Bellaire, McBain Follow Longtime Leaders
March 22, 2016
By Dennis Chase
Special for Second Half
TRAVERSE CITY – Stan Sexton and Bruce Koopman have been down this road before.
When Bellaire rallied to edge Buckley last Wednesday, it was the Eagles’ sixth MHSAA Class D Regional basketball championship since 2000 under Sexton.
When McBain knocked off Tawas that same night, it was the Ramblers’ sixth Class C Regional title since 2002 under Koopman.
Now, the two coaches are one win away from leading their programs to a fourth Final Four appearance at Michigan State’s Breslin Center.
In tonight’s Quarterfinals, Bellaire (24-1) faces Fulton (18-6) at Traverse City West while McBain (25-0) takes on Ishpeming Westwood (12-12) at Petoskey.
It should come as no surprise that McBain and Bellaire are still in the mix this last week of the season.
The Ramblers graduated just two seniors off a 22-3 squad that lost in the Quarterfinals to Boyne City last March.
“Having gone through those wars last year and having that experience back has paid huge dividends,” Koopman said.
Sexton can say the same. He returned a solid nucleus from a 19-4 team that lost in the Districts to Boyne Falls.
“We had a good team last year,” Sexton said, “but we could get rattled in tight games. We’ve really developed some poise and confidence this season.”
That was evident Wednesday when the Eagles withstood the pressure to pull out a hard-fought 61-57 victory over Buckley.
“That’s coach’s favorite word - poise, poise, poise,” junior Gabe Meriwether said after the victory. “He wants us to be calm and collected (on the court), to play stable and confident basketball. That’s what we did, and that’s why we won.”
McBain had it a little easier, downing Tawas 63-36 with point guard Garett Gugle leading the way with 19 points. He hit five 3-pointers.
Now, Gugle said, the Ramblers need to stay focused. And the sting from last season’s Quarterfinal loss should act as motivation, he said.
“At this point, everyone is even,” Gugle said. “They’re (Westwood) undefeated in the postseason, we’re undefeated.”
Playing on the big stage in March has become a tradition for both Bellaire and McBain.
The Ramblers won the 2002 Class C title with a lineup that included current Ferris State basketball coach Andy Bronkema, former NFL defensive end Dan Bazuin, and Trent Mulder, an all-Great Lakes Interscholastic Athletic Conference pitcher at Northwood.
This, however, is Koopman’s first team to reach the Quarterfinals undefeated. The 2002 squad lost two games – to eventual Class D champ Wyoming Tri-unity Christian and to Class A Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern – in a holiday tournament at Cornerstone University. Those losses, Koopman said, turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
“We never lost after that,” Koopman said. “That taught us we had to be tougher, more physical. Had we not played in that tournament, I don’t think we would have won (the Class C title).”
So how does this team compare to the 2002 squad?
“I don’t know if you can compare teams because there are so many variables,” he said. “I can tell you this, if this team wins another game or two, regardless if they win it all, they deserve to be mentioned in the top two or three during my time here.”
Bellaire came as close as a team can come to winning an MHSAA crown in 2005, only to be denied by Detroit Rogers 71-68 on a miraculous four-point play with 1.6 seconds left in overtime. The Eagles, led by brothers Brandon and Michael McClary, reached the Final Four three times in a four-year span. The McClarys went on to play at Olivet College where Michael became the school’s all-time leading scorer.
The players on this Bellaire team still remember those days.
“When we were younger we looked up to the McClarys when those teams were making their Breslin runs,” senior leader Hayden Niepoth said. “We saw that, and now we want to copy it.”
“They’ll ask, ‘Are we as good as the team of ’05?’” Sexton added. “We (coaches) have to say we don’t have any McClarys on this team, but we have some very good basketball players. We have that important trait the ’05 team had – we’re a team. We play together, we support each other.”
Sexton, who was inducted into the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan Hall of Fame in 2011, is in his 27th season as the varsity coach. He did a three-year stint from 1978-81, stepped down and then took the job again in 1992. During that span, he’s posted a 493-139 record, a 78 percent win mark.
Koopman is finishing his 22nd season as McBain’s varsity coach. He’s also won 78 percent of his games, compiling a 407-116 record.
To make it even sweeter, Sexton, 74, and Koopman, 50, are coaching at the same schools they attended.
Sexton’s backstory, though, is quite different than most. He did not play sports in high school. And he certainly wasn’t thinking of a coaching career until Bellaire’s head basketball coach Ed Stoneburner approached him one day at school.
