![](/sites/default/files/imported/Photos/160429_Concord_2H.jpg)
Lehman's Concord Run Nears Final Turn
By
Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
April 29, 2016
By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
CONCORD – Lindsey Lehman was just 4 years old when the family dog went on a full-speed run – with her trying to hold on – and she did a good job of keeping up with it.
“Those little legs kept up with that dog, and I thought then about how fast she ran across the yard,” Lehman’s mother, Kathy, remembered.
The speed was no mirage. It was an early flash of athletic ability. Lehman, a senior at Concord High School, won the Lower Peninsula Division 4 championship in the 200 last spring and was runner-up in the 100. But running fast isn’t Lehman’s only talent, and it doesn’t nearly tell her story or reflect what is ahead of her athletically.
Lehman has been a three-sport standout at Concord. She is a two-time Jackson Citizen Patriot Player of the Year in volleyball, and last week she signed to play basketball at nearby Spring Arbor University. And, obviously, she’s a track MHSAA Finals champion.
Despite the early flash of speed, track was not an initial priority for Lehman, whose mother is the volleyball coach at Concord. Her father Matt coached boys basketball and now is the principal at the K-8 school.
“Track was kind of an afterthought,” Matt Lehman said. “She really wasn’t that interested in softball, although she did a little bit growing up. It was mainly basketball and volleyball. We kind of convinced her – I was coaching middle school track – and I said, ‘Why don’t you give track a try? It’s a great sport to keep you in shape.’
“She found out she was good at it, and it might have been her best sport.”
Is track her best sport? Possibly. Is it her favorite sport? Well, her answer was, “whatever sport is in season.”
That is one reason why she had such a difficult decision to make about college. Some of the bigger schools like Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Grand Valley State and Saginaw Valley State looked at her for track. Other schools looked at her for volleyball.
Ultimately, Lehman chose basketball and Spring Arbor, a mere 5 miles from Concord.
“It was a really difficult decision,” she said. “I’ve played basketball and AAU my entire life, and my dad was a coach and I was a manager, and that was a reason why I wanted to play basketball.
“At Spring Arbor, my parents and the community can come watch me play on the college level. I was looking at the bigger cities, and that’s why I liked Grand Valley. I love Grand Rapids. But I decided to stay close to home.”
Family tradition
Athletics have been a part of Lindsey’s life practically from the day she was born. And her mother says even before that.
“She’s been on the court since I was pregnant with her,” Kathy Lehman said.
Kathy was a very good athlete at Concord some 30 years ago. But Lindsey hasn’t exactly duplicated her mother’s trail.
“It’s been kind of an honor to watch her follow me, but she’s taken her own path,” Kathy Lehman said. “I was a hitter in volleyball, she’s a setter. I was a forward in basketball, she’s a guard. She handles the ball 20 times better than I could ever dream of, and she’s much faster. I played softball, she ran track, so she has laid out her own path, but it’s been nice that it’s at the same school.
“She is the fifth or sixth generation of Snows (her mother’s maiden name) to graduate from Concord. It’s a tradition that is handed down. Her great-grandfather’s picture is hanging up on the wall, and he played basketball here.”
Lindsey was the rare setter who not only led her team in assists, she also led the team in kills. As a junior, she led the Yellow Jackets to the MHSAA Quarterfinals, and this season, with most of last year’s team absent due to graduation, the team still won its fifth consecutive Big Eight Conference title.
In fact, Lindsey said it was during volleyball season that she had what might have been her proudest moment, even including the championship in track.
“Last year in volleyball, when we beat Bronson,” she said of defeating the eventual Class C champion. “Bronson beat us twice that year, and we beat them the third time. That was a great feeling.
“I like achieving goals on my own, but as a team, it just feels better because you can share it with teammates and friends. This year, we were such a young team in volleyball, and we did so well, and it was a great feeling to watch everybody get better.”
It is hard to imagine that feeling being any better than how she must have felt last spring when she barely edged her good friend to win the Division 4 championship in the 200 after finishing a close second in the 100. The race was so close that the finish was not immediately posted.
“It seemed like it took forever,” Lindsey said. “The both of us really had no idea who had won.”
Lehman’s winning time was 25.92 seconds. Jennifer Davis of Reading also was clocked in 25.92. Lindsey’s mom watched as her daughter paced in anticipation of the announcement of the final result.
“She was going back and forth, and just watching the anticipation and then seeing her face when she realized that she had won was fantastic,” Kathy Lehman said. “Just seeing her face light up at that moment was my proudest moment.”
It had to be especially sweet for Lindsey as she had lost the 100 in a race that was nearly as close as the 200. She was timed in 12.42 seconds, while the MHSAA title went to Mason County Eastern’s Jordan Goodman, who tied the LP Division 4 meet record at 12.40.
This year, Lehman has a goal of not only repeating as champion in the 200 but adding the title in the 100.
“I want to do better than I did last year,” she said. “I probably think more about the race that I lost than the one I won. I don’t like losing.”
Maybe the thought of losing is what drives her. Her parents both spoke highly of her work ethic and desire to be the best she can be.
