Catcher's Grit Shines in Health Scares
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
April 9, 2018
RICHMOND – Evelyn Swantek couldn’t have imagined what her day would be like when she awoke on Aug. 8 of last year.
Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt on a seasonably warm summer morning, Swantek went for a mile run as part of the training that all varsity volleyball players at Richmond High School were expected to complete.
Near the end of her run, Swantek noticed something wasn’t quite right. A bit of fatigue, yes, but it was more than that. She went home and told her father, Dave Swantek, that she was going to take a nap. But when she awoke, her world changed dramatically.
“It came out of nowhere,” she said. “I woke up and couldn’t talk. Part of my face went numb and I couldn’t see out of my right eye. And my neck was really big.”
A bit dazed by the sudden physical change of the youngest of his three daughters, Dave Swantek drove her to the hospital not knowing what was wrong.
Thankfully, Dave was home on a vacation day while his wife, Julie, was at work. He was attending to a couple of odd jobs around the house when his daughter came home.
“Evie came in and said she was tired, and wanted to take a nap,” he said. “She got up and came downstairs; immediately I knew something was wrong. It’s something, as a parent, you just don’t want to see.”
The Swanteks arrived at McLaren Hospital in Mount Clemens and, after the diagnosis, were told that Evie had developed blood clots – one in her throat and one in her face, and that she had suffered a Transitory Ischemic Attack (TIA), commonly known as a mini-stroke.
Dave Swantek said the doctors immediately took his daughter off the blood-clotting medication she had been taking since January.
On New Year’s Eve, 2016, Evie experienced abdominal pain while celebrating the arrival of the New Year with family members. She was taken to McLaren Hospital, where exploratory surgery was performed and she was diagnosed with endometriosis. Endometriosis is a condition in which a layer of tissue that normally covers the inside of the uterus grows outside of it. One of the main symptoms is pelvic pain.
At the time, the Swanteks never gave it a second thought. Evie took medication, didn’t miss a day of school and continued to compete on the varsity basketball team. After that season ended, Evie made the varsity softball team for the first time and was named the starting catcher by coach Howard Stuart. Richmond won the MHSAA Division 2 title in 2016, and the Blue Devils reached the championship game again in 2017 only to lose to Ida, 8-4, in nine innings in the Final.
Seven weeks later, the Swanteks’ world turned upside down. And it would take nearly three months for their world to be turned right side up.
“It was a warning sign,” Dave Swantek said of the blood clots and the mini-stroke. “The medication she was on was clotting. Then they took her off of it. It gave us time to find out what was wrong. And this went on for a long time.”
Not knowing the exact cause and the proper medication was disconcerting to the Swanteks.
“They had no clue,” Evie said. “I kept asking (the doctors) what’s wrong. They said they didn’t know yet. I was sitting in the hospital just thinking, this is scary.”
For about a six-week period, Evie was in and out of the hospital three or four times – doesn’t recall the exact number. The illness prevented her from competing in volleyball and basketball, and for a senior, that can be difficult to handle. She also can’t give the exact number of days of school she missed, but she does remember missing a couple of football Friday nights, which did not sit well with her. Evie was able to attend Homecoming, however.
All during this time one thought, one goal, weighed heavily.
“Not knowing if I was going to play softball was hard,” she said. “I kept asking the doctors, ‘Will I be able to play?’ That’s my favorite. I’ve been playing since I was 7. I’ve been playing travel (softball) since I was 8. And I’ve always been a catcher.
“It was hard on my parents, too. It was frustrating.”
This frustration and uneasiness came to a head one evening while Evie was watching television.
“I started to have these chest pains,” she said. “I’m lying on the coach, and it’s starting to hurt real bad. And I have a high threshold for pain. I broke my wrist (glove hand) and played three more tournaments, so it has to be a lot of pain for me to do something about it. I had had these chest pains before, but this time it was really bad. I rolled up into a fetal position, it was so bad.”
Said her father: “I remember that. I rushed to (McLaren) hospital and the people in the emergency room looked at us and it was like, what now? It took them three days to find out. The doctors kept saying they don’t know.”
Dave Swantek said the doctors changed medication, from one blood thinner, taken orally, to one that was administered intravenously. In the end, that did the trick. Evie said she’s feeling better since the switch was made and the application, after a couple of tries, became second nature. She’s able to administer the shots by herself.
Dave Swantek gushes when he talks about how well his daughter has handled this situation. He said the doctors who have either diagnosed or treated Evie have offered to have a psychologist meet with her in an effort to make sure she recovered mentally from the ordeal.
“The coping mechanism she has displayed is amazing,” he said. “She’s been amazing through it all. She lost two sports – two sports she played her whole life. She loves volleyball and basketball. There were times they were throwing all kinds of medication at her, trying to find out what works. When they can’t tell you what’s wrong with your daughter, it’s a challenge. It was a rough time. She did a wonderful job.”