“I was teaching fourth grade at the time,” Sexton recalled. “Ed came up and said, ‘I need a fifth and sixth grade basketball coach.’ I said, ‘I don’t know anything about it.’ He said, ‘That’s all right. We’ll teach you.’”
That was in 1971. To this day, Stoneburner’s influence is part of Sexton’s philosophy.
“What I really took from him was to play this game aggressively,” Sexton said. “Play it hard, play it with intensity. That’s what we preach and I think it shows, especially in our defense.”
Sexton also watched and learned from some of the area’s best coaches – Maple City Glen Lake’s Don Miller, Leland’s Larry Glass, Traverse City’s Jim Anderson and Central Lake’s Gary Johnson, among others.
“I’d pay my two or three dollars to get in, and I’d watch these guys coach,” Sexton said.
He would also pore over the boxscores that were published in the newspaper in those days. One line that caught his attention – team fouls.
“I noticed Glen Lake would always have 8, 9, 10 fouls and the other team would have 18, 19, 20 – with guys fouling out,” Sexton said. “Fouling is poor defense. When you’re sending people to the line you’re giving them a 70 percent chance (to score). That’s what impressed me about Glen Lake. You could see the discipline in Don’s teams.”
Sexton, who also coached girl’ varsity basketball for two years and the baseball team for nearly 20, is aided by a veteran coaching staff that includes Paul Koepke, Jeff Smith and George Mason. All three have been with him for years.
“Great coaches,” he said. “They bring a lot to the game.”
Koopman, meanwhile, played basketball at McBain under Hall of Fame coach Bruce Brumels in the early 1980s. After graduating, he spent a year working in a factory in Cadillac before enrolling at Central Michigan University.
Four years later in 1989, it was Brumels, then the principal, who hired Koopman as a teacher.
“I was very fortunate,” he said. “Everything fell into place.”
Koopman coached junior varsity basketball for five years under Steve Anderson before taking over the boys varsity program in 1994. In addition, he coached girls basketball from 1990-98 and again from 2003-07. He stepped down soon after the girls season switched to the winter. At that time, he also took on the boys JV coaching duties to go with the varsity.
Koopman cites two reasons for his program’s continued success – community support and great players.
“Let’s be honest,” he said. “Great players make good coaches.”
Perhaps another reason is that McBain starts initiating interest in basketball early on. Right after Koopman was hired, the school instituted a co-ed basketball program for elementary students in grades 3-6. It runs seven consecutive Saturdays, starting in January.
“We had close to 140 kids involved this year,” Koopman said.
The elementary program dovetails into the middle school, the feeder program for the high school. Interest has remained strong. Koopman said 29 players tried out for JV basketball this season.
Koopman – who was mentored by Brumels, Anderson and former girls coach Dale Marie DeZeeuw – brings an “old school” approach to coaching. His practices start with defensive drills, followed by rebounding drills.
“We have some practices where that’s all we do,” Gugle said.
After that comes the offensive drills, where once again discipline is required.
“I’m all about patience, working the ball and looking for that good shot,” Koopman said.
His players get the point.
“He likes the basics,” Gugle said. “Nothing fancy.”
Craig Sterk, a 6-foot-7 junior who “plays everywhere,” leads the Ramblers, averaging 15.2 points and 9.4 rebounds per game. Cole Powell, a 6-3 senior, and Logan Eling, a 5-10 junior, average better than 14 points per outing. Powell is in his fourth year on varsity.
“We have experience, balance and depth,” Koopman said. “We defend pretty well. We rebound pretty well.”
Gugle is in his second season running the point. That experience is invaluable, Koopman said.
“That’s another reason we’re better,” he said. “Whatever teams throw at us doesn’t faze him. He handles it and get us into our offense. He doesn’t look to score, but (Wednesday night) they were leaving him open and he was popping ‘em.”
It’s been an exciting winter for Koopman. His oldest daughter, Michaela, played on the girls varsity team, which advanced to the Regional Finals. His son, Jarrett, is a sophomore on the boys varsity.
The Ramblers were taken to the wire twice during the regular season – both in games outside the Highland Conference. A Jimmy Schneider 3-pointer at the buzzer beat Big Rapids, a Class B quarterfinalist, on the road early in the season. Then a Sterk 3-pointer in the waning seconds forced overtime in a late season win at Frankfort.
Bellaire’s only setback came early in the season to a red-hot East Jordan team, which won the Lake Michigan Conference.