‘She has always been a hard worker, but she has a drive that she doesn’t like to lose, and if she loses one time, she doesn’t quit,” Kathy Lehman said. “She is going to keep working to get there. Her brother is probably her best incentive because she hated losing anything to her brother.
“Sometimes it would be knock-down, drag-outs, but eventually she would sometimes best her brother. It’s always been a good competition between them.”
Lindsey still has most of the track season ahead of her, but she knows that it might be her last time in the sport. She isn’t sure if she will try to run track as well as play basketball at Spring Arbor. It hasn’t been addressed with the school, and while it has not been ruled out, it certainly is not the priority.
She also has developed a new respect for referees. This past year, Lindsey has served as a referee for sixth-grade games, and it was an enlightening experience.
“Last year, I never said anything, but I got mad at the refs sometimes,” she said, “but this year, I don’t because I know what they are going through. I don’t like being yelled at.”
Close to home
Although she had plenty of options, Spring Arbor made an offer that was too good to pass up.
“She had a chance to go to a four-year university and not have to pay nearly the amount of money she would have had to pay to go to other universities,” Matt Lehman said. “It’s an opportunity for the rest of her life.
“If someone had said at the beginning of the process that she was going to end up at Spring Arbor to play basketball, I would have said, ‘I’m not sure that would happen.’ I wouldn’t have bet on that.”
The transition to college basketball won’t be easy, but Spring Arbor coach Ryan Frost believes she has what it takes to possibly make an impact as a freshman.
“That is up to her,” he said. “You never know how a kid is going to adjust. She will have some really good seniors to learn the college game from. We have a nice group coming back. We’re excited to get her in the mix for that.
“Athletically she’s a super athlete. She has a lot of skill. She’s a competitor. She fits the mold of what we look for in a guard. She will be very similar to some of the guards we have and our style of play. We press a lot and get up and down the floor. She sees the floor real well as a point guard, and she can score, too.”
And, while her parents would have supported any decision that she made, having her at college just 5 miles away will allow them to attend most of her games.
“It has gone by so fast,” Matt Lehman said. “This is my little girl, my little gym rat who was by my side at practices and huddles with me. She’s graduating from high school and going on to college to play basketball.
“She was a gym rat from the get-go, and more than any of my children when I was coaching basketball, she was in the gym with me. She always wanted to come to practice. She was just 4 or 5, but she always wanted to be a part of it. She always had a ball in her hand, and she did the same thing with Kathy in volleyball.”
Lindsey is a pretty solid student, too, as she has a 3.85 grade point average.
“She’s a 3.85 student because of her work ethic,” Matt Lehman said. “She has balanced everything. She likes sports, she’s a good student, and she’s a good kid. I don’t have to worry about her.
“She’s a smart aleck in a good way, and she’s an easy kid to get along with. She knows how to talk to other students and how to talk to adults. She’s very well-rounded. I’m just proud of her because she didn’t accomplish this because her mom was a coach and her dad was a coach and an administrator. She accomplished it because she has talent and she worked her tail off. That’s on her.”
Chip Mundy served as sports editor at the Brooklyn Exponent and Albion Recorder from 1980-86, and then as a reporter and later copy editor at the Jackson Citizen-Patriot from 1986-2011. He also co-authored Michigan Sports Trivia. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Concord's Lindsay Lehman runs her leg of a relay for her track team. (Middle) Lehman signs her letter of intent with Spring Arbor, surrounded by father Matt, mother Kathy and younger sister Bradie . (Photos courtesy of the Lehman family.)
![Byron track & field](/sites/default/files/2021-06/210601_Marvin_2H.jpg)
Marvin Seeking Record-Setting End to Marvelous Byron Career
By
Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com
June 1, 2021
BYRON — In a bare-bones weight room that appears more like a garage to passers-by, Sarah Marvin is working to finish her quest to rewrite the record books in the shot put for girls track & field.
Not just in the Lower Peninsula’s Division 3, in which she won Finals titles in both the shot put and discus in 2019, but for all divisions.
Marvin, who has a track scholarship to the University of Michigan, has had 11 throws this season beyond the LPD3 Finals record of 46 feet, 9 inches, set by Becky Breish of Edwardsburg in 2001.
She twice has surpassed the all-Finals record of 49 feet, 11.75 inches set by Division 1’s Corinne Jemison of East Kentwood in 2018 – the first time during last summer’s National Scholastic Athletic Foundation’s virtual meet, and then again May 26 at a meet in Comstock Park with a throw of 50 feet, 9 inches.
“Throwing is so technical,” she said, “and you have those days where you’re just clicking and firing on all cylinders. I think I’ll be close to being there soon in these few meets I have left.”
It starts with the Division 3 Finals on Saturday at Jenison.
Marvin and her fraternal twin sister, Becky (a strong thrower in her own right) are familiar with the Jenison layout, which was the site of the 2019 Division 3 Finals.
“We’ll get there Friday,” Marvin said. “We like to go to the throwing rings and feel it out, get a good dinner, then stay at a hotel so we don’t have to ride for an hour and a half in a car (before the competition).”
Throwing is a sport that comes naturally to the Marvins, both for the twins, their sister Jessica and their mother, Theresa, who competed at Michigan after winning two state titles in the discus for Byron during the 1990s.
