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Coach passes on his winning ways

By Jose Alfredo Flores
USA TODAY

The backyard games that David Houle and his 11 brothers and sisters played fueled him with the competitive drive it takes to win 49 state championships.

He has coached five teams in three different sports to titles in his 23-year career at Mountain View High in Orem, Utah. And Houle, who will be inducted into the High School Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday, says you can trace his success to his siblings.

''Having to share one bathroom with five teenage girls definitely helped me on how to coach girls,'' says Houle, 47.

Of his 906 career coaching victories, 672 came with his girls teams. His grandmother, Alice Sherlock, raced against men for gold nuggets. She paid for college with her winnings, was a teacher by age 18 and a principal at 23. ''She showed me that girls can do anything,'' Houle says.

Houle has coached the Bruins' boys and girls track teams, the boys and girls cross-country teams, and the girls basketball team. In his 15 years as head coach of all five, his teams have won 92% of their contests.

Houle has produced 43 All-Americans and 233 all-state athletes. One of them, Raegan Scott, a former WNBA player and assistant women's basketball coach at Colorado State, says Houle is one of her coaching idols.

She remembers that when Mountain View practices became tense, Houle would tell his players to ''cool off.'' That meant running outside and having snowball fights. ''I'm not sure how this would motivate us, but it did,'' Scott says.

Houle stays in contact with many of his former players. ''I've got two kids of my own but after coaching 1,000 kids I feel like I have 1,000 more.''

Among the 13 others who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame are NBA great Kevin McHale and the late track and field legend Steve Prefontaine.