Longtime Coach's Legendary Expertise Keeps Manistee Surging
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
November 19, 2021
Name any high school or community pool in Michigan, and odds are Corey Van Fleet has been there.
Perhaps it is true of any pool in the United States.
He might have even helped build it.
And, a little more odds. If the pool hosted an MHSAA Finals meet, one of Van Fleet’s teams likely participated. Although he won’t have any qualifiers making the trip to the Division 3 girls meet Friday, he’s been to championship weekend lots of times with Birmingham Seaholm and Manistee. His 1962-65 Seaholm boys teams won four straight Class A Finals, and his Manistee boys team is coming off a Finals trip last winter and its best season ever.
Van Fleet, now 85 years young, is in his 68th of coaching swimmers. He’s spent the last 13 with the boys and girls teams of Manistee High School. He started the program after helping build the pool.
The school utilizes the Paine Aquatics Center named after Bill Paine, who presented a proposal to the City of Manistee, the Manistee Area Public Schools and Van Fleet. Paine’s proposal called for the pool, which opened in July 2009, to be attached to the high school facilities.
“So I’m sitting in my office one day and this tall, lanky guy (Paine) walks in and closes the door and says my wife and I want to donate an aquatics complex in Manistee, and Sandy Saylor says you know something about swimming,” Van Fleet recalls. “‘Will you help me build it?’
“We talked about it for a while and I said yeah, I’d help him,” Van Fleet continued. “So we ended up with a nice eight-lane swimming pool in Manistee.”
Van Fleet, who also had coached at Florida State, coached and served as athletic director at Oakland University and then served as AD at Long Beach State (Calif.) during an illustrious career at the college level, took the next step naturally.
“The superintendent of schools at the time (Robert Olsen) said you build the darn thing, you might as well get some programs started,” Van Fleet recalled. “That was 13 years ago, and I’m still at it.”
At it, Van Fleet continues. He plans to stay with it until he just can’t do it anymore.
“I am still fairly healthy,” he said. “If I can find six people that can carry me out of church, I can think about quitting.”
During his tenure at Manistee, Van Fleet’s teams have dominated the Coastal Conference and produced multiple academic all-state swimmers. The boys team captured the 2020 academic all-state title with a 3.82 team grade point average.
“I am most proud, I think, about our academic progress,” Van Fleet said. “We take great pride in passing some classes.”
Van Fleet is also filled with pride when he reflects on all the swimmers he’s seen go on to become lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers and coaches.
“I am pleased with the number of kids who have gone on to do some pretty big things in the world off our swimming programs,” he said. “I’d like to think they might have learned lessons about goal planning and sticking to it and hard work and all that stuff.
“That’s what lights me up.”
Van Fleet’s initial high school coaching job was at Madison Heights in 1959. He’s coached at camps all over Michigan, including his first at Burt Lake in 1954. Today he owns and operates a summer swimming camp in Irons, 30 miles southeast of Manistee. He also built it.
Jeff Brunner, a veteran MHSAA official in multiple sports including swimming, and father of former members of the Traverse City high school swimming co-op, is among many singing praises of Van Fleet’s impact on the sport.
“Corey has a wealth of information that he has accumulated in his coaching career,” Brunner said. “If I was a high school swimmer, I’d want to learn all I could from him – swimming for him would be such a unique opportunity.”
Andrew Huber, principal of Manistee’s middle and high schools, agrees with Brunner.
“We're humbled to have had Corey as part of our school and community,” he said. “His wealth of experience, knowledge, and relationship building has helped create a foundation of well-being for students and adults alike.
“His enthusiasm for swimming is infectious, and his energy is amazing for anyone regardless of age,” he continued. “It's been truly impressive to observe him connect and inspire students for the many years he's been in Manistee, and realize his impact is generational.”
The Manistee boys swim team starts practice next week. The Chippewas, along with their girls squad, have battled through COVID. The pandemic is one of many changes through which Van Fleet has guided his athletes.
“We’ve seen changes in training methods,” he said. “We’ve seen changes in diet.
“We’ve seen changes in philosophies in terms of what’s important and what’s not important,” he went on. “Kids have changed, and parents have changed.”
Training methods have been modified the most, along with new multi-lane pools popping up in Michigan, Van Fleet noted.
“Swimming is more technical now,” he said. “The science of swimming has become paramount.
“It is not just going in and kick a few legs and swim a few hundreds and go home — we’ve gone the gamut,” he continued. “It is very specific now every time you want a kid to do something, and now our swimming pools are showplaces – they are magnificent.”
