Baldwin Makes Wise Choice to Try Track

By Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com

March 26, 2019

KALAMAZOO — Three years ago, Heath Baldwin was sitting in the stands watching his sister, Hope, play volleyball when he started chatting with head coach Lauren Cholometes’ husband.

The current Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep senior had no clue that chitchat would turn into a life-changing event.

It turns out that Simon Cholometes was also Hackett’s track & field coach and owns Areté, a training center in Three Rivers where Baldwin’s buddy Eric Wenzel works out.

Intrigued, Baldwin – then a sophomore playing football, basketball and baseball – visited the facility.

“He set up a hurdle and had me do it, and I was pretty good at it so I wanted to try it,” said Baldwin, who was already playing baseball in the spring but added track to become a dual-sport athlete that season.

“Coach C convinced me to do (track),” he said. “I was more of a baseball guy until then. I gave it a try my sophomore year, and it went pretty well.

“This past year, I didn’t really have too many expectations going in. Then it kind of got big and I started to really love it.”

That is an understatement.

That first season, two years ago, Baldwin qualified for the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Finals in four events, finishing fifth in the 110-meter hurdles, eighth in the high jump, 10th in the long jump and 14th in the 300 hurdles.

Last year, as a junior, Baldwin led the Irish from a 38th-place finish in 2017 to the D4 meet championship, winning the 100 hurdles (14.83 seconds) and the long jump (22 feet, 2½ inches) while placing fourth in the 300 hurdles and seventh in the high jump.

The senior, who also has earned honors in football, basketball and baseball, is one of six finalists for the Detroit Athletic Club’s “Michigan High School Athlete of the Year” award, which will be presented in May.

His track success also has led to a scholarship at University of Michigan next year.

This spring, Cholometes hopes Baldwin can help lead the Irish back to the top.

“Our expectations are pretty high,” the coach said. “We lost a few key contributors, but there’s no reason the team shouldn’t be better than last year’s team.”

Baldwin’s goal this year is to hit the 23-plus foot mark in the long jump, something the coach said is a possibility.

“He’s got that athleticism, and combine that with how coachable he is, and he’s got a solid work ethic, too,” Cholometes said. “It’s been a joy to work with him, and to see him be successful like that is pretty cool.”

This season, the 6-foot-4 lanky senior gave up baseball to concentrate solely on track.

Football a family legacy

Baldwin earned his love of football from his father, Roger, who passed away in 2016.

‘My dad was a big football fan, and all my brothers had played,” Heath said. “My dad coached me until eighth grade.”

As a junior varsity player for United, a Hackett and Kalamazoo Christian cooperative team, “They needed a kicker, and I kinda just started that and got pretty good at it,” he said.

That kicking carried over to his varsity play, and this year he made 48 of 53 extra-point attempts and booted field goals of 33 and 36 yards, earning him all-state first-team honors.

Baldwin performed double duty, catching 50 passes for 910 yards and 18 touchdowns at wide receiver as well.

“It’s a little disappointing I didn’t get to 1,000 (yards), but I’m not too mad about it,” he said. “It was a fun season. We had a good time, but I wasn’t really focused on stats until after the season.”

United coach Jesse Brown, whose team finished 11-1, said he is not surprised at Baldwin’s success in any sport.

“His size and speed are the two things that stand out the most,” Brown said. “There isn’t anything that he can’t do, from track, football, basketball and baseball.

“Hands down, he is one of the best high school athletes I have ever seen. He was clutch in so many tight games of the past few years, making unbelievable catches, field goals and even this year at defensive end.”

All-around opportunities

Of all his sports, basketball is his least favorite to play, Baldwin said, but he likes the camaraderie. He and many teammates have played together since their YMCA days.

The center was hoping to reach 1,000 career points as a three-year varsity starter, but fell 82 points short.

“I just tried to out-hustle everybody because I’m not the best shooter,” said Baldwin, who earned all-Southwestern Athletic Conference honors all three seasons. “I get rebounds and put-back points, get the scrappy points and they all add up.”

This year, he averaged 20.2 points per game, 8.1 rebounds and 2.1 blocks. He racked up 38 points in a game against Coloma and hit double digits in 20 of the team’s 21 games.

Coach Mark Haase said Baldwin became one of the team’s best free throw shooters this season.

“He has great athleticism and is even a better teammate though,” Haase said. “He became a decent 3-point shooter this year as well.

“He has great agility and coordination. It also helps that he has played three sports each year in high school. It helps to make a more well-rounded athlete.”

Baldwin said track has become his favorite sport for several reasons.

“I like the adrenaline it gives you, just lining up, competing head-on-head with other people,” he said. “If you lose, you can’t blame it on anybody else, just you.

“I do like the individual aspect of the sport … you hold yourself accountable.”

Several Division II and III colleges were interested in Baldwin in both football and basketball, but he decided to continue his love for track.

“The bigger schools were coming around, and I wanted a bigger school because I’ve been at private schools my whole life with not very many kids in my class,” he said. “I wanted the bigger atmosphere.

“I knew I wanted to do Michigan State or Michigan. It was a pretty tough decision.

“I’m just grateful to Coach C for convincing me to do track because I never would be in the position I am in today.”

Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Kalamazoo Hackett’s Heath Baldwin takes on a hurdle during last season’s 110-meter Division 4 championship race. (Middle top) Baldwin, left, and track coach Simon Cholometes. (Middle) Baldwin was a standout on both the football and basketball teams as well. (Below) A shirt from last season shows many of Baldwin’s track & field accomplishments. (Track photo by RunMichigan.com, football by Daniel J. Cooke Photography and basketball by Scott Dales. Shirt and heads shots by Pam Shebest.)

