BOB HAAS OF WILLARD
Coach Haas' teams during the 1980, 1981 and 1982 seasons set the record for Ohio high school boys consecutive regular season victories. His coaching career began at Southeastern High School in Clark County where he was 52 and 28 in four years. In two years at Northeastern High School, his record was 29 and 12. For the next 22 years, he served at Willard High School, where his teams won 441 and lost only 74, for a total of 522 wins and 114 losses during his high school coaching career - a phenomenal 82.1% success rate! His coaching philosophy was "At Willard, Coach Haas promoted a popular saying, 'The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.' This quote came from Beverly Johnson, the first woman to scale the granite challenge of El Capitan. Haas applied this quote to his basketball program to keep his players focused on what had to be done at the present, rather than spending irrelevant concern with the past or the future. They had an elephant mascot, and elephants began popping up everywhere in Willard. It became a fun way to underscore the need to 'keep you nose to the grindstone'." |