Schlabach receives OHSAA’s prestigious Wootten Award

Every year the Ohio High School Basketball Association honors coaches, officials and other contributors who make an impact on Ohio high school athletics.

The Morgan Wootten Lifetime Achievement Award girls winner for the 2025-26 season was none other than legendary Hiland Lady Hawks basketball coach Dave Schlabach.

During his tenure as head coach of the Lady Hawks program, Schlabach won 689 games and captured six state championships over 30 years as the head coach at Berlin Hiland before retiring in 2021. That winning total currently ranks him seventh in OHSAA history among girls basketball coaches. During that time he has helped nearly five dozen Lady Hawks players earn scholarships in continuing their playing careers and education at the collegiate level, and he has served as a mentor for many of them who have come through the program.

The Morgan Wootten Lifetime Achievement Award is a prestigious honor presented by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and sponsored by the Elks Hoop Shoot to high school basketball coaches who have made significant, lifelong contributions to the sport. A boys and girls coach are both honored annually for their dedication and excellence in mentoring student-athletes.

“The Coaches Association reached out to me a couple months back; it’s probably just some old guy award they give you for hanging around forever,” Schlabach said. “No, it’s an honor to be recognized, and it was fun to go back to the state tournament (during the Division II state final game in Dayton) and reconnect with a lot of the coaches I’ve coached with over the years."

Schlabach said when he first started coaching more than three decades ago, he wanted to create something special and do things the right way. He got great direction in understanding the game, first from his father, then from his legendary high school coach Charlie Huggins and fellow coach and mentor Perry Reese Jr.

While Schlabach said it was an honor, he said wisdom over the years has led him to realize wins and titles pale in comparison to the relationships among fellow coaches, his own coaching staff and the hundreds of players who have played under his guidance over the years, as well as families of his players.

“Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in trying to win so much when you’re coaching. Then you step away from it and realize how much more all of these other things built around relationships matters,” Schlabach said. “I think I recognized that the last decade of my coaching career. It’s the camaraderie, it’s seeing the kids find success and achieve things they didn’t realize were possible, and it's the friendships that grew out of all this that matter. It’s the people that matter the most.”

One of those people was David “Cousy” Borter, who coached alongside Schlabach as his assistant coach for nearly the entire tenure of Schlabach’s coaching career.

“What an incredible part of this program and my life,” Schlabach said of Borter. “I probably saw as much of him as I did my wife at times.”

That said, Schlabach said he can never thank his family enough for the support and understanding they showed throughout his career, saying they too sacrificed a lot so he could build the Hiland program.

Aside from the nearly 700 victories, Inter-Valley Conference titles, record number of trips to the state tournament and state championships, Schlabach has another feather in his cap, that being the Classic in the Country, which he directed along with Tom Jenkins since its inception.

The state and nationally renowned girls high school basketball showcase is a one-of-a-kind event that draws thousands to Berlin every January.

“With the help of Tom, we were able to grow that thing to garner respect, and more people knew about Hiland basketball as that grew,” Schlabach said. “I think that may have played a role in this award too. It was something we could return to benefit the whole state.”

He said the success of many other Hiland sports programs also speaks volumes as to the caliber of players and the drive to work hard and succeed in Holmes County.