Lee Piepho, 77, patriarch of a basketball family and a longtime coach at Howell High School, died Saturday at Trinity Health Ann Arbor Hospital, where he had been hospitalized since Wednesday.
“My dad passed peacefully at 9:00 this morning,” his son, Jason, said in a text message.
Lee Piepho coached the Howell girls basketball program for more than a decade. He coached the Highlanders to the Class A state championship game in 1996. He left the program in 2007 to become an assistant coach at the University of Detroit Mercy in 2007. Early in the 2007-08 season he was named the interim head coach and served in that capacity through the end of that season.
He returned as the Howell varsity girls coach in 2013 and led the Highlanders to a district title in his return. He resigned and retired in February 2015.
Piepho’s teams were known for tough defense, and he was known as a demanding but caring coach. He coached Howell’s freshman boys team for more than a decade before taking over the girls program.
Piepho also refereed college basketball at the Division II level, and was a key part of the Livingston Sting AAU program, which became a leading source of talented girls basketball players at the turn of the century. He also helped promote his players and others in the area for college careers.
He is survived by his wife, Marjorie, and three children: Tracy, a basketball coach in Kansas; Jason, who coached at Brighton and is the current Howell girls coach; and Sara, a former college assistant who coaches youth teams in the Cincinnati area. A granddaughter, Gabrielle, is a standout player at Howell
Information on memorial services was incomplete at this writing. Come back to The Livingston Post for funeral information and a full obituary.
