Head Coach Shannon Griffith

Position: Head Football Coach/Offensive Coordinator
Alma Mater: Ball State University
Date of Hire: January 2004
Years Coaching: 19 
Positions:  Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks
Overall Record: 11-39 (Five Seasons)

Shannon Griffith enters his sixth season as the head football coach for Manchester College. An effective and aggressive recruiter, Coach Griffith has brought four of the largest recruiting classes to the football program and enters the 2008 season with over 100 players on the roster. His motto of “Keep Chopping” last year has made an impact on both players and parents to put 100% effort in everything and the rewards are soon to follow.

No stranger to the Manchester area, Griffith grew up in nearby Fort Wayne, playing football for Northrop High School. There he was a three-year starter at quarterback, earning All-Conference and All-State recognition. He went on to join the Ball State University football team, where he was a three-year letter winner, helping his team to a Mid-American Conference championship title in 1989 and a bid to the California Raisin Bowl.

Griffith graduated with a bachelor’s degree in general studies while minoring in business foundations and counseling psychology. In 1991, he returned to Ball State to serve as a graduate assistant coach, responsible for the tight ends and assisting the quarterback coach.

In January 1991, he took a job at Northwood University as the football team’s co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach. Two years later, he returned to Ball State Univeristy, where he spent eight seasons as an assistant coach. The first four seasons, he worked with the quarterbacks before moving to wide receiver’s coach from 1999-2003. The 1996 BSU team captured another MAC title.

During his eight-year stretch, he served as BSU’s video coordinator, implementing the Cardinals with the same video editing systems found in the professional league. He received his master’s degree in athletic administration and physical education from Ball State in 1996.Griffith made his way to Manchester College after spending the 2003 season as an assistant football coach and physical edication instructor for Bishop Kenny High School, Florida. He served as the team’s offensive coordinator, finishing 7-4 in the regular season and helping the team qualify for the state playoffs.

Football was always a part of Coach Griffith’s life, growing up, His father, Bill, coached at Snider and Wayne High Schools in Fort Wayne, as well as Jeffersonville High School before retiring from Churubusco High School. Bill Griffith is a former president of the Indiana Football Coaches Association and a former elected member of the IHSAA Board of Directors.

A gifted motivator, Shannon Griffith strives to have players achieve their full academic potential, maintain a standard of excellence, and reach their goals as student athletes. He believes that combining athletics, academics and a sense of community involvement will better prepare student athletes to make the right choices in life. He also instills the belief that with hard play and proper execution success will be the end result.

Griffith and his wife, Kim, have a daughter, Ashley, and son, Isaac.

Name: Jeremy Markham
Position: Wide Receivers Coach
Alma Mater: Manchester College
Date of Hire: August 2000
Years Coaching: 15 
Jeremy Markham enters his tenth straight season and 11th overall at Manchester College. Along with his wide receiver coaching duties, Markham serves as the recruiting coordinator for the Spartan football team and the Manchester College athletic department, and was recently promoted to an assistant director of athletics in charge of budgets and finance. Markham was one of the finalists for the 2008 Division III Assistant Coach of the Year, sponsored by the American Football Coaches Association.

As a student athlete at Manchester, Markham started all four years from 1991-94 as a wide receiver and was awarded All-Conference honors in 1994. Markham served as an intern coach for Manchester in 1995 and graduated from MC in 1996 with a degree in physical education and earned his master’s in secondary education at Cumberland College in Kentucky. At Cumberland, he served as a graduate assistant from 1996-98 before being named as an assistant coach.

He is a graduate of Northwood High School and resides in North Manchester with his wife, Laura, daughter, Anna and newborn son, Taylor.

Name: Andrew Stillman
Position: Defensive Coordinator
Alma Mater: Ohio Wesleyan B.A. / Bowling Green State University, M.A.
Date of Hire: August 2009
Years Coaching: 10
Manchester College football head coach Shannon Griffith has named Andrew Stillman the new defensive coordinator for Manchester's football program. Stillman comes to Manchester by way of Oberlin College, where he served as defensive coordinator since 2005 and was named associate head coach in 2006.

Stillman was a four year letter winner in football at Ohio Wesleyan, where he graduated in 1999 with a degree in sports science and played five years of semi-professional football in Columbus and Toledo. Before going to Oberlin, he spent one year of coaching and teaching in Roxboro, North Carolina and was the strength and conditioning coordinator. He has spent time with Bowling Green and Ohio State University's football strength and conditioning programs as an assistant. Stillman holds a master's degree in in developmental kinesiology from Bowling Green State University.

He is married to wife Kendy and has two daughters, Tyrah and Alexis.

Name: Brad Higginson
Position: Defensive Backs
Alma Mater: Kentucky Wesleyan College B.S. / Gannon M.A.
Date of Hire: August 2009
Years Coaching:  3
Brad Higginson enters his first year with the Spartans football program as an assistant coach, working with the defensive backs and serving as the video coordinator. Higginson was a four year starter at Kentucky Wesleyan as a free safety, where he was a D2football.com honorable mention All-American selection. He also spent two years with the men's basketball program at KWC. He graduated in 2007 with a degree in computer information systems, and went on to receive his master's in public administration from Gannon University, where he was a graduate assistant for two seasons.

Name: Chuck Ehret
Position: Offensive Line
Alma Mater: Malone College, B.S.; Valparaiso University, Master's
Date of Hire: August 2008
Years Coaching: 7
Chuck Ehret is in his second year with the Spartan football team, serving as an intern coach. Ehret graduated from Malone College with a degree in sports management and played four years at the center position. He was a graduate assistant at Valparaiso University while working towards his master’s in sports administration. Before coming to MC, he was an assistant coach at Taylor University. He will work with the offensive line again this year.