A longtime Whitefish High School track and field coach, Derek Schulz, was recently inducted into the Montana Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame.

At the 56th annual coaching clinic, awards were given out in several categories from coaches of the year to those being inducted into the hall of fame, and this year had four hall of fame inductees, including Schulz.

Schulz was honored for his 27-year coaching career at Whitefish High School. He served as a boys basketball coach for several years and then spent 24 years as a highly successful head track and field coach. He led the Bulldog track teams to a combined nine state titles including helping the girls team to its first state title in 35 years in 2019. He retired that year on a high note.

He led the boys track team to 10 state trophies, eight of which were State A boys track championships in 1997, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2013. He was nominated and won Montana Coaches Association Class A Coach of the Year for both boys and girls programs several times throughout his career. In 2017, he was honored as the 2017 NHSACA National Boys Track and Field Coach of the Year.

In a Whitefish Pilot article that highlighted his coaching and teaching career published in 2019, he said, “I love the spirit of watching kids improve. I love seeing the smile on their face. I love seeing them work hard. I love the relationships I’ve built with those kids and a lot of the assistant coaches over the years. We’ve been really competitive over the years and we’ve been mostly successful, and this year was an example of that. I’ll miss that.”

Schulz received the hall of fame honor alongside 50-year Helena Captial coach Lon Carter, 20-year Great Falls swim coach Ed McNamee and 29-year coach with both Browning and Great Falls, Steve Komac.