“Their older sister (Jessica) and brother T.J.) did AAU, which isn’t as big here, but is in the Detroit area,” Theresa Marvin said. “We started a club and had kids that weren’t ours on the team as well. It was a lot of fun for us. Other families were doing T-ball and soccer, and we were doing track.”
The Marvins installed a pair of throwing rings on their property about a decade ago, and the twins picked it up from there. The family took its vacations at AAU national meets, driving all over the country.
Both of the Marvin twins (Sarah is two minutes older, Becky an inch taller) played multiple sports at Byron. Becky also ran cross country and played basketball and wrestled, while Sarah was a starting offensive lineman on the Byron JV football team and did some wrestling in addition to playing basketball, where she was a three-time Owosso Argus-Press Player of the Year.
After her junior year, Sarah gave up football and wrestling.
“I had switched my (shot put) technique to rotational, and I needed more time, more months that I could devote to throwing,” she said. “I tried to train and throw during football season, but I was just too physically tired to do it the way you need to do it. I decided to put my effort and time into throwing.”
As she mentioned, Marvin had switched her throwing from a glide technique, where one effectively pushes the shot in the throw, to the rotational, where the shot comes out like it is slung.
“I’m very comfortable with it now,” she said. “But I’m looking forward to getting more comfortable with it. It’s so technique-heavy. You have these guys who have been doing it for more than a decade, and I’ve been doing it for two years. The more you do it, the more you develop the muscle memory.”
Certainly the results have been there. All of Marvin’s throws this season have been well beyond the 44-11.5 she threw to win at the 2019 Finals.
“It’s helped me make a big improvement,” she said. “But we knew that it would.”
But Sarah Marvin also has a key element in her makeup that has spurred her success.
Asked what she thinks makes her sister stand out, Becky Marvin said, “her work ethic, for sure. She’s always working harder than everyone else. She’ll go out and lift without me sometimes. She has talent, for sure, but her drive makes her stand out.”
During last year’s pandemic, the Marvin sisters were without a place to work out after Byron High School closed.
“We got online and on Facebook Marketplace and put the word out,” Theresa Marvin said. “People gave us stuff, and we made an at-home weight room in our barn.”
Their sister Jessica, who competes at Northwood University, came home along with her boyfriend, who like Jessica is a thrower at Northwood. They all worked out.
“It was a houseful,” said Theresa, a mother of six.
Theresa Marvin realized early on that her twins would need more specialized coaching than what she could provide, and for the last couple of years they have worked with Dane Miller, a private coach based in Fleetwood, Pa.
“I do still coach them at meets, and I try to facilitate what Dane’s trying to do,” said Marvin, who also coached her daughters on the Byron varsity girls basketball team the last two years.
Speaking of basketball, the extension of the season into late March cut into the Marvins’ training time for track.
“Her strength levels go down in basketball from all the running,” Theresa Marvin said of Sarah. “It took her a good 4-6 weeks to get back to speed, and I don’t think she’s there yet. Last year, she didn’t peak until mid-July.”
The Marvin sisters, whom Byron girls track coach Byron Schartzer calls “The Wonder Twins,” feed off each other in competition.
“Just to have another person to hold you accountable to train with definitely helps,” Sarah said.
And while they’re serious about their sport, they also keep things light-hearted.
“If I throw big, she throws big, sometimes,” Becky said. “I made fun of her at the Comstock Park meet; I fouled on my first throw and made the second.
“Then she fouled on her first throw and made the second, and I’m like, ‘OK, you can just copy me, then,’” she added, chuckling. “But if one of us hits a big throw, we try to drive off that.”
While there are other amateur meets later this month, the Marvins have their attention set on Saturday’s Finals.
In the shot put, Sarah Marvin has the top throw this season entering the week, but Becky Marvin is in the top 10, seventh in a pack where spots 3-8 are within 21 inches.
Sarah also is ranked No. 1 in the discus, while Becky is ranked sixth.
“They’re both having great seasons,” Theresa Marvin said. “But you never know. You just can’t take anything for granted. We focus on being healthy, being ready to peak, and then being ready to go on that day.”
And then, before they know it, the twins will be separated. Sarah is going to Michigan to study movement science with an eye toward, perhaps, a medical career.
Becky is going to Tiffin University, where she plans to compete on the track team while pursuing a business degree.
“It’s like 2½ hours from Byron,” Becky said. “Ann Arbor’s on the way home, so if I’m driving by and she wants to come home, I’ll pick her up.”
It’s family, after all, that Sarah cherishes the most about her athletic career.
“I can’t imagine where I would have been in my sports, or my success in sports, without my family,” she said. “In basketball, it was my older sister playing. My three brothers are all wrestlers. I have huge family support and a huge extended family that comes to all my games. They’ve all grown up playing sports, and it’s just fun.”
PHOTOS: Byron senior Sarah Marvin shows her shot put form; she’s the reigning Division 3 champion in the event. (Middle) Sarah and twin sister Becky Marvin are workout partners and make up one of the top throwing pairs in the state again this spring. (Photos by Tim Robinson.)