He's intense on the court, kind on campus, and a father-figure to many. He is none other than Dale Vos, and this year marks his 30th anniversary at St. Clair County Community College. 

"Dale truly cares about all of the athletes, especially the ones he coaches," Pete Lacey, vice president of student services, said. "He's well-liked by everyone, not just in our community, but all over. If you mention his name in a regional or national meeting, he's well-known across America."  

Vos joined SC4 in 1990 as the head coach for the Skippers' men's basketball team. He also taught a few different classes, served as an advisor to students, and was the director of activities before taking the role of Athletic Director in 1994. 

"I was the AD at the time, involved in hiring Dale," Ross Green said. "We were hiring him to be the basketball coach. On the day we interviewed him, I asked, 'Do you want to see the area?' because I knew he was from Zeeland over on the other side of the state."  

Vos accepted the invitation and the two walked all over campus and around the city of Port Huron.  

"We walked and walked. Apparently, he was wearing new shoes too, because after I hired him, he said, 'You know when you walked me all over? I got blisters.'" Green said with a laugh. "I asked why he didn't tell me, and he said because he thought it would've been awkward."  

Green said they chose Vos, blisters and all, because of his passion for the sport and his excitement to coach.  

"We wanted somebody young and who had experience as an assistant and played college basketball," Green said. "He was very outgoing and willing to go out and find good players. You could tell he was really excited about the job."  

Now he continues in his roles as Athletic Director and men's basketball coach and has recently added coaching the men's golf team to his resumé. Outside of his work at SC4, Vos serves as the NJCAA Region 12 Men's Director, a NJCAA Board of Regents member, and the NJCAA Board of Regents Treasurer.  

Tom Shaw, the Athletic Director at Kellogg Community College, has worked with Vos as his Assistant Regional Director for the last several years.  

"Dale has really been our leader to keep our region together to forge through this pandemic. We can't make the rules, but we can certainly talk about how to get the athlete back in a practice setting this fall," Shaw said. "He brings 30 years of experience and that's vital to the association...He looks for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people."  

He not only serves the NJCAA well, but also his local Skippers, according to Lacey. 

"He has been a real advocate for our community, and he represents us really well on multiple stages, from the state to the regional and national levels," Lacey said. "I think he's extremely dedicated to our college and community."  

The late Jim Whymer spoke highly of Vos, "One of the best things about coach Vos is how he treats the Skipper student-athletes on and off the basketball court. He can be tough on his players but knows when to ease up on them. As the SC4 AD, Dale has been very supportive of new sports, the athletes and coaches."

Whymer continued in saying, " I remember well the day I met Dale. [It was] when he was hired as the new coach. I was covering a track meet for the Times Herald at Port Huron High. It's been a lot of fun working with him over the years, especially the past seven years in the athletic department. He has watched my children grow up and has always been supportive of them. I have been able to do the same with his three children."

Perhaps more important than his dedication to the Skippers and the surrounding community is his dedication to his family. Vos married his wife Beth in 1995 and together they have three kids, Dane, 20, Erin, 20, and Zoey, 17. Although he's heavily involved around campus and in NJCAA athletics, the way he fulfills his role as a husband and a father are what the people closest to him respect the most. 

Craig Archer is one of those people. He played for Vos from 2006-2008 and has since returned to help him as an assistant men's basketball coach in 2015. Archer said after college he and his wife got their first jobs in west Michigan, but he wanted to come back to the Blue Water Area to work alongside Vos.  

"It's nothing he said or did, but it's just how he lives his life. He's extremely invested in the community and his family, and that's what I want for my life. Being around that just made sense," Archer said. "I want to have a family that's super successful like Dale's and I want to look back on all the people I've been able to help. His players are all over doing some incredible things and he helps shape and mold some of who they are. I really like that, and I want to do that too."  

As an athlete playing for Vos, Archer said he appreciated the way he coached and mentored the team. Now as an assistant coach, Archer said he notices the way Vos has raised his family and wants to do the same. 

"I have three kids under five, so we have a hopping house, but it's fun. I take so many cues from him as a young father now. He's a really great role model," Archer said. "The first thing I've noticed is that dad never turns off for him. After watching him with his adult son Dane, I see that he's always a dad and that doesn't stop because I've seen him as a coach and as a dad and he's the same. He's not different at home than he is with people."  

Archer said it's refreshing to see someone be so genuine and honest with all people.  

"If you find a person like that, how can you not want to come work for him?" he said.  

Vos brings that fatherly spirit with him to gym each day as he works with his athletes. Brendalle Smith played for Vos from 2011-2013 and said having him as a coach was a blessing.  

"He understood how we needed to play basketball both as a team and as individuals. He wasn't just looking for players, he was looking for men, for student-athletes," Smith said. "Outside of sports, if I ever needed a reference for a job, I could always count on him. Growing up, where I was from, I didn't have a church home and he brought me into his church. He shaped me into knowing I can believe in God."  

Matt Van Dyk is another one of Vos' athletes who will always remember the lasting impact he made on his life. Van Dyk graduated from Imlay City High School in 2012 with the goal of playing at a four-year school. After his first semester, he decided to return to the Blue Water Area. 

"I decided I didn't want to stay there, but I didn't know what other options there were. I called Coach Vos and told him I was thinking about transferring, and he encouraged me to come to SC4, saying that community colleges open up your options," Van Dyk said. "But he didn't just try to persuade me to come to SC4. He helped me try to figure out what was best for myself."  

A year later Van Dyk was about to graduate from SC4 and had another decision to make. His dream was always to play at Michigan State University, and when he told his coach that, Vos was eager to help hm achieve his goal. 

