Joe Woodruff has a plethora of head coaching experience at the high school level.
At most of his stops, Woodruff has been charged with leading a turnaround. That will not be the case at Zeeland East where he was named head coach last month.
The Chix have made the playoffs in nine of the last 10 seasons.
"This was a dream come true," Woodruff said. "Because normally when you walk into a rebuilding program there is ten percent of what they have been doing that you want to keep doing and 80-90 percent you want to change. Here it is the exact opposite, 80 percent of the things we want to keep doing and there is going to be a certain percentage of things that change just because things change every year and a certain percentage of things are going to change because you have some new coaches and people coming in but the vast majority is going to stay the same."
So much so that Woodruff, who has ran the wing-t offense at most of his previous stops, will continue to run the spread offense the Chix have been running so well.
"Zeeland East has an identity on offense that we want to capitalize on they have been very successful with what they have done, very innovative," Woodruff said. "We ran a lot of the stuff at Lakeland last year we were starting to make our transition out of the Delaware wing-t into some more power spread stuff and it was very successful. Why try and reinvent the wheel?"
Perhaps the most unique aspect of the Zeeland East job is the school across the path, Zeeland West.
The rivalry has been extremely balanced for the last decade.
"Normally when you have a rivalry it is our town versus their town and if the rivalry becomes unhealthy you have an opportunity to rip apart a school and even a community," Woodruff said. "Sports are something that should bring communities together. The first name on both sides is Zeeland so you got to try to find a way to compete for that week, get after it for that week, but really this rivalry needs to be a healthy rivalry so that you are not tearing down a town, not tearing down a school."
Woodruff is slated to coach his first game with the Chix on August 26th at Warren Woods-Tower.
