Coach Taught Athletes to Enjoy Sports
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
May 16, 2018
There are to be no ties worn Saturday at the memorial service for George Richardson. He didn't like funerals, so Algonac Muskrats and Michigan State Spartans gear is encouraged.
And while some sadness is inevitable, people should be having fun telling stories of the longtime Algonac coach, who made it his mission to make sure all his athletes – whether in middle school or high school, in cross country, track, basketball or football – enjoyed themselves while under his tutelage.
“He enjoyed life, and he lived it to the fullest,” said Algonac cross country and girls track & field coach Dan Shafer, a longtime friend of Richardson’s. “George would want it to be a happy time, not a sad time. We won’t ever really be able to measure the impact he had, just because it’s so vast and over so many decades. He had a great impact on our community. To say that Algonac will miss him, that’s an understatement.”
Richardson, who was battling cancer, died on April 26. He was 76 years old and is survived by his wife of 50 years, Diane, his two children, Anthony and Lynn, his mother Martha, and his sister, Mother Maria of Jesus. The memorial service will be from 7-9 p.m. at Algonac High School, and the family has asked any expressions of sympathy take form of contributions to the Algonac athletic department.
It’s fitting that even in death Richardson is giving to Algonac athletics, as he gave more than any amount of money could cover during his life.
Richardson, a Detroit native, graduated from Michigan State University in 1963 and spent his first two years out of college teaching in Battle Creek. In 1964, he took a job as a physical education teacher at Algonquin Middle School in Algonac, and he remained in that position until retiring in 1999. He also began coaching in 1964, and his final season as a coach was the spring of 2017 when he coached the middle school boys track & field team at Algonquin.
His coaching duties included football, basketball, cross country and track at various levels.
“He was a guy, and I’ve heard several people say this, he never had a bad thing to say about any kid he taught or coached,” said Shafer, who began coaching at Algonac in 1977. “He loved kids and loved working with kids, and the kids loved him back.”
One of the main reasons the athletes loved Richardson was his way of making practices fun while still preparing them to succeed in their sport.
“He’s very motivating, but he makes sure not to push the young kids too far,” said 2016 Algonac graduate Morgan Beadlescomb, a four-time MHSAA Finals champion in cross country and track. “He really focuses on teaching his athletes to enjoy running rather than being serious competitors at 11 years old, making sure they don’t burn out. He was very, very good at making all of us enjoy running. All the cross country kids loved running. We’d end practice sometimes and play two-hand touch football. We were doing little things you wouldn’t expect, and we all enjoyed it and didn’t really know we were working out.”
His approach helped feed athletes into the high school programs who were ready and excited to compete.
“We had a lot of success in track and cross country, and that’s something he should get a lot of credit for,” Shafer said. “He got them enthused about the sport, but didn’t run them to death to the point they were hating it. He really pushed that enthusiasm for the sport. Winning is great, but improving and having fun, that’s the key. Those kids would come out because they liked cross country in middle school, and because they liked track in middle school. He knew his stuff, too. He could coach all the events.”
Without Richardson, Algonac’s middle school cross country program may not have continued to exist. Shafer said that when the funding for the coaching position was cut in the 1990s, Richardson continued doing it for free to keep the program alive.
“He was a very giving person,” Shafer said. “I haven’t heard anybody say a negative word about him.”
Beadlescomb, who won the MHSAA Division 2 cross country titles in 2014 and 2015, and the MHSAA Division 2 1,600 meter titles in 2015 and 2016, now runs at Michigan State. Shafer said Richardson was always very proud of Beadlescomb, and that he had alerted him to the future star when Beadlescomb was just a sixth grader.
“George called me the first day of middle school practice; he said right from the get go, ‘I think he said he’s going to be your best runner ever,’” Shafer said.
Richardson and Beadlescomb have kept in touch, and Beadlescomb said they last talked a little more than a month ago.
“He stayed in touch, even when I was in college, and that was also something special,” Beadlescomb said. “He was always very supportive. I feel like he had some influence on everybody. He was their coach in one way or another.”