The Eagles ran the table in the Ski Valley, handing Johannesburg-Lewiston its only two regular-season losses. Bellaire also downed Onaway, a Class D quarterfinalist, twice. The Eagles’ tournament resume includes wins over Boyne Falls, Frankfort and Buckley.
“It means a lot (to win a Regional),” Niepoth said. “But we’re not done. We don’t want to just get to the quarters, we want to get to the Breslin, and we want to win at the Breslin. That’s our goal. We just have to keep working and getting better every day.”
Meriwether and Niepoth are the catalysts for the Eagles, averaging 18 and 14 points per game, respectively. Niepoth is also the team’s defensive stopper and assists leader.
“He plays both ends of the court,” Sexton said.
Jamal Lockhart provided some big plays in the win over Buckley, scoring 14 in the low post.
But that’s history now. It’s all about the present and tonight’s Quarterfinals.
“Anybody can beat anybody at this stage,” Meriwether said. “It’s survive and advance.”
Dennis Chase worked 32 years as a sportswriter at the Traverse City Record-Eagle, including as sports editor from 2000-14. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Gabe Meriwether dunks for Bellaire against Fife Lake Forest Area, while McBain’s Cole Powell works for position in the post against Tawas. (Middle) McBain coach Bruce Koopman, far left, stands with his team after its Regional championship win. (Below) Bellaire’s Hayden Niepoth drives to the hoop against Mancelona. (Bellaire photos courtesy of Michael Smith and The Antrim Review; McBain photos courtesy of Marc Vieau and The Cadillac News.)
1970-1995: Detroit, Flint Ruled Class A Boys Basketball
By
Ron Pesch
MHSAA historian
March 7, 2022
Geographic domination.
It really hasn’t happened on the basketball court in the MHSAA’s top classification since the mid-1990s.
Class A state titles – designated Division 1 in basketball since 2019 – have bounced around Michigan over the last 25-plus years like, well, an over-inflated wayward basketball. Kalamazoo Central, Pontiac Northern, and Clarkston grabbed back-to-back titles between 1996 and 2021. The Saginaw area locked down five Class A crowns within that stretch; Arthur Hill snagged one in 2006, while Saginaw High immediately followed with two in a row in 2007 and 2008. The Trojans also won in 1996 and 2012. Greater Lansing has three titles – one by Lansing Everett, another by Lansing Waverly, then one by Holt High School – about eight miles outside the city limits.
Then it’s single titles to Grand Rapids Ottawa Hills, Rockford, Muskegon, Ann Arbor Pioneer, and Ypsilanti Lincoln. Metro Detroit schools Romulus, Pershing, Central, Western, and U-D Jesuit also have single championships during that span.
But from 1970 to 1995, a trip to the Finals to watch the ‘A’ title game meant – with rare exception – you were watching a team from Flint or Greater Detroit. Or both.
Flint: Home of the Vikings
Opened in the fall of 1928, Flint Northern had been the Vehicle City’s top basketball school, winning Class A titles in 1933, 1936, 1939, and 1940 under coach Jim Barclay, then another in 1947 under Les Ehrbright. The Vikings also advanced to the state championship game in 1954 under Carl Stelter, losing to Muskegon Heights in overtime, 43-41.
Then, things went mostly quiet for the next decade and a half.
Jack Marlette was only the fourth varsity basketball coach in school history. Since arriving at Northern in 1949, he had served as head coach in tennis and golf, sophomore coach in basketball and football, junior varsity coach in basketball and football, equipment manager, and head trainer.
Midseason 1955, he replaced Stelter as the varsity basketball coach, when Stelter was named a principal within the Flint school district.
“Marlette coached teams posted a record of 112 victories and 99 defeats,” stated Len Hoyes in the Flint Journal when the coach stepped down in March 1967. “Included are six city championships, two districts, and a Saginaw Valley Conference crown in 1956.” His 1957 team reached the MHSAA Quarterfinals, losing to East Detroit.
With the announcement, Northern wooed 36-year-old Dick Dennis to take his spot come the 1967-68 season. Dennis’ teams had posted an impressive 105-21 varsity record at Alpena High School over seven seasons. Perhaps more impressively, his teams had beaten two of the Flint area’s finest in the MHSAA Regional round in 1966.
Dennis agreed to the move to Northern, “but had one important request,” stated reporter Bruce Johns in the Journal. “He wanted Bill Frieder as the junior varsity coach.”
Frieder, who would ultimately become a legendary basketball figure in Michigan, had landed his first basketball job as JV coach under Dennis at Alpena during the 1965-66 school year.
