WHITEHALL — It was hard for Whitehall football coach Tony Sigmon not to notice prior to the season when five of his former players were on staff in the program as assistants. As he noted, it meant two things - the Vikings have a good, close-knit program people want to be part of, and as a 12th-year head coach, he was getting older.
“We went together to celebrate Coach (Matt) DeRose’s birthday and I’m looking around and I’m like, ‘Alright, I have to get going because bedtime’s coming,’” Sigmon smiled during the Vikings’ week of practice preparation before this year’s playoffs began. “I look at who’s coming with me - my two kids, who are 10 and 7 - and I’m looking around like, ‘You’re the only one (in that situation).’ The others are younger guys who are getting married or just got married, or they’re older guys whose kids are out of high school, and for me it’s, ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got to go read stories.’”
Four of the former Vikings back under the Whitehall wing spent this season on the high school staff: Brandon Rake, who was offensive coordinator for the JV team; Casey Huizenga, who coached his fourth season as quarterback coach; Jack MacArthur, who worked with the linebackers; and Terrell Harris, who assisted with the wide receivers and defensive backs. In addition, Jarrean Sargent was on the middle school team’s coaching staff. For the latter three, it was their first season working in the program they once called home.
It’s no surprise Huizenga came back to Whitehall after playing at Olivet College, as his family’s roots run deep here. His late grandfather John is a Whitehall Sports Hall of Famer, coaching 25 baseball seasons there, and his dad Kurt was a star Viking and longtime assistant baseball coach.
Huizenga, who noted he was among the first group of players to spend all of their four years with Sigmon, was first to return. He required Tommy John surgery his final year playing at Olivet, which shuttered his original plan to go to the police academy. He said it was then-offensive coordinator CJ Van Wieren who suggested to him that he join the staff. Huizenga was fortunate to be taught at Olivet by former Toledo head coach Dan Simrell, who at the time he left the Rockets in 1989 was the school’s all-time wins leader, which gave him a natural base to build from as a coach.
“I love it,” Huizenga said. “I can’t imagine myself anywhere else right now. Every day I come out here and I enjoy the time I have (here), because I obviously can’t put the helmet on anymore. I kind of live through everybody here and enjoy the time.”
Huizenga’s job changed a bit in his fourth season coaching quarterbacks. After three years working with Kyle Stratton, who now plays at Taylor University, his main charge became Camden Thompson, a much larger player with a different skill set. Where Stratton was a small, shifty quarterback, Thompson is a more physical and more eager runner with a bigger arm but less refinement, having only played the position for one season in high school prior to taking it over this fall. Huizenga enjoyed the challenge.
“The biggest thing was footwork, getting him comfortable with that,” Huizenga said of Thompson. “It’s a new position for him. He took two years off from it, (so it was about) getting him comfortable with being in the pocket. He’s a great athlete, so it made it a little easier.”
Rake has been back at Whitehall a few years as well, where he also coaches the freshman boys basketball team; Rake was best-known at Whitehall as a hoops star and played the sport at Alma College. This was his first season calling the plays at the JV level, a role that enabled him to pick up a lot from Sigmon, who has offensive roots himself.
“Knowing Coach Sig before I got here was a really big part of why I came back,” Rake said. “I loved being in this program as a player, and as a coach now, the level of respect that I was able to gain right away, just from having that relationship, is awesome. I was able to jump right in, and he trusted me fully to do what I needed to do.
“He knows the most about our offense by far, and going from being a lineman in high school and just knowing where to go on what play, to understanding all the concepts and different stuff like that was really cool to see. He helped me out through it and was able to kind of get me on a roll.”
Rake, who is also a Whitehall Middle School math teacher, was a very good lineman at Whitehall and he feels like that experience gives him an appreciation for the current Viking linemen, as well as a built-in respect from those players.
MacArthur’s day job is in construction for Seeger Builders, and his role with the linebackers reunited him with his high school defensive coordinator, Keith Stratton, who’s still in that role now. He said one of his favorite things about being back on the field with Harris, Rake and Huizenga, all of whom were high school teammates of his, is that in a way it feels like no time has passed at all.