Even when he wasn’t coaching, Richardson was a constant presence at Algonac athletic events, whether it be standing along the fence during football games or volunteering his time at a track or cross country meet.
He was always there for Algonac, and while Shafer said he doesn’t know how many people will show up for the memorial service, he expects it will be a special night.
One person who will be there is Beadlescomb, who said he wouldn’t miss it despite being in the most crucial part of his track season at MSU.
“He’s the reason that I’m at Michigan State,” Beadlescomb said. “He’s the reason that I’m running competitively, essentially. I owe it all to him. He’s the reason that I’m able to run and still like to run. It’s important to me. I definitely need to be there.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTO: Coach George Richardson, far right and back row, takes a photo with his 2016 Algonquin Middle School boys track & field team. (Photo courtesy of the Algonac athletic department.)
MCC's Glover Fills Key Role as Athletic Trainer for Super Bowl Champions
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
August 6, 2024
David Glover never had the glamour role – and didn’t even play the glamour sport – during his high school days at Muskegon Catholic Central.
MCC is known statewide as a football powerhouse that ranks third in state history with 12 MHSAA Finals championships during the playoff era. But basketball was Glover’s sport of choice, and his specialty didn’t show up in the box score.
“I was the defensive stopper,” explained Glover, who graduated from MCC in 1996. “I was always the guy that Coach (Greg) Earnest would put on the other team’s best scorer. I took a lot of pride in that.”
Glover continues to be the ultimate team player, only now his role is the first assistant athletic trainer for the Kansas City Chiefs, who are aiming to three-peat this season as Super Bowl champions.
“As the team and the goals have grown, so have I,” said Glover, who has been on the Chiefs’ training staff for the past 18 years. “The job is the same, which is getting the players onto the field and back onto the field after injuries so that they can perform at their highest level. I have become more comfortable and experienced in that role.”
Glover broke into the NFL as an athletic training intern with the New York Jets in 2004. He came to Kansas City in 2006 when Jets head coach Herman Edwards took the KC job, bringing Glover and several other members of the training staff with him.
Glover quickly fell in love with the Chiefs’ famous family-first culture, along with the area’s world-famous barbecues. He also met his future wife, Jera.
He is known as a tireless worker and student of his craft, which has allowed him to steadily move up to his current position as first assistant athletic trainer on the Chiefs’ five-member training staff, second only to Rick Burkholder, the vice president of sports medicine and performance.
Glover’s skills also have caught the attention of his colleagues across the NFL, who awarded him the 2022 Tim Davey AFC Assistant Athletic Trainer of the Year Award – given annually to someone who represents an unyielding commitment, dedication and integrity in the profession of athletic training.
Glover said a big reason for his success in his profession can be traced back to high school.
“Playing sports at MCC, especially for a smaller school, gave me such a sense of camaraderie, teamwork and a family outside of my normal family,” said Glover, the son of David and Lyndah Glover. “Those teammates energized me to be my best.
“There’s no doubt that some of the lessons that I learned playing sports in high school help me out in my job.”
Glover also ran track for the Crusaders – competing in the long jump, 200 meters, 400 meters and various relays – and said he enjoyed himself, even though he ran track initially as a way to stay in shape for basketball.
The highlight of his MCC basketball career came his senior year, when the underdog Crusaders captured a Class C District championship.
Growing up in Muskegon and close to Lake Michigan, Glover thought he would become a marine biologist someday – that is, until he suffered an injury during his senior basketball season.
Glover went up for a block and actually pinned the opponent’s shot against the backboard. However, the shooter inadvertently took his legs out on the play, causing him to crash violently to the court and lose feeling in his right leg for about 10 seconds.
The injury to his hip flexor put him on crutches for two weeks and off the court total for about a month, which he said “felt like the end of the world” at the time.
But the injury led him into rehab with Brian Hanks, a 1988 MCC graduate who was back working at his alma mater as an athletic trainer through Mercy Hospital.
Glover and Hanks turned out to be a perfect match. Glover was naturally curious about the entire process and wanted to know the “why” of his rebab program. Hanks recognized Glover’s interest in how the human body works and encouraged him to consider studying athletic training in college.
