Ron Welch Women's Basketball Coach WPE Instructor Kalamazoo Valley Community College PO Box 4070 / Texas Township Campus 6767 West O Avenue Kalamazoo, MI 49003-4070 Phone (269) 488-4446 Fax (269) 488-4172 E-mail Coach Welch

     Coach Ron Welch is a native of Brown City, a farming community in the Thumb Region of Michigan.  He was a four sport athlete at the small Class "C" school, playing football, basketball, baseball, and running the sprints in track. After high school Welch entered Central Michigan University where he participated in both the basketball program as a freshman team player before they allowed freshmen on the varsity team) and the baseball program, where he was a promising candidate at 2nd base.  A rotator cuff injury effectively ended his playing career, but did not dampen his enthusiasm for either sport.
     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 KalamazooValley. He resigned the Comstock position at the end of the 1995-96 school year to devote more effective time to the recruiting effort at here at Kalamazoo Valley.
     Having 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 extremely popular Lady Cougar Basketball Camp for players ages 11 thru 17.  He also instituted a varsity girls' team camp, which is available for area high schools to get in some competition during the summer.   
     Another summer activity initiated by Welch is the "Open Gym" for his players, any other college players from the area and local juniors & seniors in high school who want to continue to work on their skills during the summer months.  This endeavor has proven very popular and has provided an opportunity for the KVCC players to work out against some of the best players from the area who either started at KVCC and went on to four year schools or went to a four year school to begin their career.
   
     "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 our play to that of coach Shilts' men's  program.  We knew that if we did that and became competitive in the super tough Western Conference of the MCCAA, we would be competitive at the national level because it's one of the strongest division II JUCO conferences in the United States." 
     Misson accomplished - but not completed.  The Lady Cougar program has become nationally recognized, winning over 23 games six out of the last nine years (they finished 24-5 in the 2006-07 season). The Cougars have not finished lower than third in the conference in the last nine years and have claimed the championship - or a share of it - five times (twice undefeated at 14-0!). They have also collected two Michigan Community College Association Championships (plus two runner up spots!), four NJCAA Regional Championships (and were runners up in 2007) and made four trips to the NJCAA National Championships.  The Cougars have advanced to the national semi-finals twice ('01/'02 and '03/'04) unfortunately taking close losses both times.  They placed 5th on their first trip in 2000-01 and matched that feat in 2005-06 compiling a 3-1 record in Phoenix.  
      Stressing recruiting, Welch continues, "We feel that our success in recent years (each freshmen class for the last eight years has made at least one trip to the national tournament and also won a conference championship) has been accomplished with an aggressive recruiting effort within our area, while still being open to student athletes 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 also take a lot of pride in the fact that we've been able to help place athletes into four year school situations after their time here."  Welch concludes by saying, "There is no finer community college in the state of Michigan to begin your academic and athletic career.  It's a great opportunity for both those in our community and beyond!"  Welch has accumulated 244 wins at Kalamazoo Valley and was named JUCO Coach of the Year (for the second time) after the 06-07 season in addition to being named Western Conference Co-Coach of the Year.
      Coach Welch and his bride of 39 years, Phylis, are the proud parents of three sons, Kipp, 38; Joseph, 33; and Patrick, 29; and two daughters, Jill, 27; and Maureen, 24.  Both of his daughters are graduates of KVCC and were heavily involved in the basketball program.  Jill was team manager for two years before graduating in the spring of 2002 and continues to be the "un-official" team photographer.  Maureen was a member of the 2001-2002 Conference Championship team that also went on to the National Tournament and the 2002-2003 Lady Cougar team, on which she was the lone sophomore. The women's basketball program is very much a family affair.  The Welch family has been an active part of the Kalamazoo community since 1972.

Coaching Staff Pictures         Back to Women's Basketball Home Page

Interested in Being a Lady Cougar?  Click Here!

Back to the Athletic Home Page