“In college you kind of part ways with some of your (high school) friends, so rekindling these friendships with Terrell, Casey and Brandon, it’s been awesome,” MacArthur said.
Like his fellow assistants, MacArthur said having played for Sigmon gives him a shorthand for knowing what to expect and how to communicate that to the players.
“Whatever we are teaching or whatever we’re saying, he doesn’t have to question us,” MacArthur said of Sigmon. “He’s not worried about what we’re saying because we played for him. I think coming back and coaching, it’s been as simple as it can be for the first year, knowing that all these coaches have trust in us.”
Harris didn’t really have teaching or coaching at Whitehall on his mind after his football career ended - he played at Hope College and transferred to Davenport before giving up the sport - but when he reached out to Huizenga for job leads, he found out the school had vacancies to do both. He’s teaching middle school special education now, working under principal Craig Thompson, his former receivers coach when he played here.
Harris said Whitehall’s “winning culture” attracted him to come back. He now coaches wide receivers and defensive backs. More than that, though, was the family atmosphere of the program, which he credits Sigmon for building.
“He cares so much about his players outside of just being football players,” Harris said. “I think that helps a lot of us want to keep going. It’s not just a football team. It’s a brotherhood. It’s bigger than that. That’s honestly what I looked forward to coming back here and coaching with him, just having that same bond that we already had and being able to build off that, not as a player anymore, but as a coach and as a helper and a peer.”
The ability to be on staff at Whitehall has only intensified Harris’ desire to coach; he says he’d love to be a head coach down the line.
“I always want to stay in the game,” Harris said. “It is a different aspect. It feels good to give back to someone who gave so much to you. I just come out here with a smile on my face every day. It’s just nice to be able to give back.”
The four high school players-turned-assistants are accessible to the current Whitehall players due to their younger ages and their previous relationships with Sigmon. That makes them stronger coaches. As Sigmon noted, being able to coach his coaches, in a sense, strengthens the entire program because the assistants feel empowered to deliver the same message he has and the players get to hear that message more consistently.
“Now I’m coaching more coaches than I am necessarily coaching players of football,” Sigmon said. “I feel like my role has evolved into coaching our coaches, and then really in the offseason, what does our day-to-day look like? What is a kid doing? Is he making good choices? Making sure our numbers are as high as possible when it comes to our JV and our varsity, making sure they’re making good choices in the classroom, in the school, and in the community.”
Their prior experience, both at Whitehall and in college sports, also helps the Vikings because while the team is always adding things to its playbook, the core concepts have never changed. That creates an easy shorthand as former players, who became intimately familiar with the system on the field, are able to pass along the X’s and O’s to the team.
“The conversations are really in-depth,” Sigmon said. “We don’t have to break them in or say, ‘Here’s page one of the playbook, and this is why we call this that,’ and so on and so forth, because they know it.”
Sigmon has enjoyed remarkable staff stability during his time at Whitehall, with Stratton as his longtime defensive coordinator. Van Wieren was a longtime offensive coordinator until becoming interim superintendent of schools. However, no matter how long a coach is with his staff, there’s an added element of satisfaction when his own former players join up.
“As I look around, I don’t know if there’s anything more rewarding than seeing Brandon Rake coaching a group, Casey Huizenga coaching a group, Terrell Harris and Jack (MacArthur coaching a group),” Sigmon said. “Jarrean Sargent is working with our middle school. There’s a certain level of pride there.”
The current five on staff at Whitehall may not be the last to join up either; Sigmon said players on the current team have expressed interest in becoming educators and coaches too. The Vikings’ coaching tree may yet grow more branches. As at most schools, Whitehall puts great value in having their sports coaches also be teachers in order to strengthen the relationship between students and coaches. It’s no accident that four of the five former players are Whitehall teachers as well.
“I wasn’t surprised that any one of these people, just because of the players they were, and the teammates they were, that this is what they chose to do,” Sigmon said. “At the end of the day, we’re providing a service for the community. We’re entrusted with the most important resource we have, which is our kids.”