“God works in mysterious ways,” said Glover. “I was devastated when I got injured, but that experience opened my eyes to a whole new career. I wanted to learn everything I could about the human body and how it works.
“Looking back, the injury was a blessing in disguise. I wouldn’t change anything at all.”
Glover followed in Hanks’ footsteps and attended Central Michigan University, spending countless hours in the training room working with athletes in every sport – from football to track to gymnastics – graduating with a degree in health fitness and exercise science.
He said a huge inspiration in his career was CMU professor Dr. Rene Shingles, who in 2018 became the first African-American woman to be inducted into the National Athletic Trainers Association Hall of Fame. Shingles encouraged Glover to continue his studies at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, where he earned his master’s of science in athletic training.
He got his break into the NFL with his internship with the Jets, and his work ethic has kept him there for the past 20 years.
“If there are high school kids out there reading this, I guess I would tell them that there are a lot of different avenues to get to the NFL or the NBA,” Glover said. “I’m a perfect example. I didn’t even play high school football, but through athletic training I have been part of three Super Bowls.”
The Chiefs, who won their first Super Bowl way back in 1970, would have to wait 50 years (until 2020) to win their next one. But Kansas City now has won three Super Bowls in five years, adding titles in 2023 and 2024.
“To have these kind of experiences, and to be able to share so much of it with my family, is really a dream come true,” said Glover, 45, who said his ultimate goal is to become the head athletic trainer for an NFL team.
“I am always open to see what opportunities God has for me and what doors he opens.”
More immediately, with the start of training camp last month, Glover is back to his seven-day-a-week schedule, sharing the organization’s goal of making it to the Super Bowl for the third consecutive season.
Glover has worked with all of the Chiefs star players at some point, including star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who he calls “a great, humble man.”
But perhaps the player he has worked with most is standout tight end Travis Kelce.
Kelce, who has become a huge name outside of football as the boyfriend of pop sensation Taylor Swift, injured his knee during his rookie preseason in 2013, sidelining him for the entire year. Glover was assigned to Kelce for his rehab.
With Glover’s daily help, Kelce was able to get back on the field the following year and emerged as a star, earning him the 2014 NFL Ed Block Courage Award as a model of inspiration, sportsmanship and courage.
After winning the award, Kelce invited Glover (he calls him “DG”) and his wife to attend the award ceremony with him in Baltimore.
“That was a huge honor for me, and I was blown away,” said Glover. “I look at it that I was just doing my job. He entrusted and believed in me throughout the process, and it worked out great.”
2024 Made In Michigan
August 1: Lessons from Multi-Sport Experience Guide Person in Leading New Team - Read
July 30: After Successful 'Sequel,' Suttons Bay's Hursey Embarking on Next Chapter - Read
July 24: East Kentwood Run Part of Memorable Start on Knuble's Way to NHL, Olympics - Read
July 22: Monroe High Memories Remain Rich for Michigan's 1987 Mr. Baseball - Read
July 17: Record-Setting Viney Gained Lifelong Confidence at Marine City - Read
July 11: High School 'Hoop Squad' Close to Heart as Hughes Continues Coaching Climb - Read
July 10: Nightingale Embarking on 1st Season as College Football Head Coach - Read
June 28: E-TC's Witt Bulldozing Path from Small Town to Football's Biggest Stage - Read
PHOTOS (Top) At left, David Glover as a senor during the 1995-96 school year at Muskegon Catholic Central, and at right Glover shows the AFC Championship trophy after Kansas City's 17-10 win at Baltimore on Jan. 28. (Middle) Glover, left, hugs teammate Doug Dozier after a victory over rival Muskegon Mona Shores in 1995-1996 basketball season opener. MCC finished 17-7 and a District champion. (Below) Glover poses with this year's Super Bowl Championship trophy alongside fellow Chiefs athletic trainer Julie Frymyer. (Trophy photos courtesy of David Glover; 1996 photos courtesy of the MCC yearbook.)