Russell Takes Lake Orion Under Her Wing
September 14, 2016
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
LAKE ORION – As someone who is an aspiring broadcast filmer/producer, Moyea Russell is always looking for a great story to tell with a video camera.
For classes during her time at Lake Orion High School, she frequently has been on the sideline at football games with a camera, videotaping the grunts, popping of pads and exuberant celebrations after touchdowns are scored.
While there have been hours of filming done and projects undertaken, Russell said she doesn’t have a favorite one to describe yet.
“I haven’t really developed it that much where I have a favorite,” Russell said. “Hopefully this year I will get a favorite.”
There probably couldn’t be a more perfect subject for Russell to chronicle with a video project than herself.
It would be appropriate given that Russell has been one of the state’s top golfers the past three years and will graduate next summer as the most decorated female golfer in Lake Orion history.
Russell also has a great story to tell off the course because of a family situation at home that is the definition of unique, although beyond rock solid at the same time.
Mom x 2
Russell has grown up in Lake Orion with two moms in the house, one being her biological mother, ImSoon, and ImSoon’s sister, Kyoneyi, who is Moyea’s biological aunt and adoptive mother. Moyea was born in Japan. But when Moyea was six months old, Kyoneyi and her American husband, Tony, agreed to adopt her and she was brought to Michigan. ImSoon later joined the family in the U.S.
Tony grew up in Kentucky and has a drawl that is as southern as country music. He has raised Moyea like she has been a daughter, not a biological niece, and Moyea obviously refers to him as “Dad.”
He has been to just about all of her summer tournaments and major high school events on the golf course and is her self-described “agent” in golf, although in a good way. Tony drove Moyea to all her events before she got her driver’s license, helps Moyea update her junior golf profile, flew with her to out-of-state junior tournaments as far away as California and has tried to connect with college coaches the past couple of years during summer events.
Before Moyea’s freshman year at Lake Orion, Tony made sure to introduce her to varsity coach Monty Gallaher and essentially alert the returning players that a talented freshman was coming in to infuse some life into a program that had been dormant in the years following an MHSAA championship in 2007.
Tony has worked in robotics and met Kyoneyi while they both worked for the same company (Kyoneyi as a translator) in Korea for a time period, and they ended up getting married in Korea before moving permanently to the United States in 1994.
Moyea’s biological father lives in Japan and she is friendly with him, talking to him a couple of times a month. She visited him in Japan when she was 14 years old, and Moyea said he plans on flying to Michigan to be a part of her graduation festivities once her senior year ends next May.
During school, whenever Moyea hears of a classmate who has had a clash with their mothers, she can just kind of laugh and jokingly say, “Tell me about it,” given she has two mothers in the house.
With all sincerity though, Moyea said the situation has worked out beautifully.
“They are basically like a tag-team, so when one mom has an opinion then the other one has the same opinion, so I’ll rely on my Dad,” Russell said facetiously. “But I like it because I get double the love, which is always good for a kid.”
Leaving a legacy
As rare as Russell’s home situation might be, it has nothing on her extraordinary accomplishments on the course and the uncommon turnaround she’s led on her high school team.
Before arriving at Lake Orion, the Dragons had gone years without winning any dual matches since their Lower Peninsula Division 1 title season in spring 2007 and were lucky to avoid finishing last at tournaments.
“In eighth grade, she was going to be the best player on our team,” Gallaher said. “I knew it was going to be promising. The work ethic that the rest of the team got out of it, you can’t measure. She brought that competitive edge to the team.”
During Russell’s first three seasons, Lake Orion qualified for the MHSAA Finals each time, finished as the Division 1 runner-up her sophomore season and won the last two Oakland County titles.
Individually, Russell was the leader after the first day of the MHSAA tournament last year before finishing in a tie for third, and last year won the Oakland County title at Pontiac Country Club with a 68, the lowest score ever at the tournament for a female.
Winning the Oakland County title was no small feat, given two of the state’s other top golfers who also have been impact players since they were freshmen – Veronica Haque of Rochester and Lauren Ingle of Stoney Creek – were in the field.
As a sophomore, Russell was named first team all-state with a 79-stroke tournament average and a 39 average in duals, numbers she bettered last year as a junior.
Named to the all-state Super Team by the Michigan Interscholastic Golf Coaches Association, Russell had a 76.4 tournament average and finished among the top 10 in all 11 tournaments in which she competed.
Gallaher said the strength of Russell’s game is her unmatched power off of the tee.
“Her strength is still driving the ball,” Gallaher said. “She hits the ball 250 (yards) and sometimes 260. She is fairly straight. Most of the golf courses we are playing, she is playing pitching wedges and in. Other girls are hitting longer irons or woods into par-4s. That’s the advantage she has.”