“… (A) son-in-law of Larry Laeding, former Saginaw High coach and a former player for the Trojans, Freiders (sic) had a 20-11 JV record for two years,” noted the Journal at the time of the hiring. (Laeding’s Saginaw team had won the Class A basketball championship in 1962.)
Dennis’ varsity squad posted an 11-6 record that first year, followed by a 13-6 mark in 1968-69, the program’s best season in 10 years. Frieder’s 1967-68 JV Vikings finished with a 13-3 mark, earning a share of the Saginaw Valley Conference’s title. In his second year, Frieder’s squad went a flawless 16-0.
But a teacher’s strike in Flint the following school year caused Frieder to resign from his position.
“At this point, I want to emphasize that I am highly opposed to teachers’ striking as I feel it sets a poor example for children and such an act reflects upon me personally,” stated Frieder in a letter of resignation to the Flint Board of Education.
Unable to work around it, he stepped aside.
Another shake-up
After three seasons at the helm, in May 1970, Dennis accepted an assistant principal position within the district. Northern administration interviewed nine “capable” candidates for the opening, including the former JV coach.
“Out of the candidates, we felt that Bill was the best qualified,” Northern athletic director Jim Fowler told the Journal’s Dean Howe 22 days later. “Bill is familiar with our situation at Northern, he’s familiar with the kids and unquestionably a fine coach.
“… it was Dennis’s strong recommendation that finally swung the gavel Frieder’s way,” stated Howe.
“Bill has a tremendous ability to get along with the kids,” Dennis had told the Journal in 1969. “… there are some coaches who never accomplish this. Bill’s two outstanding characteristics are his loyalty to the job and kids and his tremendous amount of pride.
“He just loves the game. Bill works just as hard at developing good citizens as he does to winning.”
Under Frieder, the Vikings quickly returned to the state spotlight, winning two straight MHSAA Class A championships in 1971 and 1972.
For the first time since 1954, Northern enjoyed final round success. Frieder’s 1971 Vikings, powered by senior Tom McGill and the Britt brothers, Wayman and James, clipped the taller – and favored – crew from Detroit Kettering, led by Lindsay Hairston, 79-78.
A year later, Frieder’s team beat Pontiac Central, a squad it had defeated twice during the regular season, 74-71. It was the Vikings’ 33rd-straight victory.
Frieder returned for the 1972-73 season. The Vikings posted an 18-7 record and won a District title. In July, his JV coach from the past two seasons, Grover Kirkland, was named head basketball coach at Flint Northwestern. In August, Frieder resigned. Rumors had been flying that he might go to the University of Michigan as an assistant. A Saginaw native, Frieder stated his “retiring is a result of many things.” Primarily, he planned to return to Saginaw to go into the produce business with his father.
The rumors, it turned out, were true. A little over a month later, the University of Michigan appointed Frieder as assistant basketball coach.
“We think it’s very fine to have a man of Bill’s caliber on our staff,” said Johnny Orr, Michigan’s head men’s basketball coach.
“If at this point in my life, I could describe the job I wanted most, the thing I wanted most to do in my life, this would fit it to a tee,” said Frieder at the time of the announcement.
Bill Troesken, 29, who had stepped down in June of 1973 after three years as varsity coach at Flint Powers Catholic, was hired by Northern to replace Frieder. His team would grab another Class A championship in March 1978.
A Long Drought
Flint’s oldest high school, Flint Central, was opened in 1875. Incredibly, the boys basketball team never won a state title – or even appeared in a championship game – until coach Stan Gooch arrived on the scene.
“Gooch, who starred in basketball at Flint Tech High, Flint Junior College, and Central Michigan (University), began his coaching career as bench boss of the sophomore team at Central High in 1959,” recalled Brendan Savage for MLive in 2008 at the time of his induction into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame. “He took over the reins of the junior varsity the following year and was promoted to varsity coach in 1966.” Gooch guided Flint Central to its first state championship game in 1967, but Central was trounced by Detroit Pershing, a PSL squad considered by many to be the greatest basketball team in Michigan prep history. Guided by coach Will Robinson, the Doughboys were led on the court by future NBA players Spencer Haywood and Ralph Simpson.
Gooch resigned following the 1967-68 season to become head coach at Flint Junior College (which was converted into a countywide college, and rebranded as Genesee Community College in 1969, then renamed Mott Community College in 1973). After 10 seasons, Gooch stepped down, and within months, he replaced his replacement at Flint Central, Clif Turner, who had guided the program through the 1977-78 season.