"He went above and beyond to help me get that dream and make it happen. He never had a player do that and he didn't know what the steps were, but he said I'll do whatever you need," Van Dyk said. "He was always supportive and never tried to persuade me one way or another. I was able to walk on and had a fun three years there."  

Van Dyk said he had a lot of great coaches, but what set Vos apart from the rest was his genuine heart. 

"While I was at MSU he would just call me and ask, 'Matt how are you doing?' I would have a lot of people call me, asking if they could get tickets or trying to find out which players were going to the league," he said. "But with Coach Vos, the whole intention of his call was just to see how I was doing. He really focuses on his players, asking, 'How's your family? How's your faith? What can I do to help you?' I'll always respect and appreciate him for that."  

Mentoring young men and women is one of Vos' favorite parts of his job, not only as a coach, but also as the AD. 

"We're all competitive, we all want to win, and the games are important, and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't important to me. I like the strategy, the games, and the preparation for games. I love all that stuff," Vos said. "But the stuff that lasts is the relationships you build with the players, and even the assistant coaches. Those are cool relationships that last forever." 

After graduating from SC4, Smith stayed to help coach the men's basketball team for a few years before venturing on to coach a team of his own.  

"That first year was different because I was like the same age as most of the kids on the team," Smith said. "But I learned a lot and now I put the things that he taught me into my AAU team." 

Vos certainly has acquired a lot of knowledge and experience to pass down to young coaches like Smith. Prior to taking over the Skippers' program, Vos worked as an assistant coach at West Virginia Wesleyan College for two years and one year at Alma College. Then he came to SC4, where took over what Lacey called the "losingest program in America."  

Vos remembers that first season well. 

"The team had lost 68-straight games. We won our very first game, which I still think is probably a miracle," Vos said. "We went over to Flint to play Jordan College, who doesn't even exist anymore, and beat them 100-97." 

He's not the only one to think the game was anything short of a miracle. 

"We were playing a team and we didn't really have any business beating them. I'd say they were better than us," Green said. "The people from the paper were bugging me about the losing streak and I told them, 'I don't think you're going to want to miss this game. You might want to cover it.' I have no idea how, but we won, and the players went nuts, parents went nuts, it was wonderful."  

The success didn't last too long, however. A couple weeks later Jordan College had its revenge. 

"They came back and played us two weeks later and beat us seriously by 30 points. We were never in the game," Vos said. "The nice thing was that we got rid of that [losing streak]. We didn't have to talk about it anymore, and we had a few kids returning from the previous year, so that was nice for them."   

The Skippers went on to win four games that year, and as the seasons went by, the program became more established and saw more success.  

"It took a while though. We started to win 10 to 15 games on a fairly regular basis, but it took a long time before we started to get to where we felt like we should win 20 games on a regular basis," Vos said.  

Finally, the recruiting, planning, and practicing began to pay off. Lacey said the 2009-10 season was one of his favorites. 

"My favorite memory was in 2010 when they went to the National Championship for the first time. Dale had been coaching for 20 years and his work had really paid off," Lacey said. "He does a great job of getting a nice blend of local talent and talent from outside the area. He gets those athletes to believe in each other and work together."  

That 2010 team had athletes from all over Michigan, including Richmond, Memphis, Flint, Pontiac, and Detroit.  

"It was magical," Lacey said. "They were really talented as a team, not individually. That team mindset is what helped them get there."  

Archer might say it was Vos' discipline and work ethic that helped turn the program around.  

"One of my favorite memories was when we were in Florida for a trip and we were in the hotel playing cards," Archer said. "Coach was really concerned about us playing cards, but then he realized we weren't playing for money." 

Instead, the team played for pushups. The winner would get a thousand pushups to hand out to his teammates for the remainder of the trip. 

"He just did this nod like, 'That's good, go ahead,' after he realized that," Archer said. "The whole trip people were just doing pushups." 

More recently, Vos had the opportunity to coach his own son, Dane for the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons. Beth called those two seasons her "payoff" as she finally got to see the two on the same team. 

"To see Dane on the bench, and even the years leading up to that when Dane would practice with the team to improve his skills a little bit and travel with the team, was really cool to see," she said.  

For Dane, it was an opportunity to see a new side of his dad, which involved a lot more yelling, he said with a laugh. 

"He yells a lot at practice. He doesn't yell a lot at home, so that was the biggest difference," he said. "He was pretty tough on me and pushed me in practice. He would say he was tougher on me than anyone else, but I think he did a pretty good job of treating me the same. He didn't show favorites or anything." 

He said he was glad for the two years he got to play with his dad and has moved on to Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan, where he's continuing his basketball career.  

"It was really cool. We got a lot closer because I was with him every single day for two hours," Dane said. "There were a lot of different things that happened along the way that were really cool to experience with my dad, not just my coach and my team." 

His players have called him coach, father, and friend. Those who work with him call him genuine and respectable.  

"I think that's a credit to Dale because people like him. It's kind of like he's a celebrity almost. It's kind of weird," Beth said, chuckling. "A lot of people know him, but some people are like, 'Who was that? I don't know him.' But when you go 30 years somewhere, you get to know a lot of people."  

Beth says she's always felt community support for her husband, her family, and the college. 

"A lot of opportunities have come up for him throughout the years, and honestly we just kept saying as long as his mom and my mom are still here, we're just going to stay put," she said. "We like the community. We like our church family. And plus, once the kids got older, it didn't make sense to leave anywhere." 

Vos said he would have to agree and is glad for the community has been a part of in these last 30 years.  

"I'm pleased with how life has turned out and I'm proud of what we've been able to do here," Vos said.