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Bio: Welch has coached at almost every level, ranging from 5th and 6th grade, to high school varsity, to assisting at a four year school (Nazareth College in Kalamazoo - 1988 thru 1990), to his current position. Coach Welch coached his first team in 1964, an 8th grade boys team, at Brown City High School and was bitten by the coaching "bug". Other stops along the way locally include a stint as Athletic Director and Varsity girls' basketball coach at Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Central from 1983-1988, and then as Varsity girls' basketball coach at Comstock High School from 1992 thru 1996. In Late February of 1995, Welch was hired as Head Coach at Kalamazoo Valley and for one year held both the varsity girls job at Comstock and the position at Kalamazoo Valley. Although he has coached both boys and girls at various levels, Coach Welch made a strong commitment to coaching the female athlete in 1985, and has not coached a boys team since then. He still enjoys working with the younger players as well as college level players and each summer directs the popular Lady Cougar Basketball Camp for players ages 11 thru 17. "Our goal in the women's basketball program here at Kalamazoo Valley was pretty simple when we started," says Welch. "We wanted to raise the level of play in the women's program to mirror that of coach Shilts' men's program and become competitive in the always tough Western Conference of the MCCAA. We knew we would be competitive at the national level because the Western conference has proven it's one of the strongest division II conferences in the United States." Misson accomplished. The Lady Cougar program has become nationally recognized, winning over 23 games six out of the last ten years. During that span the Cougars have not finished lower than third in the conference and have claimed the championship - or a share of it - five times (twice undefeated at 14-0!) They have also collected two MCCCA Championships - and two runner up spots, five NJCAA Regional Championships (and were runners up in 2007) and made five trips to the NJCAA National Championships. Welch's Cougars have advanced to the national semi-final game twice ('01/'02 and '03/'04) unfortunately taking close losses both times to knock them out of the hunt for a National championship. Stressing recruiting, Welch continues, "We feel that our success in recent years (the freshmen class for eight of the last ten years has made at least one trip to the national tournament and also won or shared a conference championship) has been accomplished with an aggressive recruiting effort within our local area, while still being open to student athletes from outside the area. By making more people aware of the fine academic and athletic opportunities offered here at Kalamazoo Valley, we have expanded our recruiting base by having some of the finest players from the area stay here for their first two years of competition. We take a lot of pride in the fact that we've been able to help place many athletes into four year school situations after their time here if they wanted to continue to play." Welch has accumulated 304 wins at Kalamazoo Valley and was named JUCO Coach of the Year by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan after the 06-07 season - for the second time. In addition, the veteran coach has been named MCCAA Western Conference Coach of the Year five times and Region XII NJCAA Coach of the Year five times.
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