‘Stay positive’: Montgomery Blair High softball coach leaves winning legacy

Physical education teacher Louis Hoelman retires from coaching after 26 years

July 1, 2026 10:47 a.m.

Louis Hoelman III (center, gray shirt) stands with some of his former players at a retirement party in his honor held in Silver Spring. Photo credit: Danny Chung-A-Fung

On spring afternoons for 26 years, Montgomery Blair High School head softball coach Louis Hoelman III would head to the school’s softball diamond after classes ended in his trademark shorts no matter the weather.

“One time, I wore some sweatpants just to see what it would be like,” Hoelman, who also teaches physical education at the Silver Spring school, recently told Bethesda Today. “I hated it. So I have been cold. I’ve been out there in sleet.”

Louis Hoelman III at dugout — Louis Hoelman III, the outgoing head coach of Montgomery Blair High School’s softball team, stands in the home dugout where he coached for 26 seasons. Photo credit: Danny Chung-A-Fung

For more than two decades, Hoelman, 60, and his shorts – which he wears daily — have been a reliable sight on the sidelines of the Blazers softball diamond, but this past season was his last. On Saturday, more than 50 people, including friends, family, colleagues, former players and their parents attended a retirement party for the coach at the Silver Spring home of Hoelman’s longtime assistant coach, fellow Blair teacher Kristin Werdann Cole.

Amy Ernst is one of those former players who came to celebrate Hoelman. A captain of the 2004 team, Ernst has fond memories of her time on the team. Now living outside of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, she drove two hours to attend the party celebrating Hoelman’s retirement as varsity softball coach.

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“I feel like being on [the] softball [team] with Mr. Hoelman was honestly formative for me,” Ernst told Bethesda Today. “It was such a safe space and such a positive space and we did learn so much and we grew so much.”

Hoelman has been associated with Montgomery Blair High for the majority of his life. A graduate of the class of 1984, he has taught physical education at Blair since 1999, and served as the head coach of the varsity softball team since 2001.

“I take such pride in being a Blair grad,” Hoelman said. “So just doing it all here at Blair made it even more special.”

While Hoelman has coached other sports at the school – junior varsity basketball, cross country, team handball, field hockey and golf, to name a few – the softball program is where Hoelman has made his mark.

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Hoelman told Bethesda Today that he and his players would look forward to the start of each new season every spring.

“I used to have a countdown timer on my computer,” Hoelman said. “I’d know exactly how many days, hours, minutes, seconds, and it was a fun game we used to play because we looked forward to it so much.”

Since he took over in 2001, the Blair team has had only two losing seasons: Hoelman’s first and his last as coach.

Hoelman has a 70% winning average in his career and said that while the wins are great, the relationships he’s developed with his players mean so much more. Those wins include multiple sectional and regional championships — as well as multiple appearances in the annual state semifinals.

One of the Blazers’ main divisional rivals during Hoelman’s tenure was Sandy Spring’s Sherwood High School, which, as Hoelman put it, was “the team of the decade.”

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“We were probably their best competition during those years,” Hoelman said. “But they knocked us out of the playoffs a bunch of years in a row.”

However, Hoelman said he still loved the challenge that beating Sherwood represented to his players, enough to insist that the team was on the Blazers’ schedule every year.

“It was fun to play them,” he said. “I like that they were in our division because of the challenge. So it was a great rivalry for us and I think it was for them as well.”

Hoelman’s successor will be Werdann Cole, who has served as an assistant coach on the varsity team since 2010. Werdann Cole recalled how she came to join Hoelman’s team.

“I told him, I’m either going to go find a varsity job and become a head coach or I’ll help you with varsity,” Werdann told Bethesda Today. “He said I could help him because I just love the program.”

Werdann Cole said the years of coaching alongside Hoelman have prepared her for the head role.

“I didn’t stay because I wasn’t ready,” Werdann Cole said. “It was more just because of my friendship with him. I think I’m absolutely ready to take it over.”

Hoelman said his advice to his successor is simple. “Just make sure to always stay positive. Listen to the players. Treat everyone the way they need to be treated.”

Werdann Cole will “be good at that,” he said. “She knows how to do all of that stuff.”

Hoelman said he plans to continue teaching for at least three or four years before fully retiring. Quitting softball will give him more time with his family, he said.

“My kids are going to be seniors here at Blair next year,” Hoelman said. “I just want that to be my focus instead of being focused on softball.”

As Hoelman prepares to step back from his softball coaching duties, he is proud of building a successful program at his alma mater.

“We developed a program that is highly respected throughout the state, and that makes me feel really good,” Hoelman said. “Helping to put Blair softball on the map is the best thing. I had very few lows in my career.”

At the retirement party, Werdann Cole publicly thanked Hoelman for his contributions to the team and for allowing her to be along for most of the ride.

“Thank you for bringing me on 23 years ago,” she told Hoelman. “Thank you for sticking with me and keeping me along. I’m glad that you’ll still be at Blair next year.”

And while Hoelman will no longer have the daily interactions with his players come spring, the coach said he will always have the lessons he learned from them.

The most important?

“Not to treat everyone the same, but to treat everyone the way it’s best for them to be treated,” he said. “So you have to treat everyone in a fair way … but also make sure you are aware of their individual personalities too.”

That lesson rings true with Naomi Andelman, a former right fielder who graduated from Blair in 2025. She praised Hoelman for being encouraging to players while still redirecting the team when needed.

“There’s definitely a lot of encouragement,” Andelman told Bethesda Today, “and [also] moments to make sure that we understood that we needed to be serious sometimes to win.”

Although Hoelman is stepping down from the head coach role, that doesn’t mean he’s entirely free from all of his softball commitments.

“At our team party, we said we expect him to be at games next year,” Werdann Cole said.

Louis Hoelman III is gifted a foldable rocking chair by assistant coach Kristin Werdann Cole, which she says is for Hoelman to watch the team’s games next season from the sidelines. Photo credit: Danny Chung-A-Fung

To ensure he attends, Werdann Cole and her family gave Hoelman a large, foldable rocking chair so he can comfortably watch games from the sidelines — in his shorts, of course.

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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine