Traverse Bay Reps Teammates Unite to Take on Great Lakes Paddle Board Pursuit
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
August 3, 2023
Twenty years ago, Kwin Morris and Jeff Guy were teammates on an MHSAA Quarterfinal-qualifying hockey team.
Guy even scored the winning goal in the Regional Final for Bay Area Reps, which topped Traverse City West 2-1.
This summer’s accomplishment, though, will go deeper in the history books.
Guy and Morris teamed up with Joe Lorenz to complete a dream that started a decade ago. They crossed all five of the Great Lakes on paddle boards while raising awareness and funds for water quality.
They put their balance, endurance and stick-handling skills together for the cause.
‘After 10 years and over one hundred grand raised for the lakes, it feels amazing,” Morris said. “I think the best part is knowing my kids will grow up knowing their old man did something cool for the environment in a unique way.”
It all started at a December social event in Traverse City. Guy, a financial adviser, and Morris, a middle school science teacher, had just gotten into paddle boarding when they began to wonder if they could cross Lake Michigan.
Lorenz, a personal trainer, promptly gave assurances they could — and joined them — even though he had never been on a paddle board prior to the holiday gathering.
Morris, Guy and Lorenz successfully crossed Lake Michigan in 2015, pausing in the cold of the night to look at the Northern Lights. They finished the nearly 100-kilometer journey in just under 25 hours. That accomplishment convinced them to launch Stand Up for Great Lakes, a non-profit organization to raise money and awareness for the protection of the lakes.
The trio also is supporting the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, a non-profit housed at the University of Michigan.
“It feels amazing to have finished crossing all five lakes and complete a lifelong goal,” Guy acknowledged. “The dollars and awareness we have raised is incredible, and hopefully it continues to grow.”
Lake Huron was the toughest to cross by far, the former Reps noted. The 90-mile, 29-hour paddle brought seven hours of rain and high waves.
“Plus Joe knocked me in and Jeff fell in after catching a fish,” Morris observed.
Ontario was the team’s second-hardest challenge and the shortest paddle. Huge waves from the side all day took quite a toll on the paddlers, who were accompanied by safety boats on each crossing.
Lake Superior featured glassy water, a spectacular sunset and the paddlers pausing to conduct a ceremony over the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck. The northernmost Great Lake ranks as the group’s favorite.
Guy graduated from Kalkaska High School in 2003 and went on to play hockey at Hope College. He also played football, baseball and golf for the Blazers. He and his wife, Melissa, have a daughter, Emma.
Morris graduated in 2005 from Elk Rapids High School, where he also played baseball. He went on to get a teaching degree from Western Michigan University. He and his wife, Megan, have two children, Fitz and Knox. He now works for his former school district, teaching science.
The pair played for the Reps through a co-op hosted by Traverse City St. Francis that included athletes from Charlevoix, Elk Rapids, Kalkaska, Kingsley, Lake Leelanau St Mary, Mancelona and Suttons Bay. The Reps’ first coach was Michigan High School Hockey Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee Rex Luxton. He coached through 2008.
Morris and Guy look back at their high school playing days and coach with fondness.
“We had some great teams, and I think I still have the career goal record there,” Guy recalled. “Also, our coach on the Reps Rex Luxton was highly motivational to me while playing for him and later in life.”
Morris echoed Guy.
“I loved the whole experience,” Morris said. “Playing for my high school … Friday night games … school rivalries … playing for Rex Luxton … amazing friends and teammates — almost surreal that it will have been 20 years.”
The former coaching staff of the Reps are not at all surprised Morris and Guy challenged themselves to make a difference for the Great Lakes.
The coaching staff remembers Guy as a natural scorer coming through with big goals, and Morris as a strong two-way player who scored five goals in one period in Sault Ste. Marie. The past coaches also remember all the traveling the two did for practice and games because of the geographic nature of the squad.
“I had no idea they had any interest in the water kind of stuff,” Luxton said of his former players’ feat. “When I started following their bid to raise awareness, it didn’t surprise me they would attempt something like this.
“I think it illustrates how much determination they have and how much hard work they were willing to put in,” he continued. “It is just outstanding, particularly with the cold weather in the Great Lakes.”
Cody Inglis, a senior assistant director for the MHSAA, was an assistant coach for the Reps during all of Morris and Guy’s time with the co-op. He finds himself beaming with pride and happiness knowing these former players are giving back and making it a better world.
“What Jeff and Kwin have done physically and mentally to cross all of the Great Lakes on stand-up paddle boards is remarkable in itself,” Inglis pointed out. “When you add in the fact that they have put in charitable causes and the preservation of the Great Lakes as a reason for doing it – it makes it even more special.
“It’s not surprising given my recollection and remembrances of Jeff and Kwin, as they were really good hockey players and better people.”
High school hockey is where Morris and Guy’ friendship blossomed. Spending 24 or more hours together — and with Lorenz — has forged a greater lifetime bond that already had included being a part of each other’s weddings.
But they admit they had no inkling of this type of accomplishment back in high school.
“Sports were the most important thing in my life in high school,” Guy revealed. “Working really hard to win as many games as possible was the main goal – along with getting good grades and trying to get into a good college.”
But teamwork, learned on the ice and through other high school sports, can make anything possible.
“Any sport where you have to work as a team helps push yourself out of your comfort zone,” Morris concluded. “That's where the best things in life happen.”
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PHOTOS (Top) Clockwise from top left: Jeff Guy celebrates a goal while playing for Traverse Bay Reps with Kwin Morris to his left, Guy (left) and Morris (right) take a photo after one of their paddle board trips, and Morris bringing the puck up the ice for the Reps. (Middle) Guy, Morris and Joe Lorenz take a photo together on the lake shore. (Below) Morris accepts a medal during the 2004-05 season. (Photos courtesy of Jeff Guy, Kwin and Jo Morris.)
'Miracle' Comeback, Memorable Finish
February 27, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
At some point, Jay Jones is sure, he and his friends from Traverse City West will reminisce about playing in the second-longest hockey game in MHSAA history.
Erik Anton always will remember sending the shot into the top corner of the net that made the score 2-1 in favor of his team and ended the seven-overtime marathon against Jones and the Traverse City Bay Reps – but there’s no way Anton will be the one bringing it up.
No need. His goal as midnight approached Monday immediately became legendary in the Traverse City area – complete with a captivating back story as well.
Anton’s shot ended the game after 103 minutes and 33 seconds – or 4:33 into the seventh overtime.
A little more than year ago, Anton couldn’t skate, or for that matter walk – he was hospitalized in Grand Rapids, paralyzed from the rib cage down because of a viral infection.
And among his visitors was Jones, a friend since childhood and the Bay Reps goalie Monday who stopped 48 shots before Anton potted the game winner.
“I don’t think it’s something where I’ll be like, ‘Remember that?’ But obviously it will be in our memories,” Anton said. “We were trying for such a long time. (For them) it was such a heart-breaking experience.
“(But) I might tease him about it a little bit.”
Anton and Traverse City West live on, having also beaten Manistee on Wednesday to advance to Saturday’s Division 1 Regional Final against Grand Rapids West Catholic. A trophy-earning win that night surely would add to an incredibly memorable week.
But it already has been an unforgettable year for the Titans junior wing, even as his most “miraculous” feat came against a friend who has been among those rooting him on these last many months.
Suddenly sidelined
Anton has played hockey since he was 3, and he has six goals and eight assists this winter. It’s his number one sport – although he also plays tennis and lacrosse.
Needless to say, he’s always been an active guy.
Until December 2012. Anton contracted transverse myelitis, an infection affecting the spiral cord caused in this case by a virus. His immune system, mistaking that part of his nervous system for the virus, attacked – causing the paralysis that sent him on a trip to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids.
“How I describe it, I was lying down and somebody just put 1,000 pounds on top of my legs,” Anton said. “You try to move your legs and you can’t.
“(The doctor) would take a pen and touch the bottom of my foot, and it felt like they were taking a lighter to the bottom of my foot.”
His doctor gave him a 33 percent chance of recovering fully. Anton was expected to stay in Grand Rapids at the Mary Free Bed rehabilitation hospital for three months.
That first weekend away from home, Anton was visited by teammates and friends, including Jones. Their travel teams growing up had included about half of the current West team, a few who now play at Traverse City Central and a handful more now on the Bay Reps.
