Donny Yingst passed away on May 29th of 2012 due to an automobile accident and the impact he had on the Covington Community was amazing.
COVINGTON – There are people in this small town of Covington, Ohio who go above and beyond by giving so much of themselves to benefit others within the Covington Community.
One of the most legendary givers within this community is Donny Yingst, a 1982 Covington graduate. He gave so much of himself to help kids and support Covington Schools until his unfortunate death 30 years later in 2012.
Throughout his adult life, Donny coached youth softball, baseball, basketball and football for so many years. His impact from coaching kids helped maintain the winning culture of hard work and discipline established at Covington in so many sports. The majority of the youth athletes he coached went into junior high and high school with the right mentality because they knew what was expected of them regarding their commitment, accountability and hard work that would lead to success.
Donny also donated a significant amount of time as an umpire in youth baseball and softball at the Community Park in Covington. In his support towards Covington High School and Junior High Athletes, Donny was also a huge part of the legendary Smith Field Crew, which was established by Bob Huelsman in preparing Smith Field for football games since 1978. He also worked at so many sporting events as an announcer and assisted at the scorer’s table during basketball games and in the press box during football games.
Looking back through the history of Covington Athletics, Donny Yingst arguably had the biggest impact in the development of young athletes for so many sports.
Through his tenure in giving so much of his time in developing kids at the youth level, the athletes had so much success in several sports at the high school level from 1995 through 2018. The reason the final year of 2018 is considered is the fact that the kids who graduated until 2018 were in the youth programs when Donny Yingst was involved in coaching.
In Donny’s tenure, the Covington football program went undefeated in the regular season 12 times, won 16 league titles and earned 19 state playoff births. The boys basketball program won five league titles and won a district championship in 2007. The baseball program had nine winning seasons, won the only two conference championships in the program history in 2007 and 2008, and won the second district title in baseball history in 2014. Plus, and amazingly, the softball program won seven league titles, 10 district titles and reached the state final-four in 2002, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Granted, Donny Yingst didn’t coach every kid in all sports from year to year, but he did have a huge impact in developing so many of the young athletes who had a huge impact in the success of the programs when they entered high school.
For Covington to have success in the future, youth coaches need to use the same philosophy Donny Yingst implemented in the past. What Donny did was teach the fundamentals and the culture the head coaches at the high school level wanted him to do. He spent so much time with the high school coaches to learn what they wanted to be implemented at the youth level and he coached the kids the right way.
It all led to a huge amount of success in every sport.
