Northern Michigan Voices is a series by 9&10 News reporter Olivia Fellows in which she interviews a person in the community about a story or experience from their life. Everyone has an interesting story to tell, and we want to give you a voice, Northern Michigan! To submit your own story pitch, see the bottom of this article for more details.
In this edition, Olivia speaks with Mike Kanitz, a longtime coach with multi-sport experience currently working at Traverse City St. Francis who has become a well-known influence on the students he coaches and the school community he serves in a myriad of ways.
If you mention the name Mike Kanitz in Grand Traverse County, chances are you’ll be met with an inspiring story or an exclamation of adoration, and a dive into his coaching record and community involvement efforts explains why.
In his 20 years in local high school sports and refereeing work, Kanitz has served as a junior varsity girls basketball coach, volleyball game manager, volleyball announcer and volleyball scorekeeper, football press box manager and a soccer game manager. As a director of basketball operations at St. Francis, he has also worked the scorer’s table for basketball games.
Kanitz worked at Central Michigan University before coming back to the Traverse City area to reconnect with his roots and eventually landed a coaching position at St. Francis.
Today, Kanitz coaches the St. Francis girls’ junior varsity basketball team, where he takes pride in helping young girls grow their skills on the court alongside assistant coaches Leighten Koepke and Tyler Eising.
A lifelong love of sports
Kanitz said his love of sports came at an early age thanks to his father, Hugo Kanitz, who also went by Mike and served as the head football coach of Traverse City St. Francis during the 1960s.
“My father was a coach and I grew up around coaches, so that had an influence on me,” Kanitz said. “We moved to Traverse City in 1960 and my dad was coaching and teaching at that time at St Francis. My siblings as kids were always there and I was a water boy. I grew up around sports and thought sports were awesome, and it kind of piqued my interest in coaching, but I didn’t get into it till later in life. When I was growing up, girls didn’t always have the same opportunities that boys had in terms of athletics and it wasn’t always a fair, balanced playing field.
“Title IX kicked in when I was in high school, and really did bring some needed pressure on schools to try to do more for girls sports,” he said. “Girls basketball evolved beautifully since then. Girls basketball is now a very team-oriented, exciting game to watch, and it just keeps getting better. Kids are getting more athletic, and it’s just the same as it is with all sports, but kids are bigger, faster, stronger, and that just leads to better competition and better games.”
Over the years coaching, Kanitz has coached with nine different head coaches and helped to shape the St. Francis girls’ basketball program which boasts a rich history of success and has been building off that in the past two seasons under the current leadership, winning 79% of their games with a record of 37-10.
Kanitz credits his fellow coaches and hardworking students for the school’s successes under his leadership on the court.
“I’m blessed to have beautiful, wonderful student-athletes that work very hard and very supportive families and a lot of other coaches that I work with,” Kanitz said. “The whole concept of ‘team, team, team’ is very true. It’s been important to me. I have never had a desire to be a varsity head coach. I’ve always been underneath that level, and I’m very happy to stay underneath that level. I like the teaching part, the kids part, but I don’t like the administrative ‘being in charge’ part. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but I’m the type of coach where if I have someone tell me what to do, I’ll do it. I’ll teach it.
“I’m not the most creative individual you’re going to find,” he said. “I’m better at telling them what to do, and I’m happy to go out and do that. I’ve worked for 10 different head coaches during my career, and I’ve had 10 different philosophies, offenses, defenses and 10 different coaching methods. There is no right and wrong. The important thing is just whatever the head coach wants to do, teach the kids up and go from there.”
The Kanitz coaching method
Centering faith and leadership is also an important aspect of Kanitz’s approach to coaching, as he is dedicated to the spiritual mission that St. Francis engrains into its educational model.
Keeping calm in difficult moments during games and being a good example for his student-athletes is a focus each game, according to Kanitz.
“When I first started, there was so much pressure that was present in the coaching world and I felt it, and I still feel it,” Kanitz said. “I am trying to answer to what Our Heavenly Father sees for these girls, and about what he thinks about coaching. I learned quickly that kids pay attention to everything you say, and you have to be very positive as to what you say because you can get pretty heated in athletics. I gotta keep my composure, keep my cool.”
As a coach, Kanitz is supportive of students who try out multiple sports in high school as he has seen the positive impact that participating in athletics can have on a student.
“I think in today’s there’s so much specialization that goes on that kids feel pressure to do travel (sports),” Kanitz said. “It does limit participation, especially at smaller communities, and all the kids to go out for sports and so that there’s definitely a big change in travel. It’s taken away from the high school experience for some. In my opinion, I want kids to follow their passion and I want them to pursue their dreams if that’s the route they go. I’m supportive of it, but I wish that sometimes we could go back to in-season sports but that’s like a lot of things in life and it’s fine if they want that.”
When he’s coaching, Kanitz said he’ll often watch other teams and scout for good strategies and approaches to improve his team’s game.
For Kanitz, being a good communicator is a key to the success of the strategies he teaches on and off the court. A self-described quiet personality, Kanitz has worked hard to hone his ability to connect with students and come out of his shell on the court.
“I try to study other teams and scout, and I pick up information from them and I feel a responsibility to be able to communicate that to kids,” Kanitz said. “The responsibility of coaching and teaching makes me probably come out of my shell more. It’s something that makes me more positive, and I feel I have responsibilities that are important for young people to learn.”
Other community schools are another aspect of high school sports that Kanitz has enjoyed, including the rivalries and quality contenders he played against over the years, helping his teams improve along the way.