“I was shocked to see him like that,” Jones said, “not being able to move a whole lot.”
Friendly support
Jones, a sophomore, attends St. Francis High School. The Bay Reps are a hockey co-op team comprised of students from seven schools. He and Anton never went to the same one, but their families are friends and they became hockey teammates on the travel circuit when they were 8 or 9.
They also started lacrosse together, played tennis together, golfed and more recently snowboarded together.
Jones first heard of what had befallen his friend in the lockerroom after a practice. Stunned to say the least, Jones didn’t say much for the first day or two before he and their friends made the trip to Grand Rapids.
By Jones’ description, Anton is a funny guy, definitely an extrovert. They together were the talkers on their travel teams growing up. Jones found his friend wasn’t much different in this unusual setting, just a little quieter. “He actually got up and we wheeled him around the hospital area,” Jones said. “We were laughing and making jokes like normal.”
“I just remember being in high spirits,” Anton added. “I always love seeing my friends, and having my friends come down and visit me, just being able to be with them again, especially when I was just laying in the hospital ...”
Anton said he knew from the start that he wouldn’t settle for a three-month hospital stay and surely not for paralysis for life if he could help it. He showed enough improvement to go home after just two weeks. And by the end of the spring lacrosse season, he felt back at full strength.
“It is pretty amazing. Once he got back, everyone pretty much treated him like normal,” Jones said. “He was back to his old self.”
Memorable moment
Anton could feel Jones’ stick jabbing at his skates whenever he came close to the net Monday. Anton laughed to himself at the little unspoken competition between the two.
He felt strong going into the third overtime, but by the fourth his legs were feeling heavy. By the seventh overtime his shifts had shortened substantially as players dug for any energy they could muster.
Meanwhile, Jones would smack his stick at the goal posts between periods, swing it at the net – “pretty much trying to stay awake at that point,” he said.
As the overtimes piled up, Jones also began to consider the significance of being part of such a game. It would be talked about for a long time. Everyone would know it was hard-fought. Win or lose, both teams would feel a sense of accomplishment. But if his team lost, he’d be absolutely crushed.
Both he and Anton saw a similar build-up to Anton’s deciding shot. Anton had been on the ice for about 15 seconds. His team was regrouping in the neutral zone when teammate Caleb Breithaupt ended up with a loose puck and pushed it ahead to forward Nick Schultz at the blue line.
Anton took a pass at the top of a circle in front of the Bay Reps’ net. Jones saw him line up the shot. A defenseman skated between them, but remained just off to a side. Anton fired at the high left corner of the net. Jones never saw the puck go by.
It was the Bay Reps’ fifth overtime loss this season. Jones took a knee staring at the ice in front of him. His teammates skated over and provided some support, but the moment was “surreal” – for a moment, Jones said, the ice was completely silent. And then he looked into the corner and saw number 19, Anton, celebrating. He smiled, just a little.
Traverse City West had lost to the Reps in overtime, 5-4, in a 2013 Pre-Regional opener, and then again earlier this season. Those details provide additional layers to an extraordinary experience players on both sides will tell about in the years to come.
It’s what Anton has learned to relish while recovering from his unfortunate circumstance, even if he’ll let others start this conversation the next time he’s hanging with Jones and his other Bay Reps pals.
“I definitely don’t take anything for granted anymore. I always put all my effort into sports, but after going through that, I really try to enjoy it, make the most of it when I can,” Anton said. “I always had a competitive edge, and I still do. Now I definitely try to enjoy it while I’m out there, enjoy the experience.”
Click to read more about Anton’s initial recovery from the Traverse City Record-Eagle.
PHOTOS: (Top) Traverse City West’s Erik Anton (19) unloads a shot at Bay Reps goalie Jay Jones that Jones stops Monday. (Middle top) Anton, seated, is visited by friends including Jones (gray jacket) during his hospital stay. (Middle below) Anton, left, and Jones take a brief moment from lacrosse during their younger days. (Below) Members of the West and Bay Reps hockey teams hold up Anton’s jersey after a game he could not play in last season. (Photos courtesy of Madelaine Jones.)