After 2 Decades Away, Turner Home Again at Jonesville

By Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com

February 26, 2021

JONESVILLE – Jeff Turner’s coaching career has come full circle – and it took only about 25 years.

Southeast & BorderTurner graduated from Jonesville High School in 1986, after playing for longtime coach Bill Dunn as a senior. After coaching stops in Morenci and Dundee in southeast Michigan, Turner landed a job at Traverse City Central in 2007. Now, he’s back where it all started – at Jonesville.

“It’s been great,” Turner said on the eve of playing Reading tonight in a Big 8 Conference showdown. “The players and coaches have been working hard to implement the program philosophies.”

Turner’s Comets are 5-1 in the Big 8, tied atop the league with Reading. Tonight’s game will go a long way toward deciding this year’s champion.

“Things are definitely going well,” Turner said.

Championships and successful seasons have long been a part of Turner’s history. He got the coaching bug while attending Hillsdale College. He credits Dunn and Greg Morrison, his football coach at Jonesville, with prepping him to coach one day.

“I coached the JV basketball team for Coach Dunn for four years while I attended college,” Turner said. “He was a huge influence on my coaching and a big reason why I coach today.”

After his student-teaching and a short time as an assistant at Morenci, Turner got the head coaching job at Dundee. He made the Vikings into a perennial Lenawee County Athletic Association contender. He took over a program that had gone through six straight losing seasons, and went 94-57 and won or shared four league titles over seven years. His 2002-03 team won 19 games, his best year to date. 

He then left Dundee and headed north, landing at Traverse City Central.

“It was a dream job,” he said. “We had always wanted to live up north. It was a good move for us at the time. It was a big school, and I met a lot of challenges.”

After 10 seasons in Traverse City, Turner said he made the decision to move back downstate for his family. His wife, Amy, and daughter have been chronically ill with autoimmune diseases for years and had been making frequent trips to the University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor.

Jonesville boys basketball 2“They’ve been following me for 20 years,” Turner said. “I said it was time for me to follow them.”

He got a teaching and coaching job at Allegan High School, where he coached for three seasons. It was a good fit for him and his family.

“I didn’t really have any plans to leave Allegan, but the hometown team opened up,” Turner said. “It was hard to pass that up. It just makes sense to be closer to home.”

He was hired in mid-June and started holding basketball workouts when it was allowed. He coached JV football in the fall and feels right at home at Jonesville.

“I was super excited when the season started,” Turner said. “It was kind of like Christmas in a way. For our seniors it was a big thing that we were able to play. It was a big sigh of relief for them.

“There are people here that I went to school with,” Turner added. “It’s nice seeing some familiar faces. I have some good memories here. It’s been a great transition. Everybody has been very accepting of my coaching.”

His son, Zeke, is part of his coaching staff at Jonesville. 

“It’s awesome,” he said about coaching with his son. “He grew up within my system and knows it very well. He played for me at Traverse City and his senior year at Allegan.”

In the classroom, Turner teaches middle school science.

Not everything is the same in his hometown. Jonesville opened a new gym in 2000 where Turner now directs practices and games.

“It’s a good change of pace here,” he said. “It’s been fun. I’m teaching kids where I knew their parents.”

There are other familiarities being back in southeast Michigan. One of his players is senior Connor Lauwers. Lauwers is the grandson of former Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central coach Ray Lauwers, who coached the Falcons for 42 years, winning more than 600 career games. Turner got to know him while coaching at nearby Dundee.

“Coach Lauwers has been a big influence on me as well,” Turner said. “He’s a really good person.”

On the court, Jonesville started the season with four straight wins, including a 48-35 victory over Reading. A loss to Homer is the only blemish on the schedule. Those three teams are tied atop the league at 4-1. Turner is one away from 200 varsity wins over his combined 21 seasons.

“It’s a pretty good league,” Turner said. “You have to come prepared every night. Every game is a challenge.”

Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Jonesville's boys basketball team huddles around Jeff Turner during a game this season. (Middle) Turner, left, with his son Zeke during their time together at Allegan. (Top photo by Brian Playford, middle photo courtesy of Turner family).

Hart Teammates Reunite After 80 Years Now as WWII Vets, Great-Grandfathers

By Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com

June 7, 2023

Walter “Stretch” Hansen and Harold Tate were good friends and high school basketball and baseball teammates at Hart High School, graduating in 1943.

West MichiganNo one could have guessed that less than two months after graduation (on July 2, 1943), the two friends would head to Fort Custer in Battle Creek, the first stop on their way overseas to fight for their country in World War II.

No one could have imagined how many twists and turns their lives would take over the next 80 years – from the battlefields in the South Pacific, then back to West Michigan where they both were married with children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and now Harold even has a great-great-grandchild.

