Each year the Calvin Alumni Association honors a former Calvin faculty member with the Faith and Learning Award. Chosen from nominations by alumni, the recipient of this award is remembered as one who has successfully and consistently integrated faith and learning in the classroom. The criteria for selection includes excellence in teaching, spiritual impact, concern for students and lasting influence.

Even though he had never played the sport, Ralph Honderd could have gone to a state university on a football scholarship.

“I was on the basketball, baseball and track teams at my high school in Iowa,” remembered Honderd, “and back then one field event at the Iowa state track meet was the football throw. I was the state champ my senior year and after that had offers from two schools.”

Instead, Honderd enrolled at Calvin College—a school without football. He started out in engineering, then criminology, but soon found that biology and studying the way God created the human body fascinated him.

He majored in the subject and after his Calvin graduation in 1962 taught biology, general science, math and physical education and coached at Western Michigan Christian in Muskegon.

Return to alma mater

After gaining a master’s in kinesiology from Michigan State University, Honderd hoped to teach at the collegiate level and applied at Calvin, but couldn’t get an interview.

“It turns out that President Spoelhof thought I had hit a golf ball from my rental house front porch over other houses and through the stained-glass windows of Fuller Avenue Christian Reformed Church—in the middle of a Sunday evening service,” said Honderd.

That was a misunderstanding—the perpetrator was one of Honderd’s roommates, and Honderd was at another evening church service with his fiancé, Carol—and once everything was clarified, Honderd got the interview and the job. He taught full-time at Calvin from 1965 to 2002, focusing on anatomical and structural kinesiology.

Teacher and coach

Honderd also coached basketball, track and field, wrestling and soccer during his tenure.

“The soccer coaching was just for two years as a fill-in,” he said. “I remember one opposing coach telling me after we won an ugly soccer match that our team just set the sport back 20 years.”

He loved coaching basketball, but felt he had to eventually give up his role because he was too hard on himself.

“I made up some of my best plays in church,” he said. “I deeply appreciated my players, and we never lost to Hope.”

He added that his background in kinesiology, biology and human movement was helpful in his track and field coaching.

Honderd is particularly pleased with the interim course he started that was linked to the college’s famous January Series. “An Inside Look at the January Series” gave every student enrolled a front seat at each lecture and time for a class exchange with each speaker.

“Talk about a complete liberal arts education in just one month,” he said. The class continues to this day.

Walking alongside students in his classes as a Christian role model was also important to Honderd, and he was involved in the beginning of another influential endeavor at the college that still remains: the mentoring program.

With the assistance of colleagues and donors, the mentoring program grew from a small start to a major initiative involving hundreds of students each year that simply “helps faculty and staff share Christ and a Christlike walk with students,” he said.

Relentless advocates

Many people also know Ralph and Carol Honderd as relentless advocates for those with cognitive disabilities as coast-to-coast ambassadors for Friendship Ministries, which seeks to fully include these brothers and sisters as full members of God’s church.

The Honderds have three children—Kristin, Karyn and Steve—and Karyn was diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis, which affects the brain in significant ways. Karyn’s challenges drew the Honderds into advocacy work for people with intellectual disabilities, especially in educating churches and seminaries in ways to include families and individuals dealing with disabilities. They especially stressed the blessings experienced in church families when all of God’s people were included.

“I have to say that one of my motivations to get a PhD in my field is that a calling card with 'Dr. Honderd' on it opens more seminary doors than simply ‘volunteer,’” he said.

Ralph and Carol bought a motor home and barnstormed the United States for 15 years, letting ministers and theological leaders know of the resources available to allow all members of their churches to worship and grow spiritually.

In retirement years, Honderd continues to teach and coach. Over the last few years, Calvin women’s coach John Ross asked him to help work with the team’s post players. He continues to delight in sharing wisdom and experience with young people.

Always the teacher, always the coach.