Central then won three straight Class A titles from 1981-83, helping to build the legend of Flint basketball.
Then it was Northwestern’s turn. In both 1984 and 1985, Coach Kirkland’s Wildcats beat Detroit Southwestern. With those wins, the Flint city schools had now won six of the last eight titles.
“City of Champions defies explanation” trumpeted the Journal at the end of March 1985, after Northwestern had won Class A and Flint Beecher had won the boys title in Class B.
“No single factor can be pinpointed as the reason Flint has dominated,” wrote Phil Pierson under the headline, “while metropolitan Detroit, an area approximately 10 times larger, has failed to win a Class A Championship since 1979.”
Northwestern’s Glen Rice “became the area’s first recipient of the Mr. Basketball award presented by the Michigan High School Basketball Coaches Association and has been named to the Parade and Basketball Weekly All-American teams. (Beecher’s Roy Marble finished second, while Central’s Terence Greene finished fourth in Mr. Basketball balloting).
Was this success the opportunity to play year-round, asked Pierson. Coaching? The talent on the court?
Other areas across the state featured these same strengths, concluded the writer. “It may just be that the reason for Flint’s success is too obvious to be considered by the philosophers: the cyclical nature of high school sports.
“There was nothing wrong with Flint basketball from 1948-70 when there were no state Class A or B championships. Other teams and programs were just better.”
The Return of the PSL
It took five years after the return to the MHSAA Tournament before the PSL earned a Class A title with that ’67 Pershing squad. The next arrived in 1970, again by Pershing, then in 1973 by Southwestern, and again in 1979 by Mackenzie. Class A was won by Metro Detroit in 1974, by Birmingham Brother Rice, in 1975 by Highland Park, and in 1976 by Detroit Catholic Central.
From 1971 to 1985, Flint’s public school champions had defeated Pontiac Central twice, and PSL teams from Kettering, Murray-Wright, and, famously, Southwestern, on four straight occasions between 1982 and 1985.
On only two occasions between 1975 and 1995 did the Class A crown leave the city of Flint or Metro Detroit. In both instances, it landed in Lansing. In 1977, the Lansing Everett Vikings, led by Earvin Johnson – nicknamed “Magic” by the press – wrestled it away by downing Brother Rice in a 60-56 overtime thriller. In 1980, Lansing Eastern, powered by the state’s first Mr. Basketball winner, Sam Vincent, did the same, with a 64-53 victory over Highland Park.
The Cycle of Basketball
As soon as the ink dried on Pierson’s words, it seems, the cycle rotated.
Romulus took down Southwestern in ’86 before the PSL took control of Class A beginning with the 1987 season. Cooley, coached by Ben Kelso, snagged the first of three straight that year. After finishing as runner-up in seven of the previous eight title games, Southwestern, coached by Perry Watson, grabbed back-to-back victories in ’90 and ’91. Coach Johnny Goston’s Pershing teams beat Benton Harbor for consecutive titles in 1992 and 1993. Then Murray -Wright, coached by Robert Smith, captured its first crown in 1994.
On four of the eight occasions between 1987 and 1994, the Class A game featured an all-PSL card.
The 1995 Class A final wrapped the amazing run as No. 1-ranked Flint Northern, powered by Mateen Cleaves’ game-leading 28 points and Antonio Smith’s 24 points and 15 rebounds, decimated No. 2 Pershing, 86-64 before a crowd of 11,179 at the Breslin Center. Northern had trailed 44-37 at the half.
It was Northern’s first title since 1978. It would also be the program’s last. The introduction of “school of choice” in Michigan in 1996, combined with plunging birth rates in the U.S. that peaked in 1978, meant upheaval in enrollment across the state’s public schools. In Flint, declining enrollment – also impacted by the pending closure of a massive automotive manufacturing complex operated by General Motors known as “Buick City” – forced the closure of Central following the 2008-09 school year. Northern closed in 2013. Following the 2017-18 school year, Northwestern and Flint Southwestern merged, leaving Southwestern as the city’s lone high school.
In Detroit, Northern, Mackenzie, and Murray-Wright were among four high schools closed by the Detroit Public Schools in 2007 due to cost constraints and declining enrollments. Cooley was shuttered in 2010. Southwestern, dedicated in 1922, and Kettering, opened in 1965, both closed in 2012.