And, certainly, no one would have believed that the two young boys from Hart – who forged a friendship through high school sports long before the days of computers, microwave ovens and cell phones – would still be alive at the age of 98 for an emotional reunion last month, on May 22, seeing each other for the first time in 80 years and, to cap it off, the reunion took place in their hometown of Hart.

“It was such a great day,” Hansen said about the meeting, which was set up by Muskegon-area World War II historian Richard Mullally.

“We picked right up, talking about sports and the service and everything else.”

The conversation came easy for the two old friends, who played for Hart during a “golden era” at the school – particularly in basketball, as the Pirates won 11 West Michigan Conference basketball titles between 1940 and 1954.

Hansen, left, and Tate reunite for the first time in 80 years on Monday, May 22, 2023, in their hometown of Hart. Perhaps the best team during that time period was Hansen and Tate’s as seniors in 1943. That team lost only once, to rival Scottville (31-25), but more than made up for it with an 80-10 trouncing of the Spartans in the final regular-season game.

Hart then crushed Scottville and Newaygo to win the District championship, only to have Michigan’s prep basketball season stopped abruptly at that point because of World War II.

That 1943 team featured four starters over 6-0, led by the duo of Hansen and Stan Kapulak (both 6-6), Joe Mack (6-2), Lyle Burmeister (6-1) and Stanley Riley (the lone starter under 6-foot at 5-11).

“The newspapers called us ‘The Hart Skyscrapers,’” said Hansen, who will be 99 on Nov. 6. “We were taller than most college teams at that time.”

Hansen and Tate’s friendship continued to blossom on the baseball field, only to have their lives turned upside down shortly after graduation 80 years ago, when all Hart senior boys who had been drafted headed to Battle Creek as a brief staging area on their way to the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific.

Hansen served in the Army Specialized Training Program and was part of the 52nd Signal Battalion and the 4025th Signal Battalion in the Pacific Theater.

“I had an all-expense paid tour of the South Pacific,” Hansen said with a chuckle. “The Philippines, New Guinea, Okinawa, Hawaii, all over the place.”

Tate did his service in the 24th Infantry Division and the 19th Infantry Regiment, and was stationed in Japan.

During their visit last month, Harold showed off the Japanese Samurai sword and Arisaka rifle which he had sent back from Japan to Hart. The week after their visit, both took part in Memorial Day parades – Hansen in the Lakeside parade in Muskegon and Tate in his 77th Memorial Day service in Hart.

Hansen, who still has a home on a small lake in Holton and lives at a senior care facility in Muskegon, played many years of semi-pro basketball and did some coaching. He worked at GTE and has five children and 10 grandchildren.

Hansen served from 1943 to 1946 as a Sergeant in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Tate served from 1945 to 1946 as a Platoon Sergeant in the Pacific Theater during World War II.“I have been so blessed,” Hansen said, sorting through one of his many scrapbooks. “All five of my kids are great and I have grandkids that are just amazing, everything they are doing. I don’t even know all of their names, but it’s sure been fun watching them.”

Tate returned to Hart after his military service and has been there ever since, at first working as a carpenter with his father and then becoming a rural mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, retiring 26 years ago at the age of 72. He has lived in the same home for 75 years and has three children, six grandchildren, seven great-grandkids and now one great-great-grandchild.

Tate laments the demise of his beloved American Legion post in Hart, a town with just over 2,000 residents, as the number of members has steadily declined.

One topic that brings a smile to both of their faces is the recent resurgence of the Hart High School athletic program, which drew media attention not too many years ago for all the wrong reasons – notably a football program which went 24 years without a winning record.

That string was snapped with a 6-3 mark and the school’s first earned playoff appearance last fall.

But that was just the start.

This winter, Hart’s boys basketball team finished the regular season 22-0, the girls basketball team made it to the Division 3 Semifinals at the Breslin Center, wrestling qualified for the Team Finals for the fourth-straight year and competitive cheer placed fourth in Division 4. This spring, the Hart girls track & field team won its second-straight Division 3 Finals team title, and the boys placed fourth.

“It’s a great place to call home, a great place to live, always has been,” said Hansen of his hometown, which got its name from its central position in the “heart” of Oceana County.

And who would have imagined that these two high school teammates could still come home again for a reunion at the age of 98?

Tom KendraTom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Members of the 1943 Hart High School varsity baseball team gather together, preparing for a team photo. Among those are Harold Gayle Tate (far left) and Walter "Stretch" Hansen, at 6-6 the tallest player in the back row. (Middle) Hansen, left, and Tate reunite for the first time in 80 years on Monday, May 22, 2023, in their hometown of Hart. (Below) Hansen served from 1943 to 1946 as a Sergeant in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Tate served from 1945 to 1946 as a Platoon Sergeant in the Pacific Theater during World War II. (Top photo courtesy of Stretch Hansen. Middle and below photos courtesy of Richard Mullally.)