After a 63-17 win over Strasburg, Coach has a record of 400-57 (.875). This is his 19th season.

4 state titles and 2 runner ups.

8 regional championships/Final Four appearances.

9 district champioinships. (6 in a row)

15 sectional championships (in a row)

16 IVC championships (14 in a row won outright or shared).
Hiland has lost one IVC game in the last 12 years.

Congrats Coach! He will credit the girls and his help, but he deserves to take a bow on this one.

He is an amazing coach......Congrats to Coach Schlabach!

Good chob Dave.

^^ lol^^ CHOB

Congrats Coach... Pariah you missed 2008 National coach of the year!

They have a fine program.
Congrats to the coach and all of the players who help him get to where he is as well as all of the ast. coach that have been with him.

He runs a program that most schools can only dream of having.....great coach.

Speaking of Hiland, is muvafan on this site?

^^^^Post #5

Congratulations Dave.

The stat that I find most impressive is the career tournament record of 79-14, a 85% winning mark. Over the last ten years, the tournament record is 58-6, which is over 90%, and over the last five years it is an incredible 36-2, nearly 95%.

Great program + joke league + D4 = a lot of wins

Not taking away anything from winning those games but come on... he's coaching Hiland and the competition is awful. He could have 600 wins in the next 8 years realistically with how bad the competition is!

Haha. Ok well ill go back and compile a list of every game that was not IVC or Garaway and we'll figure out how many he should really have.


Btw, how is that "not taking anything away?" Sounds like you were taking plenty

I am so envious of his program....Are there any of his former players in the coaching ranks and looking for a job? I'd like to bring them to our school.

Alisha Yoder is currently coaching the Dover 8th grade, and I know she wants to be a varsity head coach eventually. She was Hiland's JV coach last year. I'm sure there are others, but is the only one that comes to mind right now.

golf, How many schools in the state put much effort at all into girls basketball? Maybe a hundred or so. It might be 2 dozen or so in div 4. Unless 3 or 4 of those teams are playing in the same conference, one might ascribe "joke" to all of the leagues.

There's no doubt if you compare what Dave's brother has to do to win the IVC and to advance in the tournament, it is much more difficult on the boys side. Hiland girls saw a team at the regional last year that would have been in the middle of the IVC. You don't see that in boys basketball much. However, it's hard to win 400 games against air. They play the game the right way and teach the right things, and Dave just works harder than most people are willing to work. And the tournament record that the professor alluded to, does contain many quality wins over quality programs, and indicates that he would still win a ton of games no matter what conference we are talking about.

Runs a great program. It would be nice to see him coach against schools that had similiar resources to his but he's comfortable being a mega huge fish in a tiny pond.

I wish everyone else had that type of time and resources. Forget basketball, the kids would benifit!
He's done a lot for the area and the image of small school girls basketball. Certainly when you think tiny school basketball in Ohio you think Hiland!

Could you define "resources"?

Go to a Hiland practice. Go to a Hiland "open gym" in the summer. Go to an out of state AAU tournement with them during the summer. Go to their summer clinics. Go to their Classic. All great things for sure. Most small Colleges can't do that let alone high schools. Then they compete against D4 schools that share one small gym with the boys program, can't afford the liability issues of hosting events, have kids that work full time jobs all summer and part time the rest of the year, ect. Hard work put him a position to afford all those things for the players and hats off to him for providing them. Resources are always more important than #s. It's like taking the Georgetown Hoyas men's program and putting them in NAIA because they are a tiny school! I would never want what he's built torn down! I just hope and pray more kids would get the opportunity those kids get! People need to thank him for providing that and those that do experience it should thank the maker they are in the increadibly rare few that get that advantage!

well said... but pariah's well aware of how blessed we all are

Oh, yeah. I've been to all those places, am very aware of all those blessings, and am very appreciative of coaches, administration, community and fans. I just wanted to see where you were coming from.

It's true. This is a unique school/community where those kinds of things can happen. However, even without those bells and whistles, I believe every coach, school, and community can love kids, support them, and have a program that succeeds; success defined as having kids come out the other end that have learned the lessons of sports that help them do life well. I would contend that a program that is doing that, will also do well on the court and in the win/loss column. I'll go ahead and say it - I don't think very many programs are doing that. Dave has done that in spades, and that's why he is way more than just a coach with 400 (now 401) wins.

Whatever wrote: Runs a great program. It would be nice to see him coach against schools that had similiar resources to his but he's comfortable being a mega huge fish in a tiny pond.

Your comment about resources may have some merit, but it's still off base in that Hiland has no control over the quality of its opponents; they are required to play every IVC team twice per year. This leaves only four games per year under their control, and they schedule the best opponents they can find.

For many years the girls program has been requesting, begging even, that the league cut the schedule to one game per year. If that were to happen, you can be sure that Hiland will schedule numerous opponents with more challenging opponents. But so far, they have not been able to get the league to change.

why would the league change? to satisfy one member? May be easier for the Hawks to go independent than for the other members to reach the level where they even give Hiland a game on occasion

wc expert wrote: why would the league change? to satisfy one member? May be easier for the Hawks to go independent than for the other members to reach the level where they even give Hiland a game on occasion

The problem is that it is an all-sports league, and the league is a good fit in other sports. They can not leave the league in one sport without permission of the league.

profm wrote: Your comment about resources may have some merit, but it's still off base in that Hiland has no control over the quality of its opponents; they are required to play every IVC team twice per year. This leaves only four games per year under their control, and they schedule the best opponents they can find.

Well obviously they do have a choice. There's no Federal Law saying they have to remain in this league. Obviously they choose to because of the big picture.

Now imagine if Hiland would have these types of resource advantages in every sport!

Of course put yourself in the shoes of the opponents of the girls program:
Imagine you are a football parent. Wait. Hiland doesn't HAVE a football team? You can spend this type of bucks having 12 month a year girls basketball program but don't even offer the kids football? Man, too bad Schlabach isn't a football fan!

Okay let's imagine you are a softball parent at Hiland. Your daughter loves softball and works hard at it whenever she can. Your team does good and you go to the tourney and get waxed a couple years in a row by say, Tuskey Central Catholic. You then find out that not only does TCC have a good team, but they have TWO complete indoor fields. Here they host elite teams from around the state in summer and winter tournaments (hey indoor softball isn't regulated by the OHSAA!) They have a state of the art indoor batting facility where the kids go for "open gyms" to hit for hours every day all year. They bring in college coaches for clinics. They go to ASA tourneys as a team 8 straight weekends in the summer as a team while also competing in a league tuesdays and thrusday nights at the outdoor facility behind their indoor one (and of course if it rains they move the games inside.)

Are you really going to not raise an eyebrow and say "well we could beat them if we just worked harder!"

So yes, resources has everything to do with it.

How many State Championships has TCC won?????

In my example? 10 state titles in a row.

(I think you are missing the point. The point is about how would you feel if you didn't have a chance against an opponent not becuase they work harder, want it more or have better athletes but because they have more resources to work with?

Whatever wrote: In my example? 10 state titles in a row.

(I think you are missing the point. The point is about how would you feel if you didn't have a chance against an opponent not becuase they work harder, want it more or have better athletes but because they have more resources to work with?

If other teams worked as hard as the HIland girls team, I'm sure that they would be competitive with Hiland. I don't think anything else would make a large difference. The 'extra resources' would be pretty marginal, and if they worked that hard, they would soon also acquire some of the extra resources too.