. That soon changed.
“Our very first possession, we went for it on 4th and two, deep in our own territory. Why am I not punting? But I was so sure that we could get the first down. We didn’t. It started out rough but it’s really cool to see how kids have changed and built things up,” said Tibbe.
Since then, they’ve had 13 playoff appearances, 5 district titles, 4 regional championships, two conferences titles and two trips to the state finals. One of them ending in the division five state title in 2018. In both of them, he was joined by his sons, Nick and Mitch, who were on the team.
“We’ve been so blessed to have a lot of good things happen. Just being with good people. We’ve been to Ford Field twice, one time we lost it, we couldn’t hang on. The other time we got it. I don’t know, there’s so many things that have happened. I’m pretty happy,” said Tibbe.
He said that over the years, there’s not much that he hasn’t done. He would like to make it back to Ford Field soon, but for now, he’ll continue to coach the Saders and he’s excited for this upcoming season.
“For me, this will be year 35, I’m really excited about this year. It’s been good, the kids have responded well. We’ve had a couple of seasons that were rougher for us and I think we’re ready. But also we have one of the toughest schedules we’ve ever had so we’ll see how it all balances out,” said Tibee.
Craig and the Saders will kick off the 2024 season on Thursday, August 29th at home against Whitehall.
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