Frankfort's Newbold Cool, Calm, Contender
June 6, 2019
By Chris Dobrowolski
Special for Second Half
FRANKFORT — On the golf course, Frankfort senior Will Newbold appears to be calm, cool and collected.
It’s an outward impression that mirrors the way Newbold is feeling on the inside too.
Newbold’s easy-going demeanor has served him quite well on the links as he’s helped lead the Panthers to their fifth straight Lower Peninsula Division 4 Golf Finals appearance and sixth in the past eight years.
In a sport that can seem to break even the most stoic of players at times, Newbold doesn’t let his emotions get the best of him, taking the good with the bad in the same even-keeled fashion.
“I just feel like being able to keep your head and stay composed is a really good attribute to have,” said Newbold. “If I do mess up, I feel like I can shrug it off and get back on track. Maybe make a couple birdies and get back on track to shooting a good score.”
Good scores have been the norm for Newbold, who enters the Finals at Grand Valley State’s Meadows course as the medalist in the Northwest Conference — at 3-under in league play he was the only player under par for the year — and at the Regional he shot a 74 to win by one stroke. In fact, only two times this season has someone topped Newbold on the leaderboard.
The four-year letterwinner generally has been the Panthers’ top performer the past two years and was Frankfort’s low man in its last two trips to the Finals. He fired a 162 as a sophomore as Frankfort finished 12th. His score of 150 last year put him in a tie for eighth overall and the Panthers rose to ninth in the team standings.
The aspirations this season are for a top-five team finish, which would mark the best the Panthers’ boys golf program has ever placed.
“I always look at the state tournament as that’s the real season,” said Frankfort coach Tom Thorr. “That’s when you want to be playing your best. Our goal has always been to be in the top 10 in the state. This year you can’t help but look at the other scores in Division 4. I’m certainly hoping we have a good showing. I think it would be great if my team could finish in the top five.”
The Panthers have some good experience with seniors Jack Reznich and Riley Thorr, along with junior Luke Hammon. Sophomore Daniel Newbold, Will’s younger brother, rounds out Frankfort’s top five, but what the younger Newbold lacks in experience he makes up for with ability. He and Hammon both turned in top-10 performances at the Regional with a pair of rounds at 82.
With Will Newbold at the top of that lineup, the Panthers have a squad capable of meeting their high expectations.
“I’ve always told my kids they don’t have to shoot 70,” said Thorr. “If we can have four guys shoot 80 or 82, we’re going to make a lot of noise. But having somebody who can go out and shoot a 70-72 (like Will), it kind of gives you that latitude where you can afford a 90 or a 94 and still be really solid.”
Thorr believes his top player could be in the hunt for medalist honors as well when all is said and done.
“He’s got a chance,” Thorr said. “He’s going to have to play well. There are some good players out there, no doubt. When we get down there, we’ll see them all. He’ll have to rely on that mental game.”
It’s that mental game that has been Will Newbold’s strength and allows him to perform at such a high and consistent level, says his coach.
“Everybody’s going to have a bad shot or a bad hole, or a stretch of holes,” said Tom Thorr. “You have to have the right mentality to get through that. Like Will, if he has a bad shot or a bad hole he’s just got this uncanny ability to just kind of brush it off. ‘Oh well, I’ll get it back.’ It may not be the next hole, but he’s pretty focused. He doesn’t let a whole lot of things rattle him. His mental game is pretty solid. He hits the ball straight. He’s not super long, but he’s real consistent.”
As a collection, the Panthers are a product of their environment. Each of Frankfort’s top five players caddies at nearby Crystal Downs Country Club — a course that is consistently ranked among the best nationally and worldwide by pundits — and they frequently take advantage of the chance to play, taking on the challenging course as they’ve built up their games.
“I try to go out there every night in the summer,” said Will Newbold. “It’s fast, unforgiving. You’ve got to hit spots, or you’re going to be in trouble. The greens are really tough and really hilly. I would say it’s one of the harder (courses) in the state.”
Those daily tests, along with instruction from the likes of local PGA pros Scott Wilson and Ed Laprade, have helped a player like Newbold make huge strides in a relatively short time. Newbold started playing the game only four years ago, but now finds himself in the discussion of the best players in Division 4, with a chance to prove it on the course in his final match of his high school career.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in the summers just grinding at the range and playing golf every day,” he said. “I progressed pretty quickly. I worked so hard in the summer and in the offseason to get better. It’s good to see my hard work being rewarded.”
Chris Dobrowolski has covered northern Lower Peninsula sports since 1999 at the Ogemaw County Herald, Alpena News, Traverse City Record-Eagle and currently as sports editor at the Antrim Kalkaska Review since 2016. 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.
PHOTO: Frankfort's Will Newbold, second from right, will lead a talented and experienced lineup to the Lower Peninsula Division 4 Final this weekend. (Photo courtesy of the Frankfort golf program.)
Kingsley Standouts Big Hits on Diamond, as Friends to 4th-Hour Classmates
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
April 19, 2024
When Eli Graves or Gavyn Merchant takes a swing this spring for Kingsley, a special group of friends are not worried how they’ll connect with the ball.