Jesuit Emerges from Meet Full of Close Finishes with 1st Team Title Since 1993

By Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com

June 4, 2022

ROCKFORD – Jaiden Reed had faith in the Detroit U-D Jesuit 1,600-meter relay team.

Despite the fact the Cubs qualified into the slowest of the three race heats out of the Regional, Reed knew Cameron Hendrix, Bryson Wade, Nick Johnson and Devin Grantham would come through.

His faith was rewarded.

The foursome finished the first heat with a time of 3 minutes, 21.67 seconds, a time that held up enough through two more heats to clinch the Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals title.

“I’m excited – my emotions are everywhere right now,” Reed said. “I was looking, and it was a one-point lead from what we were looking at. It’s just a lot of emotions. My heart was racing. It stopped, it was skipping beats. But I knew they were going to do it. I knew they were going to pull through. Even without our original four, I still knew they were going to do what they had to do.”

Thanks in part to that third-place 1,600 relay, U-D Jesuit finished with 41 points, 10 ahead of second-place Farmington.

The Cubs thought they had a one-point win, as East Kentwood’s 1,600 relay team was the initial winner, which would have made the top two scores U-D Jesuit 40, East Kentwood 39. But the Falcons were disqualified from the race, and finished tied for third with Clinton Township Chippewa Valley at 29. Rochester Adams rounded out the top five with 24 points.

It was the second team Finals title for the Cubs, with their last coming in Class B in 1993.

“They started talking about it in the winter, ‘What’s the goal? It’s a state title,’” U-D Jesuit coach Carl Brock said. “So to be able to manifest it, it’s something special for them. State meets, everything has to go well and you have to have some luck, and that happened today. For Jaiden to not win the 100 or the 200 (he finished second and fourth, respectively) and us still win the team title, something had to break in our favor, and it did.”

The Cubs did not have an individual champion, but won both the 400 and 800 relays. Reed was joined by Johnson, Grantham and Hendrix on both relays, which won in 42.39 and 1:28.06. The 1,600 relay team finished third after the East Kentwood DQ.

“Watching them develop their brotherhood,” Brock said. “Watching them come together as family. Some of these kids have traveled all over the country running with one another. They’ve stayed in hotel rooms together, they’ve developed that brotherly bond. They’re running for each other, and that’s what it’s all about.”

The only athlete to win multiple individual titles Saturday was Clinton Township Chippewa Valley’s Shamar Heard, who claimed both sprint crowns. He won the 100 in 10.77 and the 200 in 21.32.

Utica trackThere were plenty of surprises on the day, though, and plenty of tight finishes.

One even needed a camera review, as East Kentwood freshman Malachi Mosley eked out a victory over Oak Park’s Josh Flake in the 400. Each runner finished with an official time of 48.85, but Mosley was four thousandths of a second better.

“I just went out there and had to run my race,” Mosley said. “I was supposed to be in Lane 7, they moved me to Lane 2, and I was just really surprised. When I realized I could have a chance to catch those top people, I just pulled ahead. I tried to push myself harder than I ever have, and it worked. I was able to catch him.”

The 800 featured another tight, exciting finish, as Utica’s Trent McFarland used a final kick to pass Davison’s Brady McAardle in the final 20 meters, and win in 1:52.03. That race got an unexpected early spark when Saline’s Jason Whitton put up a 1:54.81 in the first heat, a time that only McArdle had bested during the season. He ended up finishing sixth.

“A kick is all heart, it’s all effort,” McFarland said. “Usually I’m known for giving my all at the end. The race went just to plan, I did it perfectly, paced it perfectly. I knew I had to take off that last 300 meters. I saw I was in position for the win in the last 100 meters and I just went. (Whitton) definitely added a little bit of pressure. But me and the other top runners in the group, we talked, we knew what we were going to do. We all wanted to go 1:53, 1:52, and it worked out for some of us.”

Hartland’s Riley Hough won the 1,600 in his final meet, finishing with a time of 4:07.61, less than a second ahead of Seth Norder of Grand Haven who was second at 4:07.99.

Hough was in an equally tight top two in the 3,200, but this time he came in second to Grand Rapids Ottawa Hills’ Benne Anderson, who won the race in 9:02.89, less than a second ahead of Hough.

Kalamazoo Central’s Kayenn Mabin won the 110 hurdles in 14.27, 0.02 ahead of Ypsilanti Lincoln’s Melik Williams.

Rochester Adams’ Armon Howard won the 300 hurdles in 37.32, in a race that saw four runners at 38 flat or lower.

Detroit Cass Tech’s team of Renard Richmond, Michael Davis-Hawkins, Aydan Myers and Tamaal Myers II won the 1,600 relay in 3:20.24 after the East Kentwood DQ. That was also a photo finish.

Northville won the 3,200 relay in 7:44.71 with a team of Brandon Latta, Brock Malaikal, David Whitaker and Brendan Herger.

Battle Creek Lakeview’s Andrew Berryhill won the shot put with a toss of 57 feet, 9 inches.

“I wanted to throw farther,” Berryhill said. “I had a good week of practice in shot put. I was being really consistent all week at 56, 57, so I knew I had it.”

Farmington’s Jake Steslicki won the discus with a throw of 174-1. Canton’s Nathan Levine won the high jump with a jump of 6-8. Muskegon Mona Shores’ Demitri Roberson won the long jump with a jump of 23-6.75. Temperance Bedford’s Ethan Lingle won the pole vault, clearing 15-9.

Click for full results.

PHOTOS (Top) Detroit U-D Jesuit completes an exchange during the 1,600 relay Saturday at Rockford High School. (Middle) Utica’s Trent McFarland surges toward the finish of the 800. (Click for more from Jamie McNinch/Run Michigan.)