Brighton Names Baseball Field for Program Builder, Longtime Leader

By Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com

May 4, 2023

BRIGHTON — Mark Carrow didn’t know what to expect April 22 when he arrived at Brighton High School’s baseball field, where he was the guest of honor for a ceremony officially naming it Carrow Field.

Mid-Michigan“I remember back in October, when they announced this would happen, I told my wife, Mary, that there will be probably 60-70 people here, because there are 18 players on each team and their parents,” he recalled. “We pulled up here and there were all these people, and these young men who look older now.”

Dozens of Brighton alumni, some of whom Carrow hadn’t seen since their high school days nearly a half-century ago, were in attendance for the ceremony held before a doubleheader with Ypsilanti Lincoln.

Carrow retired in 2006 after 34 seasons as Brighton’s baseball coach, recording 823 wins, now eighth on the state’s all-time list. He also was an assistant football coach and coached both boys and girls middle school basketball.

He came to Brighton a year after graduating from the University of Michigan, where he played baseball for the Wolverines, starring at third base.

“My dream was to coach baseball at Ann Arbor High,” Carrow said of his high school alma mater, now Ann Arbor Pioneer. “That was my dream.”

But he had applied to Brighton Area Schools as well, and after a year teaching in Grand Rapids, he and Mary both were offered teaching positions.

“Wouldn’t you know it? We were in school for two days and Ann Arbor calls me up,” Carrow said. “They had a phys ed job open. I’d have been the JV football coach, and I knew the baseball coach was on his way out. It was everything I wanted, and I went to (administrator) Bob Scranton and said, ‘Here’s what’s happening.’ He told me to think about it over the weekend and come back Monday.

“My wife and I talked it over, and we were so grateful to Brighton for giving us a chance to be near our hometown that we felt we owed them a year,” Carrow said. “In November, we bought a house that we lived in for 22 years.”

Brighton’s sports teams weren’t the dominant squads of today. The football team had had two winning seasons in 20 years, and the year Carrow arrived went 0-9.

“We played in six homecoming games, including our own,” he said. “Everyone wanted to play us.”

The baseball team wasn’t much better, having gone decades without a winning season.

But the Bulldogs were 12-12 that first spring under Carrow’s leadership, and never finished below .500 during the rest of his tenure.

The Carrow name stands tall atop the scoreboard at the field named for the longtime coach. The Bulldogs joined the Southeastern Conference the next year and got off to a 7-0 start before losing at Lincoln.

“The kids were crying on the bus ride home,” Carrow said, “and I knew right then that Brighton had turned a corner, that it meant something to win and losing wasn’t acceptable anymore.”

Brighton took off, winning 20 games or more in all of his last 23 years as a coach, and a total of 13 league titles, 12 District titles, three Regional crowns and while making two trips to the Semifinals.

The talent was there, too, including 16 all-state players and two Mr. Baseball Award winners in Ron Hollis and Drew Henson.

Carrow earned national and Michigan Coach of the Year honors three times apiece and was inducted into the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1992.

The field was renamed in his honor after the Brighton school board changed its policy to allow the renaming of facilities to honor living persons less than two years ago.

But Carrow is quick to cite the reasons for his success.

“The players are the ones who made this possible,” he said. “I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I never threw a pitch or hit the baseball. I got 800 wins, but it was because of them.

Carrow has a photographic memory, which came in handy while chatting with former players.

“It was funny, because with each kid I remembered an incident about them,” he said. “Jeff Bogos, who I hadn’t seen since he graduated in 1979, came out and I said, ‘Do you remember when we were at Milan and your knee went out (of place) in the middle of the field?’ It happened twice. He said, ‘How do you remember that?’ And I said, ‘How could I not?’”

Carrow moved to Florida after his retirement, where he and his longtime assistant, George Reck, meet up a couple of times a week. He makes frequent trips north to watch U-M football and to visit his son, Chris, who lives in Chicago.

Baseball is firmly in his past.

“I think I’ve been to one high school game since I went down there,” Carrow said. “I hated the way the coach was coaching, and Mary did, too. She said, ‘We don’t have to watch any more high school baseball,’ and I said, ‘You’re right.’”

When he retired, Carrow said he would likely be forgotten in a few years.