That group of friends and classmates — students in Joel Guy’s fourth-hour special education class — feel like the two senior standout athletes already hit a home run at school that day. It might even feel like a grand slam from Graves or perhaps a hole-in-one for Merchant.
And the Kingsley baseball and golf coaches feel similarly – and sentiment that may extend through the entire Kingsley community.
Merchant and Graves are playing their final baseball seasons with Stags. Merchant is dual-sporting, adding golf to his incredible athletic career.
Together, they led the Stags to Division 6 football championship in the fall despite battling through extensive injuries. Graves, the star running back, and Merchant, the outstanding quarterback, then fought through long, hard rehabilitations to get back and lead the Stags on the hardcourt and wrestling mats this winter.
But before stepping up to the plate or the tee to compete for Kingsley on any given day this spring, the pair spend time in Guy’s class and share lunch with the Kingsley cognitively impaired (CI) students.
“You can’t say enough good things about these young men,” said Guy, who also is in his fourth year as the Kingsley golf coach. “I get teary-eyed talking about it – they just kind of took a hold of some of my students making contact at lunch and in the hallway.”
That contact began midway the football season. Graves and Merchant were joined by fellow golfer Ty Morgan and football teammate Skyler Workman.
A few more senior athletes have been a part of the adoption of Guy’s students intermittently as well. But Guy’s students can count on seeing Graves, Merchant, Morgan and Workman in the classroom each and every day and then at lunch. The time was made possible, Guy notes, because the athletes are ahead in their own academic pursuits or participants in the school’s Teacher Academy program.
How those seniors are contributing is rare for accomplished athletes in a high school setting, Guy is happy to point out.
“Gavin and Eli are state champions in football,” said Guy. “They are the stars of their winter sports basketball and wrestling, and you you think that being seniors with those kinds of credentials at lunch they would sit in a table with all their buddies and talk about their accomplishments.
“They sit with my special education students,” Guy continued. “They make my students feel like they’re the ‘in’ crowd, and I am so proud of them.”
Bruce Graves, father of Eli and coach of the Stags’ baseball team, recalls learning from Guy what that group of seniors was doing with their fourth hour. He wasn’t really surprised to hear from someone else what his senior leaders were doing.
“They wouldn’t tell anybody they were doing it,” the 22-year veteran coach said. “They don’t do it for a pat on the back – they just do it because they like being good guys.”
There are various reports of exactly how the athletes started getting involved with the special education students. But everyone in the school located 15 miles south of Traverse City seems happy they did.
Eli Graves, one of the Stags’ five pitchers, roams center field when he’s not on the mound. He is 1-0 as the Stags are off to a 9-0 start following a conference sweep of Kalkaska, 3-0, 15-0, on Thursday. The right-hander is slated to pitch this weekend and has hopes of the Stags finishing the year with a conference baseball title and a deep postseason run.
Graves and Merchant have raised money all year to get birthday and Christmas gifts for their classmates in Guy’s room. They’ve become particularly close to a couple of his students.
“They don’t really see us as helpers or anything like that — they see us more as friends,” said Graves, now playing his third year on the varsity baseball squad. “We go into the special ed room, and basically just help the students with whatever work they are doing.”
After recovering from football injuries, Graves averaged more than 15 points per game this basketball season and earned all-conference. Merchant also recovered from postseason surgeries and got back on the mat to place fourth at 132 pounds in Division 3 and became an all-state wrestler for the fourth time.
The pair’s in-season football injuries were not known to many. They wanted to compete for the state title and tend to the injuries later. Graves rushed for almost 2,000 yards, tying and breaking some of his brother Owen’s school records along the way. He also had 20 tackles, two interceptions and four touchdowns on defense during the 2023 campaign.
Graves sprained a shoulder joint during the Semifinal win over Reed City but a week later carried the ball 33 times and ran for 210 yards in the title game. He had four touchdowns that day in the Stags' 38-24 victory over Almont.
Merchant has had various injuries over the course of his career, undergoing wrist surgery as a sophomore for a carpal tunnel injury and having floating cartilage taken out of a knee following his junior wrestling season.
But what he endured on the way to Ford Field was the topper as he endured two torn ligaments in his knee, a fractured leg, a torn meniscus — and, later on — a pair of broken ribs sustained late in the championship game.
“When you’re in the game, it’s all about adrenaline,” said Merchant, who is facing another surgery in May but shot a 95 to lead Kingsley in its first tournament of the season Thursday at the Frostbite Open in Manton. “You don’t even think about the injury until you get off the field, and that’s when you get ice bags and fight it off.”
They have been close friends since elementary school and credit the Kingsley coaching, teaching and counseling staffs with preparing them for life after graduation.
Graves and Merchant call football their favorite sport. Graves hopes to also play football at the college level, and Merchant expects to continue on the wrestling mat.
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. 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) Eli Graves, left, and Gavyn Merchant are among standouts for Kingsley’s baseball team again this spring. (Middle) Merchant (6) hands the ball off to Graves during the Division 6 championship win at Ford Field. (Below) Merchant putts during Thursday’s golf opener. (Baseball photos by Karen Middleton.)