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) Corey Van Fleet (far right) visits with his Manistee girls team the wall honoring him at Oakland University. (Middle) Van Fleet is in his 68th year coaching swimming. (Photos courtesy of the Manistee girls swimming & diving program.)
Love of Racing, Podium Pursuit Provide Maison with Plenty of Finals Drive
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 8, 2023
It’s not that Scarlet Maison needed extra motivation. But now that it’s there, the Standish-Sterling swimming sensation is using it to her advantage.
After winning a Lower Peninsula Division 3 Swimming Finals title in the 200-yard individual medley as a freshman, Maison placed third as a sophomore. She also was second in the 100 breaststroke, just barely missing the chance at a second-straight year of standing on the top of the podium.
That’s driving her to rectify things this season as a junior.
“I definitely feel more prepared than last year,” Maison said. “I’ve been doing a lot more lifting, and I’m a lot stronger. I’m definitely motivated this year. (Missing out on another title) I thought helped. After the race, I thought, ‘I could use this for next year.’ Sometimes, losing isn’t always losing.”
With the Division 3 Swimming & Diving Finals set for Nov. 17 and 18 at Oakland University, Maison once again has put herself among the top contenders in both of her signature events.
She has the top time in the division this year in the 200 IM (2 minutes, 8.65 seconds) and the second-best time in the breaststroke (1:07.31). She’s also among the top 10 in the division in the 100 backstroke and 100 butterfly and has hit Finals qualifying times in every individual event this season, but will be focusing again on the 100 breaststroke and 200 IM.
“She’s always been one that loves to race, especially at a big meet, so it wasn’t surprising to see her race and put on a big swim when she did (as a freshman),” Maison’s father and coach, Shawn Maison, said. “I see her do it all the time. I do expect her to have a good meet next weekend, but you never know what (other swimmers) will do. It’s one of those things, she’s ready, she’ll be tapered and ready to go, but so will the field. It will be who wants it more at this point.”
A year ago Bloomfield Hills Marian’s Rachel Bello, who is now swimming at Washington University in Missouri, won both the 100 breaststroke and 200 IM.
Scarlet wanted it pretty badly in that meet, swimming personal bests in both races. But she admits the pressure of repeating as a champion got to her.
“The first year we were like, ‘If it happens, it happens,’” she said. “I didn’t realize I was ranked No. 1 going in, then in prelims I got second and was like, ‘Oh, I guess I can actually do this.’ I was excited to give it a shot. The second year, everyone expected me to do it again, and I was expecting me to do it again. There was definitely more competition.”
The competition is expected to be stiff again this year, which is OK by the Maisons. Winning another Finals title is certainly a goal, but beyond that, hitting cut times for the USA Swimming Futures Championships is the goal. The times are 1:05.49 in the 100 breast and 2:05.39 in the 200 IM. Her personal bests in the events are 1:06.91 and 2:08.3, respectively.
Better competition could help bring the best out of Scarlet, like it always has. Whether it was trying to catch her older sister Sierra, who is now a sophomore swimmer at Saginaw Valley State, or the other swimmers in the bigger club meets she’s swam throughout her life, she’s at her best when she’s forced to rise to another level.
“It’s not like she’s always been ahead,” Shawn Maison said. “She’s swam against kids faster than her for her entire swim career. It’s not new to her to not win, but it would be new to her to not race. … Scarlet has always had that back end of a race. It didn’t matter if she was running cross country or track, or even in a soccer game, she always had more energy at the end to finish. That’s nothing new to her.”
With competition comes pressure, even if it’s a different pressure than she faced a year ago. But this season, Scarlet feels more physically and mentally prepared to take all of that on heading into the Finals.
A nagging knee injury held her out of track this spring, so she spent her time lifting, which has her feeling much stronger in the pool.
She also has that motivation, which, while now stronger than a year ago, was always there.
“Ever since I was little, I tried to be the best in the room,” she said. “I always liked the competition. When there’s no competition, it has to come from yourself. For one, I’m in love with swim; that really helps. I like being able to feel better in the pool every day. The days where you feel bad in the pool are not very fun. So you keep training and training, and when you beat your PRs and get better, that motivates you to keep going.
“Michael Phelps always says, ‘What is your Why?’ My Why is just that I want to get better and always have fun. And definitely the success. That’s the best part.”
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.
PHOTOS (Top) Standish-Sterling’s Scarlet Maison swims the butterfly this season. (Middle) Maison, a Finals champion in 2021, has qualified for every individual event this fall. (Photos courtesy of the Maison family.)