During the eight varsity seasons when Michal Wright was the head football coach at the Flint Hill School, his Huskies accomplished a lot.
But for those now mourning the 63-year-old Wright, who unexpectedly died of cardiac arrest on Feb. 17, his coaching abilities aren’t what they remember the most. Instead, it was how he lived his life that took center stage.
Friends described Wright as “a light on a lampstand” and observed that “the Lord needed an angel” during a funeral service Tuesday (Feb. 25) at the Kent School.
In addition to graduating from the co-ed boarding school in Connecticut, Wright worked as an associate director of admissions, the head baseball coach, an assistant coach in football and boys’ basketball, and a student adviser.
“Michal brings us all together,” said Leelee Smith Klein, who graduated from Kent School in 1981, the same class as Wright. “Michal made everyone feel they were heard and special. His soul was invaluable. He was so outstanding an athlete — and more as a person.”
Wright was hired by Flint Hill School in the early 2000s to restart the varsity football program, which had ended about a decade earlier.
Tom Whitworth was head of the private Oakton prep school at the time and made the decision to hire Wright.
“He was one of the best hires I ever made, one in a million,” Whitworth, who’s now retired and living in North Carolina, told FFXnow.
Under Wright, Flint Hill won four conference championships, finished second twice, earned five state-tournament berths with a runner-up trophy in 2008, and compiled a 43-33 overall record.
More than a dozen of his Flint Hill players received Division I football scholarships.
Wright is the second winningest football coach in Flint Hill history, but like at Kent School, his personal touch is what most distinguished him to colleagues and students.
“I observed him interacting with kids, and I was blown away with how he handled them and was direct and honest with them,” Whitworth said. “Michal was a magnet who attracted kids and players.”
Jody Patrick and Dennis Guiliani were faculty members with Wright at Flint Hill, and shared their thoughts with FFXnow.
“He was a wonderful role model and knew how to connect with kids so well. He knew coaching and people,” Patrick said.
Guiliani described Wright’s calm nature with athletes, saying he wasn’t a yeller as a coach.
“Michal was so mild-mannered, but still got his message across very well that way,” Guiliani said.
After leaving Flint Hill in 2012, Wright became the head football coach at Pinewood Prep in Summerville, South Carolina. His Panthers teams had big success there as well during his six seasons in charge.
Wright eventually returned to Kent School to coach and work.
Current Flint Hill trainer Derek Ross, one of Wright’s best friends at Flint Hill, had known Wright for 23 years. The two kept in touch after Wright left the Oakton school.
“Mike could brighten your day just by walking into your office,” said Ross, who traveled to Kent School for the memorial service.
“We would talk a lot,” Ross said. “He was so humble and unassuming.”
Rico Reed is Flint Hill’s boys head basketball coach. He coached football with Wright at Flint Hill, where Reed’s son played on the team.
“Mike was one of the most respectful people I have ever met in my life,” Reed said. “He had such a willingness to give, and everything he did was genuine. He coached my son and raised the level of his IQ and confidence. The Lord must have needed a coach up there.”
As a student at Kent School, Wright was a three-sport standout and ultimately got inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame. He also coached four sports at the school, including girls softball.
For his achievements at the college level, Wright was inducted into the St. Lawrence University Athletic Hall of Fame. After college, he had a tryout with the NFL’s Miami Dolphins.
“He had the unique ability to make everyone feel valued, as if they were the most important person in the room,” Michael Hirschfeld, Kent School’s head of school, said.