Seventeen years later, his legacy is assured and his memory will be invoked any time one looks at the scoreboard in left-center field that has a “Carrow Field” sign on top of it.

Not bad for a coach who was in the right place at the right time.

“My dream was fulfilled, and rightly so,” Carrow said. “And, believe me, I made the right decision. I couldn't have had better kids to teach or lived in a better community. It couldn't have worked out any better.”

PHOTOS (Top) The Carrow family stands together in front of the welcome sign to Carrow Field – including daughter Tiffany (front left), Mark and Mary (second from left, front and back) and son Chris (far right). (Middle) The Carrow name stands tall atop the scoreboard at the field named for the longtime coach. (Family photo by Daniel Collins.)

Adams' Multi-Sport Gem Picot Providing Robust Reminder of Value on Diamond

By Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com

May 11, 2023

ROCHESTER HILLS – In a way, it’s ironic for anyone watching Rochester Adams senior Parker Picot thriving and excelling at his best sport right now during the spring.

Greater DetroitThe small twist of irony is that a few months ago during the fall, some felt the same thing while he was playing a different sport.

For any observers of high school sports who follow football and not much else, they likely know all about Picot and how much of an all-around force he was for Adams on the gridiron. He was a lockdown defensive back and a dual-threat quarterback who did just about everything for a Highlanders team that advanced to the Division 1 championship game in 2021 and a Regional Final this past November.

People probably watched and wondered where his future in college football would take him, and for good reason given Central Michigan and University of Massachusetts headlined programs that offered him football scholarships.

But if those same observers are wondering why Picot isn’t going to play college football, all they have to do is watch him play baseball for Adams this spring.

If they do, it’s likely a collective “Oh” would be coming out of their mouths.

No doubt, as good as Picot was at football, he is even better at baseball, and will rightfully pursue that sport going forward after signing with Alabama in November.

“I’ve always loved football,” Picot said. “But I enjoy baseball more.”

Entering a Tuesday game against fellow Oakland County power Lake Orion, Picot owned the career school records for home runs (19) and stolen bases (57).

Playing in a tough league and against a formidable nonconference schedule, Picot was batting .339 with six home runs, 23 RBI and 10 stolen bases this spring hitting primarily out of the No. 2 spot in the Adams lineup.

Picot looks to his third-base coach for signs while at the plate.Also a hard-throwing ace pitcher, Picot was 4-0 and had allowed four earned runs in 19 innings pitched going into Tuesday.

“He’s pretty good at everything,” Adams head coach Jeff Hall said. “He’s solid all the way around. He’s a great center fielder and one of the fastest kids in the country. I think in Chicago, he ran some ridiculous 60-yard dash.”

It’s not out of the realm of possibility that there could be something even greater ahead for Picot in baseball that has nothing to do with college.

“We have about five MLB scouts at every game,” Hall said.

Whether his name is called during July’s Major League Baseball draft remains to be seen, but regardless, Picot will go down as one of Adams’ all-time greatest athletes.

All the battles he has had on the baseball and football fields probably were nothing compared to all the battles he had in the backyard growing up with older brother Nick and twin brother Tait, who also was an invaluable two-player player for Adams in football and was batting close to .400 for the baseball team this spring going into Tuesday.

It didn’t matter if it was Wiffle Ball or tackling drills, the competition was intense enough to where maybe the brothers should have charged admission for neighbors to watch.

“They were pretty intense,” Picot said. “We definitely had fun. A lot of my success comes from there. We just went at it. It was brotherly love and brotherly competition. We had fun.”

Parker and Tait Picot obviously dream of leading Adams baseball to its first MHSAA Finals championship in June before Parker begins his college career at Alabama, or even gets drafted high enough to where it becomes tempting to bypass college altogether.

Assuming Picot eventually winds up in Tuscaloosa, there will be no lobbying Alabama football coach Nick Saban or anyone else on his staff for a walk-on spot on the football team.

Picot couldn’t be more in his passion and element going full-steam ahead in baseball from this point forward.

“It’s nice,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about anything else. I can just focus in and grind on baseball.”

Keith DunlapKeith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties

PHOTOS (Top) Rochester Adams’ Parker Picot comes to the dugout during a game against Lake Orion on May 9. (Middle) Picot looks to his third-base coach for signs while at the plate. (Photos by Keith Dunlap.)