Detroit High School Sports Awards: Honda Inspiration Award Winner

For the seventh consecutive year, Detroit-area Honda dealers, presenters of the Detroit High School Sports Awards, presented the Honda Inspiration Award.

This year’s winner was Paul Ellis, swimming and diving coach at Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood High School.

This award was created to recognize coaches, teachers and adults who impact the lives of student-athletes every day. Nominees were submitted by students to highlight a person in their life who has consistently motivated them to work hard and do the right thing on and off the playing field.

“I may not know as much as the coaches at your club, but I can promise you one thing: I will make you swim faster.”

These are just some of the words Ellis said to Andrew Delzer, the student-athlete who nominated him for the Inspiration Award. Delzer said those words, along with Ellis’ humility, work ethic and belief in the team, gave him and his teammates an immediate confidence boost. Delzer went on to say that Ellis’ commitment to the swimmers and the program is why they had the best season in school history.

“Day in and day out, Paul stepped onto the deck with levels of confidence, enthusiasm and precision that I have never seen in my years of elite sports performance,” Delzer said. “Paul’s ability to bring together a diverse group of high school swimmers, with different levels of swimming ability, different backgrounds, different senses of humor, allowed my teammates and I to thrive in n any environment.

“While I will always admire Paul, now that I no longer swim for him, I see him as a friend, as someone I can call at any time of the day and who can expect a response followed by “an engaging conversation, and I look forward to continuing this relationship with him in the future.”

The Detroit High School Sports Awards, presented by Detroit area Honda dealerships, were held Tuesday evening at the Fillmore. The show was produced in partnership with the United States Army. The show honored more than 300 student-athletes from the metro Detroit area and surrounding counties.