Grandville — It has never “only” been about athletics for Charlie Kleinheksel, a longtime athlete who has spent his professional career both as a coach and classroom teacher.
“I think the great thing when you look at K-12 education is that you’re looking at a full body of work,” he said. “All the different opportunities that kids have, whether it’s within the school day, the classroom or extracurricular activities, those all help to shape a well-rounded student. The K-12 process includes all the extra things that our staff, our administrators, provide for our students, which I think is so much fun.”
Now, as the new athletic director for Grandville Public Schools, Kleinheksel looks forward to bringing his whole self to the role, in order to serve students who are doing the same. SNN gets to know him better in this edition of Meet Your Administrators.
‘Kids just like competing and being part of that team — something bigger than themselves — a lot more than we realize.’
— Charlie Kleinheksel, new athletic director
Other positions you have held in education and athletics: Kleinheksel started teaching at Grandville High School in 2005; he taught United States history, world history, a global issues elective and Advanced Placement economics. He also coached basketball (both at the high school and middle school levels), tennis, soccer and cross-country.
After working with then-AD Brian Parsons for several years, Kleinheksel had the opportunity to become the district’s assistant athletic director six years ago, a halftime role that kept him in the classroom until the change this year.
“I told (Brian), I love teaching, but I also love athletics, and it just seemed to be a good fit. And the opportunity has just kind of continued to grow.”
Education/degrees: Kleinheksel is a graduate of Zeeland High School, where he played tennis, cross-country, soccer and basketball, and Hope College, where he played basketball. At Hope, he earned a bachelor’s degree in teaching with a physical education focus and a minor in social studies. Later, while working at Grandville, he earned his master’s degree in educational leadership from Grand Valley State University.
How has teaching impacted how you approach athletics? “Seeing what students go through on a daily basis in school, and also seeing the athletic side as a coach and administrator, you really see how they play together and carry over into each other. It gives me a different perspective that it’s not just about sports — there’s a whole different world of things that students are navigating with classes and their social life every day.”
What would you like to share about your family? Kleinheksel met his wife, Abby, at Hope, while they were both pursuing jobs as PE teachers. But this was back when teaching jobs were slightly harder to come by, so Abby landed a job teaching English at GHS. A year later, Kleinheksel fell into his job as economics teacher by way of a long-term sub position. They’ve worked in the same building ever since.
“The plan was never that my wife and I were both going to be teachers at Grandville together, but it just kind of worked out that way, and it’s been really nice,” he said.
Now married 20 years, the couple has four children, all currently in different Grandville school buildings: a sophomore at the high school, a seventh-grader at the middle school, a sixth-grader at Oakestown Intermediate and a third-grader at South Elementary.
“Some people think that’s funny; I think it’s a little crazy. Managing all the different emails, transportation, activities, and all of them are involved in a variety of sports, you know, it gets crazy. But it’s fun. … We love all things that are active, and we love to travel and do stuff together as a family. This summer we went out to the southwest U.S., to Lake Powell, the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park and Bryce National Park.”
What would you say is the most under-the-radar sport at Grandville? “Not a lot of people go to cross-country meets, but when I’ve talked to people that have happened to stumble into one, they’re always surprised at how cool it is, how fun and unique, and maybe a little underappreciated, because it doesn’t draw a huge crowd.
“Another one that doesn’t get a ton of publicity is boys and girls water polo. It’s one of those sports where I don’t think people realize how challenging it is, or how physically demanding. … I’d love it if more people recognized all that goes into that sport.”
Just for fun, if you could add one sport to the roster at Grandville, what would it be? “Bass fishing seems to be an up-and-coming thing for some schools that I think could do well here. We have had a club in the past, and I know there are a lot of kids that fish. If there was enough drive and push for it, I think it’s something we could definitely entertain.”
Kleinheksel also noted that Grandville is currently in the process of adding boys volleyball as an official sport and working to grow its girls field hockey co-op with Hudsonville, both of which he’s excited about.
What is one thing on your bucket list? “As athletic director, I just want to continue to build on the great tradition of excellence that we have here at Grandville, with a great culture and legacy.
“With my family, I’d say the big thing on the short list is that we want to take a trip to Hawaii. Hopefully someday, before all the kids are out of the house, we can experience that.”
What’s the biggest lesson you have learned from student-athletes? “They’re way more resilient than we give them credit for. Teenagers are trying to manage all the things: the rigors of academics, rigors of their sport, their social life, big emotions. And they handle it. They show up. They compete and they have fun and they keep going.
“Another thing is that kids really love having the opportunity to be part of a team and part of something more than just them. You will hear outside noise of how good or bad something was, but when you check in with the kids to ask, ‘How’s it going?’ a lot of times those kids will say ‘I’m having a blast.’ And that could be on the heels of a loss or something really disappointing that didn’t go their way. Kids just like competing and being part of that team — something bigger than themselves — a lot more than we realize.”
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