June 17, 2009

Miami (Ohio) University’s Charlie Coles to Receive OHSAA Ethics and Integrity Award

Will be honored Friday during annual Scholar-Athlete Banquet

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio High School Athletic Association will present Charlie Coles, the men’s basketball coach at Miami (Ohio) University, with the OHSAA Ethics and Integrity Award Friday in Columbus.

Coles will be recognized during the OHSAA’s 17th Annual Scholar-Athlete Scholarship Banquet at the Crowne Plaza Columbus North. The Ethics and Integrity Award is presented annually to an Ohioan who has displayed outstanding ethical behavior and integrity in performing his or her duties and is a role model for others. The honoree is selected by the OHSAA Sportsmanship, Ethics and Integrity Committee.

Coles has been the head men’s basketball coach at Miami for the past 13 seasons and has been a collegiate head coach for 19 years. He began his head coaching career in 1986 at Central Michigan University, where he won 92 games over the course of six seasons. He was named the head coach at his alma mater Miami in 1996 and has since directed the program to six postseason appearances.

After suffering a cardiac arrest in March of 1998, Coles returned to the bench and guided the RedHawks to their best season in school history. During the 1998-99 season, Miami won a record-tying 24 games and reached the Sweet 16 for the first time while also earning a final ranking among the top 20 in the nation.

Coles has compiled a career-record of 316-252 in his 19 seasons as a head coach, and his 224 wins at Miami are the most in program history. Of his wins, 193 have come in Mid-American Conference play, which is the second-most all-time in conference history.                                                Coles

In addition to the Sweet 16 berth in 1999, Miami made NCAA tournament appearances in 1997 and 2007; played in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in 2005 and 2006, and qualified for the inaugural College Basketball Invitational (CBI) in 2008.

The RedHawks have earned berths in every MAC tournament during Coles’ tenure. Miami holds the record for consecutive MAC Tournament championship game appearances with five straight from 1997-2001.

Under Coles’ direction, 18 players have earned 27 All-MAC awards, including nine first-team members. Over the past six seasons, six different players attained seven first-team all-MAC honors, and Miami is the only MAC school to have at least one first-team honoree each of the last six years.

Coles is an Ohio native who was born in Yellow Springs and became a star athlete at Bryan High School, where he played basketball and averaged over 42 points per game as a senior. He went on to play at Miami and twice earned All-MAC honors. He was inducted into Miami’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1990 and scored 1,096 career points in three seasons at the school.

Coles and his wife, Delores, have a son, Chris; a daughter, Mary Bennett, and four grandchildren — Tyson, Taya and C.J. Coles and Jazz Bennett.

Some of the previous winners of the OHSAA Ethics and Integrity Award have been: Former U.S. Senator John H. Glenn Jr. (1997), whose distinguished career has included military service, the U.S. space program, corporate management and local and national politics; Archie Griffin (1998), executive director of the Alumni Association at The Ohio State University, where, as a student, he was the only football player in history to win the Heisman Trophy twice; Wayne Embry (2000), an NBA executive who is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame; Jo Ann Davidson (2001), the Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives from 1995 through 2000 and the first woman to serve in that role; Bill Hosket (2002), a former basketball standout at Dayton Belmont and Ohio State who also played on Olympic Gold Medal and NBA World Championship teams; Larry Kehres (2003), head football coach at Mount Union who has led the school to 10 NCAA Division III National Championships; Jim Tressel (2004), head football coach at Ohio State who led the 2002 team to a 14-0 record and the school’s first consensus national title since 1968; Pat Tabler (2005), former Major League Baseball player who has been involved in coaching and charity work in the Cincinnati area, and Clark Kellogg (2006), a former high school, collegiate and professional basketball standout who has served as a national college basketball television analyst since 1990.

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Contact Scott Miles, contact: smiles@ohsaa.org