Kanitz said having good opponents was an important part of teaching students humility when things didn’t go their way during a game.
“We’ve had different schools that we had to get through in order to be successful, and sometimes we won and sometimes we lost,” Kanitz said. “At the end of the day, I sincerely appreciated the other school’s efforts to be their best, and us to be our best. The saying ‘may the best team win’ holds true, after we’re no longer part of a tournament run I really do wish the other schools well. The camaraderie and the relationships I have with other schools, I hold those to be sacred and we’re all just trying to make kids’ lives better.
“I feel that we have a responsibility to do our very best to be a good sport about it and when the game’s over, shake hands and appreciate other schools,” he continued. “It’s not easy in today’s world to be successful in athletics, and not everybody wins. Somebody’s gonna lose, but I think there’s more joy in the attempt and the try and just being a good sport about it. I’m sincere about other schools in Northern Michigan being very kind. I develop relationships with other schools and enjoy when we build all those arenas to see these folks, they’re kind of like family.”
Kanitz’s love for basketball goes back decades and views it as one of the more mentally challenging disciplines in high school sports.
He said he has seen that basketball often allows students to focus their thoughts on plays and skills instead of the stresses of everyday teenage life.
“Basketball isn’t an easy sport to play, and that’s something I wish kids got more credit for trying it,” Kanitz said. “Basketball is pretty complicated, so it’s a challenge, and that’s probably one of the things I like about it. When you’re playing basketball, you don’t have time to think about anything else. It really allows student-athletes to break away from this constant ‘go, go, go!’ of their lives.
“When you’re playing basketball, time goes by fast because you don’t have time to do anything else but play basketball. I’ve always enjoyed that as a sport. It does occupy your mind and gives you a break from the outside world. It kind of reflects life. Basketball teaches you a lot about hard work and that there’ll be disappointments but how not to be discouraged and to keep going.”
Seeing former student-athletes succeed after graduation is another bright spot in coaching, according to Kanitz, who has seen many generations pass through the gym and go on to lead impressive lives.
Being a good influence and example of leadership for young women and ensuring his students have support on and off the court is an important part of the job, according to Kanitz.
“It just gives me great joy to see them again, see that they’re well in life,” Kanitz said. “It’s a cool thing. I do enjoy seeing former players a lot, and it happens to me all the time. They don’t necessarily live here, but many have family still here. I run into them every day in the grocery store, or downtown in the summertime. It’s fun to see them again and laugh about things that went on, about the memories of the fun of being with each other, teammates and such. The winning and losing part, that kind of strikes me as interesting because as a coach I remember stuff that I shouldn’t remember. I can remember the games we lost, and wish we would have done this and would have done that, but the kids don’t. The kids don’t remember that and that’s a lesson for me too.”
Down memory lane
For Kanitz, a memory that will always stay with him is the 2016 state finals run as an assistant coach for the girls’ team.
He said the memory of excitement at the chance to play in the Breslin Center in Lansing is a core memory of his years of coaching.
“It was very memorable and it was also eye-opening in terms of the impact that it had on the other team that won the state championship game,” Kanitz said. “We had just gotten beat. We were all underneath the tunnels at Breslin and we were all crying for joy, and we were crying out of sadness but it was a humbling moment. I had to look happy that they were so happy. I had to really acknowledge that. There was disappointment in that loss, but it was a beautiful season, and not everybody wins the last game of the season. That’s just a fact. There’s only one team in each division that wins their last game.
“Keith Haske was our head coach and he was a Hall of Fame head coach,” he said. “I enjoyed him. I worked for 10 head coaches, and all of them have blessed my life, but that first state championship run was the best we’d ever accomplished and we had a very good team. One of the young ladies is now in the Marine Corps. It was, was a long time ago, but it wasn’t a long time ago. Those kids have all moved on and are doing beautiful things. I hope and pray they remember that whole experience we had too together.”
Looking back, Kanitz said he would have advised himself to be less serious and have more fun as a young coach.
Learning to appreciate the process and not focus solely on a team’s record of wins and losses took time, according to Kanitz.
Today, Kanitz centers on being an example for his athletes in and out of sports seasons and ensuring that he has as much fun as the students he coaches.
“My message is be competitive and be kind,” Kanitz said. “That is something that Katie Heintz, who played 20 years ago, had. The mindset about being competitive and being kind, and we all have adopted that. It holds very true. It’s okay to, as a young lady, very be assertive, be aggressive, but in the process be kind. It’s just a better way to do things. We’re with Christ, whether or not kids are looking at us that way. They know we honor God and praise God, but we want to be kind and competitive. Everybody has different parts that they feel are important, but that’s how I think it has evolved. Each group, each season is different. That’s the other shocking thing. Each season is so different but I keep that same mindset when I coach.”
Kanitz said that being a part of a school sports program with such an extensive history comes with the responsibility to create new chapters through each season that exemplify the mindset that St. Francis strives for.
Staying grateful for his position is an aspect that Kanitz has an easy time with due to the support he receives from the students and families at games each season.
He’s excited to keep the tradition of positivity going as a coach.
“It’s very humbling to think about all those who have come before us,” Kanitz said. “The most important thing is that we stand on the shoulders of all those who have gone before us and we have a duty to carry on in a God-honoring fashion so that another 100 years from now, young ladies at St. Francis can have a wonderful experience playing basketball. We (have) a huge responsibility to keep it going in a God-honoring way. The goal is that we try to accomplish, be thankful for those who have come before us.”
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