Zink, instead, became Ohio’s winningest girls basketball coach. He didn’t choose that path as much as it chose him and wouldn’t let him go.
During the fall of 1975, Rex Warner, the school’s athletic director and a role model for Zink, needed to hire a sophomore boys basketball coach and a girls varsity basketball coach. Zink applied with the desire to coach the boys team. Only one other person applied and told Warner the boys team was their only option. So Warner asked Zink if he would take the girls team.
“I looked up to him so much and idolized him,” Zink said. “I’m not going to turn Rex down. So I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll take it.’ And that’s how I got started in it.”
In 46 years —1975 to 2021 — Zink won 810 games, lost only 277, won three Division I state championships, six regional championships, 17 district championships and 23 league championships. In 2012, the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame inducted him and his state title teams of 1995, 2001 and 2003 that were a combined 83-1. On Saturday in Columbus, Zink will be inducted into the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
“You’re selected by your peers, which makes it a great honor,” he said. “Very humbling.”
Zink’s career had a humble beginning. His first season was the first year the Ohio High School Athletic Association sanctioned girls basketball and held a state tournament. His first three teams went 7-6, 3-11 and 1-19.
Zink said there was no pressure to win then but told Warner he wasn’t sure if he was the right coach to build the program. Warner asked Zink if he was enjoying it.
“Well, I don’t like getting my rear end kicked every night,” Zink said.
But he liked the players and their work ethic. The 1-19 team was young and he thought they had a good future. Warner said keep at it, and the next two seasons the Beavers finished 12-7 and 17-6.
“Nowadays, if you start out like those three years, they probably ask you not to come back,” Zink said.
That would have been a huge mistake. Zink had the program rolling. More than just parents started coming to games, and Chaminade Julienne, under Frank Goldsberry, became the big local rival. The games were in such demand that they were often played at UD Arena and Vandalia Butler in front of thousands.
“It’s hard to explain just how neat an experience it was to play games like that,” Zink said. “That meant a lot. The community loved the kids, the kids loved the following. I always said this was the greatest place there was to coach because of the following we had.”
Zink’s program made its first state appearances in 1991, led by Carrie Garinger, and 1994 before reaching its zenith in 1995 with an unbeaten run to the state championship. The Beavers won every game that season by double figures and defeated Lakewood 50-39 in the final at St. John Arena in front of 6,447 fans. Amanda Reese Crockett, the Beavers’ senior point guard, scored 23 points.
“When I was in high school the tradition had already been set at Beavercreek,” Crockett said. “There was already that buzz for girls basketball, and Coach Zink really created that. He dedicated a lot of his time to coaching, and his family was very supportive. I remember as a freshman playing on varsity and it was a privilege. We just kept making progress every year and it was my goal to win state. We got to state my junior year and got our clocks cleaned, but then we went back my senior year and we won it.”
Crockett is one of many of Zink’s players to find success after high school. She played at Northern Illinois and went into coaching. She was an assistant at Chicago and Illinois-Chicago before being the head coach at Division III North Park in Chicago for 14 years. Now she has three children and works for a college recruiting service.
“He wasn’t afraid to raise his voice, and that motivated us,” she said. “He was tough on us, he had high expectations, he knew what we were capable of and he did his best to bring it out. We put in a lot of time in the offseason working on our game and it paid off. Coach Zink instilled that work ethic in us – if you want to get better, get in the gym and shoot.”
Aric Seilhamer, who took over for Zink when he retired, played at Beavercreek in the mid-90s for Larry Holden, also a state coaches hall of famer. Going to watch the girls play was the thing to do.
“It was always a great show,” he said. “A lot of credit to him for being able to help get it to where it is today.”
The Beavers returned to state in 1996. But the next titles didn’t come until 2001 and 2003. The 2001 team, lead by Alison Bales, who played at Duke, Tiffany Webb (Wright State), Emily Williams (Dayton) and Heather Kaiser (Troy State) won every game. Zink calls it his best team and his luckiest.
“We were without a doubt the best team in the state, and we shouldn’t have got there,” he said.
The Beavers didn’t play well to start the tournament and it almost caught up with them in the regional semifinals against Cincinnati St. Ursula, which came into the game at 12-12. Beavercreek led throughout a close game. In the final seconds, with the scored tied, the Beavers turned the ball over and Ursula’s best player was fouled. She missed both free throws. The Beavers won in overtime.
“To win the state you’ve got to be good, you’ve got to be darn good, but you’ve got to be lucky because you’re going to play a bad game in one of those eight to 10 games there at the end,” Zink said. “You’ve got to survive that somehow.”
In a regional final battle of unbeatens, the Beavers returned to normal and defeated Cincinnati Mother of Mercy by more than 20 points. They beat Cleveland East Tech and future UConn star Barbara Turner by 17 in the state semis. Then it was a rematch with CJ, which had gone through the Columbus regional to state. The Beavers won 42-35.
With Bales and Kim Ingle still around from the 2001 team, the 2003 team lost only once. They survived Columbus Brookhaven in overtime in the state semifinal and beat Hudson 58-21 in the final.
Zink counted on his assistant coaches for 46 years. Those who spent the most time with him were Seilhamer, Mary Jo Petrocelli, Teri Downing and Dick Orr, who sat on Zink’s bench for 35 years.
“He’s a lot of the reason for the success,” Zink said of Orr. “I was kind of like the bad guy, and he was the good guy. If I’d get on a kid, he made sure that before they left practice he said something positive to them. He just did a tremendous job for me. And without him I don’t know if I’d have stayed in it for as long as I did.”
Seilhamer coached in the boys program until Zink convinced him to join the girls. He coached the JV team a few years then became a varsity assistant. In his two years as head coach, the Beavers have finished 15-9 and 17-8.
“He was so humble, so gracious and I really got to learn a lot from how he handled himself,” Seilhamer said. “He was a great role model to see somebody with so much success to be so humble and helpful to anyone.”
In 2008, the high school gym was renamed Ed Zink Fieldhouse.
“That was humbling,” he said. “I’m not sure why they did it.”
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