One thing is very apparent when you meet Ypslanti High Coach Ryan Minarik: He loves his sports and he takes coaching those sports very serious.
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Minarik is the varsity coach at the high school for volleyball team and for the softball team.
"I was a player my whole life and I dreamed of coaching baseball and football," Minarik said. "I got started coaching AAU volleyball in 1995."
A smile crosses his lips when he talks about his playing days at Mendon High, nestled in a town just south of Kalamazoo). He played on the football, basketball and baseball teams as well as the cross country and track teams.
After high school he had aspirations of teaching and attended Eastern Michigan University. He is 30 credits shy and his student teaching away from teaching. Currently he works midnights for the United Postal Service, better known as UPS.
He has coached freshman football and basketball at Ypsilanti High in the past.
"I helped with varsity basketball for two years," he said. "That is a different bread of creature."
Minarik enjoys the challenges of coaching both sports and admits he likes the season changes.
"It allows the girls to go right from AAU to the volleyball season," he said. "It worked out great for us this year."
He admits when the one season gets over, he only has a couple of weeks to get ready for the next season.
"Christmas is my busiest time at my job," he said. "Now there is neither sport going on at that time."
In volleyball, the Phoenix and the Belleville Tigers have some good competition. Now that Belleville moved up to the Mega Red, Ypsilanti doesn't have to play them as much.
"Belleville was our toughest competition," he said. "They are phenomenal right now."
Not too many years ago, the Phoenix had several players on the team with very good height. One girl was six-foot, five inches tall, another was 6-3 and one was 6-1. He said they all graduated at about the same time and the program dropped a bit (record wise).
"We have always had trouble passing," he said. "When we had the height you could camouflage that. When he didn't have the height the other teams would take advantage of that. I really think we have gotten better every year."
That season with all the height the team had over 40 wins. They dropped to 6-7 wins in the conference went to eight wins and then to 11 wins.
The softball teams have had similar records going from 12 wins to eight to seven, to one back to six and last year they had 12 wins. The year the team only had one win it came against Willow Run when they split the season series.
"People tend to blame the losses on coaches and the wins are because of the players," he said. "The school I come from Mendon had 10 state titles. Sometimes you hit slumps.
"My philosophy has always been to win the league first," he said. "I am not as worried about tournaments and weekend play."
He said he is excited about the talent he knows is coming up through the junior high. A lot of players have been learning softball at the junior high level and this will only help the varsity team get better.
Last year, he had to bring up a lot of the junior varsity team for softball and it forced them to cancel the JV team.
"We finally have a good feeder program," he said. "I am nuts about it. In summer ball our 14 and under team beat Belleville's 16 and under team."
Minarik loves the two sports he is coaching and hopes the new athletic director at the high school will not make him choose one over the other. He admits sometimes the parents can be tough but also says that is part of the job.
"Football is my favorite sport by far to coach," he said. "You can stockpile ideas in football."
He coached with current Ypsilanti High Head Coach Dave Poole for several years at the freshman level before having to give it up to coach the girls' sports.
Whatever sport he is coaching it is very obvious he loves what he is doing.
Dave Merchant is a staff writer for the Courier and the View and can be reached at 734-697-8255 or dmerchant@heritage.com.
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