Russell didn’t take up the game until she was 10 years old, but took such a liking to it that in a short time she has worked to become good enough to compete at summer tournaments and become the holder of “all” school records at Lake Orion, according to Gallaher.
“We never pushed her into golf, and she has enjoyed the game,” Tony Russell said. “I still remember watching her beat the club in the ground at the driving range while crying because it wasn’t happening. But she didn’t give up. When she worked with her coaches, she would listen to them and that is how she grew to be where she is.”
Team 'mother'
Having a pair of mothers at home has seemed to prepare Russell well for this season, because as a senior she is unquestionably the player everyone on her team looks to for guidance.
With three of Lake Orion’s top five players gone from last year, Russell is more than just the team leader – she’s the team “mother,” for a lack of a better term.
“I always make sure everyone has a ride to practice, make sure everyone gets there on time and make sure everyone knows where they are going, whether it is a tournament, match or practice,” Russell said. “It’s a lot of responsibility, but I enjoy it.”
Next year, Russell will start a college golf career at Southern Illinois University, whose coaches followed her at a tournament in Wisconsin last summer and relayed to Tony how impressed they were with her game.
But what really drew Russell to Southern Illinois was the quality of its broadcast program, and after visiting the campus last summer, the fit was as perfect for golf and academics in person as it seemed from afar.
In college just like in high school, she will get to play golf and pursue great stories to tell visually.
But if Russell’s college career is anything like what she has achieved during high school, there probably won’t be a better story subject than herself.
PHOTOS: (Top) Moyea Russell, third from right, stands with the other top placers after last season's MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final at The Meadows at Grand Valley State University. (Middle) Russell enjoys a lighter moment on the green. (Below) Russell and Lake Orion coach Monty Gallaher show off some of the team's hardware earned during the 2014 season. (Photos courtesy of the Russell family.)
Hrynewich's Star Continuing to Rise with Olympic, Pro Sports Arrivals
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
June 30, 2022
Hailey Hrynewich is only 27, and she’s already worked as an on-camera reporter for NBC at the recent Winter Olympics and for The Golf Channel at last month’s Canadian Open.
Hrynewich, who goes by the name Hailey Hunter in her broadcasting career, gives much of the credit for her early success to her parents, her twin brother Reed, her teachers and her coaches.
But she learned even more from a game.
“I have learned so many life lessons from golf,” explained Hailey, who was an all-state golfer at Muskegon Mona Shores and led the Sailors to Lower Peninsula Division 2 championships all four years of high school, from 2009 to 2012.
“I learned how to prepare, to work hard, and I learned discipline. But I think the biggest thing golf taught me is how to be coachable and take criticism. I can honestly say that I love criticism. I need it to get better.”
Hrynewich, who also played soccer and ran track for one year at Mona Shores, grew up playing hockey on a homemade rink in her backyard and was a competitive figure skater. But it was golf that captured her heart.
Even though she is right-handed, she “wanted to play golf like my dad and brother,” who are both left-handed. So she started mimicking their swings, and not only got good at it, she became one of the top female left-handed golfers in the state.
In addition to the four team state titles, Hrynewich earned Division 2 all-state honors all four years and was a Super Team selection as a senior, given to the top eight golfers in the state, regardless of division.
But with her combination of smarts, a heavy dose of sports in her DNA and charismatic personality, Hrynewich was ready for her next challenge.
“I had a great high school experience,” said Hrynewich, who did journalism work and was a regular on Mona Shores morning announcements during the school days. “I learned so much and had so much fun. It made me want to learn more and go places.”
Golf & broadcasting
Hrynewich was one of those rare high school seniors who knew exactly what she wanted to do in college:
Play golf and study sports broadcasting.
With that in mind, she sat down during her senior year at Mona Shores with her father, Tim, who played nine years of professional hockey including two with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and did research to identify the top 10 sports broadcasting schools in the country.
That search led Hailey to Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, where she was a four-year standout for the Division I Bobcats and a two-time academic all-Mid-American Conference selection.
Reed, who was an all-state golfer and hockey player at Mona Shores, chose to stay in-state and play golf at University of Michigan. His success on and off the course mirrored his sister – and they remain each other’s biggest fans.
“So many people in that industry get in because of their family or who they know, but that wasn’t the case with Hailey,” said Reed, who is four minutes younger than his twin sister. “When she gets a freelance gig, she will study non-stop for days and days to be 100-percent prepared. She has gotten where she is through hard work.”
