Dave Schlabach earns lifetime honor for Berlin Hiland coaching legacy

Dave Schlabach’s name has now been placed among high school basketball’s most respected coaches, and for Holmes County, the honor reached far beyond one résumé. The Berlin Hiland girls coach was named the girls’ winner of the Morgan Wootten Lifetime Achievement Award for the 2025-26 season, a recognition reserved for people who have made a lasting and profound impact on the game.

The award carries national weight. The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame calls it one of the highest honors in high school basketball, and it is presented by the Elks National Hoop Shoot. Schlabach was included among the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s Circle of Champions honorees tied to the state basketball finals, putting a Berlin-Hiland figure in statewide company once again.

That recognition fits a career built over 30 years at Berlin Hiland, where Schlabach won 689 games and captured six state championships before retiring in 2021. His final game was a 45-25 victory over Ottawa-Glandorf in the Division III state championship game on March 13, 2021, sealing a sixth title and ending his run with a 689-99 record. For a program that became a standard-bearer in Ohio girls basketball, those numbers still define the era.

Hiland made clear how much that era meant to the community when it named its home floor the Dave Schlabach Court in December 2021 at the Perry Reese Jr. Community Center. The court naming honored his three decades of dedication and sacrifice to student-athletes and the community, and it gave Berlin a permanent reminder of the coach who helped turn the Hiland Hawks into a year-after-year contender.

The broader local recognition followed quickly. In April 2021, the Holmes County Board of Commissioners issued proclamations honoring both the state championship Hiland girls team and Schlabach’s career. That county-level salute matched what many longtime fans already knew: Schlabach’s influence was not limited to trophies, but to the standards he set for discipline, preparation and expectation inside the gym.

His roots in Holmes County deepen that connection. The Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association says Schlabach grew up in Holmes County, played for Hall of Fame coach Charlie Huggins, coached alongside Perry Reese Jr., and later worked with his brother Mark Schlabach, who led the Hiland boys to state titles. Taken together, those ties show why this lifetime honor landed as more than a personal award. It was a statewide acknowledgment of the basketball culture Berlin Hiland built, and of the people who helped shape it.