Hinz’s Hounds always in hunt
Danielle Haynes has track and field figured out.
“There is nothing really fun about track, to be perfectly honest,” the Pullman senior said.
She was smiling at the time but thinking about her upcoming long jump.
Shedding warm sweats, she would stand in the biting cold before running into the wind and landing in wet sand at Pasco’s Edgar Brown Stadium.
That’s supposed to be the fun part of track.
To convince teenagers that a workout in those same conditions is worth the effort, a coach better have an understanding of fun.
Greyhounds coach Mike Hinz does.
“I don’t deny it’s trying at times,” said Hinz, 60. “When you’re dealing with teenage minds, who knows where it’s going to take you, but I wouldn’t continue doing this if I didn’t enjoy it so much.”
“He makes it fun,” said Greyhounds standout Ashton Gant, who will play football at Eastern Washington in the fall. “The workouts that we do aren’t always serious.”
Fun was Hinz’s first course of study in college.
After an average career as a distance runner at East Valley-Yakima he went to Washington State in the early 1960s. One of his first classes was Jack Mooberry’s “fun and inspiring” track class. Still, he rebuffed the legendary coach’s attempts to get him to turn out.
“I had enough sense to know I wouldn’t be much of a credit to his team due to my academic misadventures,” Hinz said. “I did not do too well. That first year of college I was majoring in pinochle.”
That said, Hinz also knows hard work.
As a “direct result of those academic misadventures” he enlisted in the Marines, then returned to WSU to get degrees in animal sciences and business administration. Eventually he worked on the scientific support staff in the chemistry department for 28 years before retiring.
Hinz didn’t return to track until 1988, when his oldest son, John, a Pullman freshman, decided to throw the shot put. Hinz “boned up” on the event and became a volunteer coach. His duties increased – becoming head coach in 1993 – as his second son, Bill, went through the program.
But it wasn’t just a father-son experience.
“When the boys and I became so engrossed in track and field, particularly in summers, my wife jumped in with both feet,” Hinz said. “In her first year she became the Inland Northwest age group record holder in the shot put, discus and javelin.
“The next year I told her the hammer record was soft. Indeed, the first throw she ever threw she set a national age group record. It didn’t last long, but she did hold it.
“Around this community my two points of identity are being Mr. Sue and the track coach at Pullman, plus president of track club.”
The boys turned track into an education at Wabash College in Indiana.
Mike and Sue leave next month for Bill’s graduation from medical school. John, who has a PhD in molecular biology, is a cancer researcher at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California.
Hinz’s years have produced consistent success for the Greyhounds.
In just the eight seasons since the 2A classification was established, the boys have finished lower than third just once – when they were fifth in 1994. They won state titles in 1998 and 2003 and were second the last two years.
The girls have trophied four times, winning championships in 2001 and last spring. Both should be contenders again this year.
“One key to success is success breeds success,” Hinz said. “When young people see a successful program, they want to be part of it. That helps us get the relatively large turnouts and those large turnouts have a better chance of producing some pretty good athletes.”
Obviously, it goes much deeper than that.
“He coaches everybody the same, not just the stars,” said sophomore Lindsay Myron, the state’s leading triple jumper. “A lot of people do it to have fun and he’s really encouraging. There’s so much to do and anybody can do it. Anybody can do well if they work hard. If they’re coached well, they can excel. It’s not about who you beat or how you place, it’s about how you do as an individual. You start at your own level and work up.”
Working with the track club helps Hinz identify athletes, but the first job is just getting them to enjoy the sport.
“He keeps encouraging us – he’s kind of like a dad,” said Haynes, who will be a cheerleader at Oral Roberts next year. “Coach Hinz is committed to the program and he has the drive to make us better. He’ll go to any level.”
The Greyhounds are known for their speed, which covers a lot of events and makes dominating relays.
“I’ve had a couple of coaches remark to me something to the effect, ‘sprinter genes,’ but I keep my thoughts to myself,” Hinz said. “If you think sprinting is all genetic, I’ll whip your butt every year. Sprinting is a skill every bit as much as throwing or triple jumping. It’s a skill and we treat it as such. No matter who we get, we feel we can make them faster. We know the technical models to work with, the kinds of drills and training that lead to proper form and execution.”
But even then there are a number of options for fast athletes.
“Most experienced coaches will tell you (that) you don’t want to stereotype your athletes,” Hinz said. “Keep an open mind, be willing to experiment, encourage them to keep an open mind. Often you’ll find that person you originally pigeonholed in one event will excel in quite some other area.”
Even if their first choice is pinochle.