In a city with Flint’s sports history, it’s hard to produce a résumé that stands out in a crowded field of athletic and coaching achievements. Coach Glen Kelly’s might just be in a class by itself, though.
For 32 years as a teacher, coach, and athletic director at Flint Northwestern, he coached two future Super Bowl champions as the school’s varsity football coach. He also coached the girls’ golf and boys’ tennis varsity teams and coached junior varsity football.
He wasn’t just coaching to coach, though. At the time, Flint Northwestern was a Class A school due to the size of its enrollment, and they competed in the ultra competitive Saginaw Valley League. For years, Kelly made sure that Northwestern could field golf, tennis, soccer, and swimming teams to continue competing in the SVL even as the school’s enrollment began declining as the city shrank in the 1990s.
He was also forward-thinking in ensuring that boys’ and girls’ sports programs had equal resources.
Tonya Edwards, who played high school basketball at Northwestern and eventually the University of Tennessee and professionally in the WNBA and in foreign leagues, coached the Northwestern girls’ basketball team to a state championship in 1993.
“Coach Kelly knew that excellence has no gender, and he did not tolerate any inequality,” Edwards said. “We were getting ready to play in the state finals, and I looked down to the baseline and I could see the cheerleaders because he worked to make sure our cheerleaders were there. Then I could turn and look in the stands and see all the fans who came to support us on the fan buses they brought down to the game. We were away from home, but it didn’t feel like it. Because when those girls were coming off that court all I could hear was the crowd saying, ‘Oooh ahh … shoulda been a Wildcat!’”
Edwards was among more than 100 former players, students, colleagues, family, and community members on hand to see the newly refurbished football field at Haskell Community Center named in honor of Kelly on September 20. She spoke about Kelly’s outsized influence on her as a mentor during her own coaching career. In addition to Northwestern, Edwards has also coached at the college level and in the WNBA. She praised Kelly’s loyalty and commitment to Northwestern and the students he served – “I didn’t even know he also coached golf,” she laughed, during her remarks.
“Because of my experiences with him, I knew what equality looked like,” Edwards said. “Early on in my career, when I was head coach at Alcorn State, it made it easy for me to walk into the AD’s office when I saw them starting to build a locker room for the men’s program. I went right in and asked ‘where’s the blueprints for the women?’ We not only got our locker room, our’s was better than the men’s. In an era when many women’s programs are still fighting for scraps, he made sure we had the same opportunities, same equipment, and same resources as the men’s teams. Some 30+ years ago, coach Kelly was already making sure we had the same platform as the men. It wasn’t him doing us a favor, it was his philosophy. I wish every board room, locker room, room, had a Glen Kelly in it.”
One of the two future Super Bowl champions Kelly coached (the other was Mark Ingram Sr.), Andre Rison, also spoke at the field dedication. He said Kelly was “like a father” to him and many other athletes at Northwestern.
“I never thought I’d win a Super Bowl, never thought I’d be a hall of famer, never thought I’d be All-Big 10, win a Rose Bowl, never thought I’d be MVP of the Gator Bowl, go first round, never thought I could change my family’s life from trying to be the best I could be, and I learned that (I could do all of those things) from coach Kelly,” Rison said. “Everything that he did, I wanted to do. I wanted to be just like him, more than just a coach, a way of life, I wanted a beautiful wife and family and success, and I wanted to be able to give back. Part of my dream and achieving those goals was to come back and coach at Flint Northwestern, which I did, and accomplished that feat too. To be able to watch his wife and family pull that tarp back, that’s phenomenal. I got goose bumps.”
Haskell Community Center is a historic facility on Flint’s northside in the Civic Park area. It has been closed for three years, but the city has been working on renovations to reopen the center and house several community programs there, including the Flint Police Athletic League, a youth sports program run through the police department.
Renovations to the interior of the building are ongoing, but the field has been completed. In addition to football, it will also be equipped to host soccer and lacrosse and other youth programming. There is also a space adjacent to the football field for an outdoor ice skating rink in the winter.
The football field will also become the home field for the International Academy of Flint football program. IAF football plays only road games as they don’t have a football field at their school.
Rison, who currently coaches at University Liggett in Grosse Pointe Woods, also addressed players from International Academy on hand for the field dedication.
“It’s your turn now. It’s your turn to be those type of leaders,” he told them. “Nobody’s perfect, but one thing coach Kelly always said was be on time, be where you’re supposed to be and good things will happen.”
Kelly died in 2024, but several of his family members, including his wife and two sons, were in attendance for the unveiling.
“From the first letter he wrote me when I left Flint to go to school, to the last one that he penned to my youngest son, they all ended the same way: keep your eyes on the prize,” said Kelly’s son, General Jason Kelly. “My dad believed in people. When they doubted themselves, when life got hard, he saw potential where others saw problems. He believed in Flint. Our hometown. Our community. Its grit, its promise. And above all, he believed if you set your eyes on something worthy and don’t look away, you can get there. Even when the road is long and the climb is steep.”
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