Hailey said she gets her analytical side from her dad. When she was 12, she memorized the statistics of the top 50 golfers and hockey players.
“I thought that was fun,” Hrynewich explained.
Her outgoing personality and courage in new situations come from her mother Susan – and those traits come in handy as she juggles freelance broadcasting opportunities from all over the world, including getting set in front of the camera earlier this month at the RBC Canadian Open with stars such as Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Scottie Scheffler.
“I watch her clips and I see her talking to these famous people, and she’s so comfortable,” said Tim Hrynewich, who now works in real estate in Muskegon. “That’s the most impressive part of it to me. Her confidence. I could never do that.”
Proving herself
After graduating from Ohio University in 2017, Hailey still had the same two passions as when she graduated from Mona Shores four years earlier – golf and sports broadcasting.
The only difference is that she was now at the point where she had to choose between the two.
Hailey, who played in the prestigious U.S. Women’s Amateur in 2015, moved to Florida after graduation and turned pro for a short period – even shooting a career-best 66 in her first professional tournament.
Ultimately, she decided that the time requirement and uncertainty of professional golf was too much, and she focused on broadcasting.
Her initial job was working for what is now Amalie Arena in Tampa, covering the Tampa Bay Lightning of the NHL and the Tampa Bay Storm of the Arena Football League.
That gave way to an internship with the LPGA Tour, which turned into a full-time job as a content producer and host, which she did for almost three years.
She estimates that during her time at the LPGA, her work was “30 percent on camera and 70 percent off camera.” Wanting more on-camera experience, she took a job as a sports reporter and weekend sports anchor at WJTV-12 in Jackson, Miss., where she learned a variety of skills necessary to put together a broadcast and covered SEC football and basketball.
Three weeks after she moved to Mississippi, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and she was quarantined in a city where she knew nobody.
Hrynewich describes her time as a small-town, Southern TV reporter as a “humbling grind” of shooting her own footage and even doing a live report from outside of the Alabama at Ole Miss football game during a tropical storm.
During this time, she made it a goal to work for an NHL team. After several near-misses, she landed a job with the New York Islanders as a team reporter and studio host, and in November of last year, she was off to Long Island.
“I went from one of the least-populated states in the country to one of the most populated – from Southern to big city,” Hrynewich said with a laugh. “But it was fun, and it was time.”
Just a couple of months into her gig with the Islanders, Hailey received a dream-come-true opportunity and set the stage for a crazy 2022 (which is only at the halfway point).
Olympics, PGA and beyond
The call came from Molly Solomon, who Hrynewich got to know when she was working for the LPGA Tour, and was now NBC’s Executive Producer for the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China, which started Feb. 4.
Basically, one week before the Games, one of the reporters dropped out, so Solomon asked Hrynewich if she would step in.
“Of course, I said yes,” said Hrynewich, who was granted a leave of absence by the Islanders to go to Beijing. “Then I stressed myself out getting over there and studying everything I possibly could about sports I knew nothing about.”
She was assigned as NBC’s on-site reporter for four sports – moguls, aerials, ski cross and snowboard cross – and, as fate would have it, she covered one of the most compelling stories of the entire Games. Hrynewich drew praise for her handling of an emotional interview with Nick Baumgartner of Iron River, who failed to make the finals in snowboard cross in his fifth Olympic Games. Then she was there two days later when he redeemed himself with a gold medal in the team competition.
“It was raw emotion,” Hrynewich recalled. “He went from low to high, but I had to stay in the middle. I will never forget that interview.”
Both of those clips, along with many other highlights of her young career, are featured on her web site – haileyhunter.com.
Since the Olympics, Hrynewich has been pin-balling all over North America. She covered track & field for NBC Sports, then did the ACC Track & Field Championships for the ACC Network, the U.S. Women’s Open for the USGA and the Canadian Open for The Golf Channel.
She is momentarily catching her breath at home in Jackson, Miss., and is looking forward to coming back to Muskegon to see family and friends for the Fourth of July.
But she doesn’t expect to be sitting still for too long, with several more exciting projects in the hopper.
“I can’t believe everything I’ve done already this year,” Hailey said. “I’m really thankful and blessed and can’t wait to see what’s around the corner. Golf has opened up so many doors for me.”
PHOTOS (Top) From left, Mona Shores' Hailey Hrynewich watches a drive during the 2012 MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final, and at right Hrynewich hosts during a PGA event. (2) Hrynewich skates as a child. (3) Hrynewich poses with the leaderboard after her team collects the 2021 championship trophy. (4) On set with the Islanders, Hrynewich provides her knowledge as a team reporter and studio host. (Photos provided by Hailey Hrynewich.)