Of the 26 Class A title games waged between 1970 and 1995, Flint City Schools and the PSL teams each won nine of those contests. On 15 occasions, the championship game featured a match-up of Flint and Detroit PSL teams. On only seven occasions did schools from outside Wayne, Oakland, or Genesee counties ever crash the championship party. Saginaw High School ended with runner-up honors in 1973, 1976, and 1990, with Lansing and Benton Harbor High Schools being the only others.
Parade of Talent
Basketball junkies attending title games during those years watched an incredible collection of talent come out of those teams from Flint, the PSL and metropolitan Detroit during the span.
On the coaching side:
► Frieder ended up as head coach at Michigan with the 1980-81 season, then Arizona State in 1989.
► Gooch compiled over 400 varsity wins and 86 JV victories during his time at Flint Central.
► Kirkland ended his basketball coaching career in 2000 as Flint’s all-time winningest varsity coach, compiling a 518-148 mark. His Wildcats compiled 60-straight wins between January 1984 and February 1986 and presently rank No. 3 in consecutive wins in state history. In 2020, Detroit Free Press writer Mick McCabe named Northwestern’s 28-0 team from 1985 as the greatest boys basketball team he covered in his 50 years of reporting.
► Southwestern’s Watson served as an assistant at Michigan for two seasons, then guided the men’s basketball team at the University of Detroit Mercy from 1993 to 2008, compiling a 258-185 record over 15 seasons.
► Kelso, a Flint Southwestern graduate who did not play high school basketball but ended up as the all-time scorer at Central Michigan when he graduated in 1973, would be a finalist for the head coaching spot at CMU in 1997. At Cooley from 1984 through 1998, he later served as an assistant basketball coach at Kansas State in 2005-06.
► Kettering’s Charles Nichols, on hand since the school opened, coached tennis, football, and track during his first years at the school. With the 1970-71 season, he took over basketball coaching duties from Walt Jenkins, guiding the team for four campaigns. In December 1974, he joined Dick Vitale’s coaching staff at the University of Detroit for parts of two seasons. He returned to Kettering in 1978 as athletic director, then later served as assistant director of the PSL until his retirement in 2002.
The players included:
Flint
► Central’s Eric Turner, Marty Emery, Mark Harris, Keith Gray, Terence Green, and Darryl Johnson.
► Northern’s Terry Furlow, Dennis Johnson, Gary Pool, Antonio Smith, and Mateen Cleaves.
► Northwestern’s James Person, Jeff Grayer, Glen Rice, Andre Rison, Anthony Pendleton, and Daryl Miller.
Detroit PSL
► Cass Tech’s Tony Jamison and William Mayfield.
► Cooley’s Yamen Sanders, Earl Stark, Rafael Peterson, Michael Talley, and Daniel Lyton.
► Kettering’s Lindsay Hairston, Joe Johnson, Eric Money, and Coniel ‘Connie’ Norman.
► Mackenzie’s Steve Caldwell and Dave Traylor.
► Murray-Wright’s Willis Carter and Robert Traylor.
► Northern’s Katu Davis and Leonard Bush.
► Pershing’s Phil Paige, Robert Hawkins, Calvin Harper, Willie Mitchell, Carlos Williams, Todd Burgan, and Winfred Walton.
► Southwestern’s Darryl Robertson, Antoine Joubert, Clarence Jones, Sam Sillmon, Tarence Wheeler, Anderson Hunt, Loren Clyburn, James Hunter, Jalen Rose, Voshon Lenard, and Howard Eisley.
Metro Detroit
► Birmingham Brother Rice’s Will Franklin, Kevin Smith, and Tim Andree.
► Detroit Catholic Central’s Mike Prince and David Abel.
► Highland Park’s Terry Duerod, Percy Cooper, and Renardo Brown.
► Pontiac Central’s brothers Campy, Larry and Walker D. Russell; Larry Cole, Tim Marshall, and Clyde Corley.
► Romulus’s Terry Mills, and Stevie Glenn.
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS (1) Detroit Cooley's Rafael Peterson (24) and Benson Maurice match up with Flint Northwestern's Archie Munerlyn (53) and Reggie Richardson during the 1988 Class A Final. (2) The Class A/Division 1 championship has been won by teams across the southern half of the Lower Peninsula over the last 25 years. (3) Grover Kirkland, here in 1975, built Flint Northwestern into a power. (4) Detroit Southwestern's Jalen Rose (42) and Cooley's Michael Talley (14) work to grab a loose ball during the 1989 Class A Final. (Photos courtesy of the Detroit News [1] and Gary Shook [4], or collected by Ron Pesch.)