Two state title-winning coaches at Whitefish High School and the man who mentored an individual champion at Glacier High School have been named coach of the year in their respective sports by the Montana Coaches Association.
Josh Munro (Glacier; Class AA boys tennis), Derek Schulz (Whitefish; Class A girls track) and Patrick Dryden (Whitefish; Class A girls tennis) have all been selected by their fellow coaches for the award and will be recognized at the MCA Coaches Clinic in Great Falls on Aug. 1.
Munro has coached Wolfpack tennis since the school opened in 2007 and helped sophomore Rory Smith win the Class AA state championship this season. Smith is just the second Glacier boy ever to win the state title, joining four-time champion Kellen Bates (2010-13). Led by Smith, the Glacier boys finished fourth in the state this year. The Wolfpack has won three state titles under Munro, two for the girls (2010 and 2011) and one for the boys (2013).
The Whitefish girls track team won the Class A state championship this spring for the first time in 35 years, and the first time in Schulz’s decorated 23-year tenure. Schulz, a Flathead High School graduate, was named the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Coach of the Year in 2017 and has led the Whitefish boys track team to seven state titles, the most recent in 2013. This year’s Bulldogs girls won the Class A championship despite a third-place finish at the Western A divisional just one week prior. Whitefish won both relays at the state meet and had a remarkable 14 all-state performances.
Dryden’s girls tennis team also took home a state championship, doing so for the second time in the last four years. Whitefish’s title was led by state singles champion Gracie Smyley and the title-winning doubles team of Aubrey Hanks and Olivia Potthoff. Dryden has been coaching in Whitefish for more than a decade and was the Bulldogs head football coach from 2006-09.