Detroit High School Sports Awards: Paul Ellis given the Honda Inspiration Award

For the seventh year in a row, the Detroit Area Honda dealers, presenter of the Detroit High School Sports Awards, awarded the Honda Inspiration Award.

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

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

"I might not know as much as your club coaches, but I can promise you one thing, I will make you swim faster."

Those were just some of the words Ellis told Andrew Delzer, the student-athlete who nominated him for the Inspiration Award. Delzer reflected that those words, along with Ellis's humility, work ethic, and belief in the team, gave him and his teammates immediate boosts of confidence. Delzer went on to say that Ellis's commitment to the swimmers and the program is why they had the best season in school history.

"Day in, day out, Paul walked onto the deck with levels of confidence, enthusiasm, and precision that I have never seen in my years of elite athletic performance," Delzer said. "Paul's ability to bring together a diverse group of high school swimmers, with varying levels of swimming abilities, different backgrounds, different senses of humor, allowed for my teammates and myself to thrive in any environment.

"Although I will always look up to Paul, now that I no longer swim for him, I see him as a friend, as someone who I can call at any time of day and can expect an answer followed by an engaging conversation, and I look forward to continuing this relationship with him into the future."

The Detroit High School Sports Awards, presented by Detroit Area Honda Dealers, was held Tuesday night at The Fillmore. The show was produced in partnership with the U.S. Army. The show honored more than 300 student-athletes from the Detroit Metro area and the surrounding counties.