There is a happy ending. Evie is playing softball and expected to be one of Richmond’s top players. She’s down to one shot per day and she’s hoping, after she and her parents meet with the doctors April 26, that she will be taken off medication.
And her future looks bright on the diamond. She’s received a scholarship to Oakland Community College where one of her sisters, Ally, a sophomore, is a student.
“I’ve had the best support system you could imagine,” Evie said. “My parents, my family, have been so great. It’s been very comforting.”
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Richmond catcher Evie Swantek frames a pitch during last season’s Division 2 championship game. (Middle) Swantek powers through a swing during the Final. (Below) The Swantek family: parents Julie and Dave and daughters Emily, Ally and (far right) Evelyn. (Family photo courtesy of the Swantek family.)
Mullaly's Devotion to Local Sports Burns Brightly with Scoreboard Donations
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
April 11, 2023
HILLSDALE – Sports have always been a big part of Bill Mullaly’s life.
In high school, he played on the 1975 Hudson football team that set a national record with a 72-game winning streak.
He coached an Arizona high school team to back-to-back state softball championships in the 1990s.
And the 63-year-old Hillsdale resident has spent nearly three decades as an MHSAA-registered official in basketball, volleyball, baseball, and softball.
Now, he’s giving back to multiple communities and school districts in southeast Michigan by purchasing and donating scoreboards for use at recreation and high school fields.
"Bill is a great example of everything that is right with sports,” said Pittsford athletic director Mike Burger. “He has so much enthusiasm and love for the game. I have known him a long time and can honestly say he is one of the good ones that I have had the good fortune of meeting along my journey.”
Mullaly decided to start his scoreboard campaign a couple of years ago and, so far, has donated a total of 15 scoreboards to seven communities in south-central Michigan, including four in his hometown of Hudson.
“It’s to make the games more fun and more enjoyable,” he said. “I’ve been to two places this spring where they have scoreboards, but they aren’t working. It’s frustrating. It improves the whole game. It’s for everybody, the coaches, the players, the fans. It helps everybody.
“I’ve got a lot of positive feedback. People are grateful.”
Mullaly said he is fortunate to be in a position to help out the communities. His donations have all been to either recreation fields or high schools to which he has a connection, whether it be where he’s from ( Hudson), where he is a substitute teacher (Litchfield) or where he hosts baseball youth tournaments (Concord).
One of the scoreboards in Pittsford is in memory of his mother, Beverly, a 1948 Pittsford graduate.
“Someone said to me a couple of years ago, ‘What’s your legacy going to be?’” Mullally said. “I started thinking about what I can do to make a difference.
“I saw a lot of recreation fields that do not have scoreboards. Most of them don’t. A lot of schools don’t have a scoreboard, in fact. I looked into the price and what it would take to get them and came up with this thing that I’m going to donate scoreboards to parks. I saw a couple of schools that needed them.”
Mullaly purchases the scoreboards, then leaves it up to the school district or community to install them, which sometimes has been a hangup. In Hudson, he enlisted the help of a friend, Bruce Isenhower, and his son, Ryan, a former Hudson quarterback who now owns a construction company. They’ve put up all four scoreboards Mullaly has donated to Hudson.
“It’s more than just buying it, it’s getting it put up,” Mullaly said. “They have installed them, completed the wiring and it’s great. It’s great to have a working scoreboard there. I’m just trying to give back and make a positive difference.”
His first donation was to Concord, which went to the town’s recreation organization.
“They have five fields and three scoreboards,” he said. “It just adds to the game, the experience. Everyone wants to know the score at these games.”
In Hudson, two went to Memorial Park and two to Will Carleton Park, which is home to Hudson’s middle school and junior varsity softball teams.
Last winter his donation went to North Adams-Jerome for a varsity softball field.
“I’ve been there before,” he said. “The thing barely worked, and you couldn’t see the numbers. I wanted to help them out.”
Pittsford has installed one of two scoreboards Mullaly has purchased for the district for its baseball and softball fields. Quincy and Litchfield are using scoreboards donated by Mullaly. He has also donated a scoreboard to Union City.
“A guy was building a new complex two years ago. I said, ‘If you build it, I’ll donate the scoreboard.’ He said, ‘You will?’ I thought it was great what he was doing, and I wanted to be part of it,” Mullaly said.
Most of the signs include the moniker, “Donated by Bill Mullaly – For the Love of the Game,” which is something he and a friend thought up.
“My main focus was to do it for parks that the rec teams play on,” Mullaly said. “They don’t have a booster club or a budget. That’s how it began, but then I started going around to high schools and noticing they need scoreboards too.
“I get some satisfaction looking out there,” he said. “I feel blessed that I am able to do it. It’s neat when you are umpiring a game and you look out there.”
The first scoreboard Mullaly purchased in 2021 cost less than $3,000. They are now running a little more than $4,000 each.
“It’s useful and practical and can last for years if they take care of them,” Mullaly said.
After college, Mullaly lived for 15 years in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., where he taught and coached softball. He makes a return visit annually to that area and manages to get on the high school softball umpiring schedule while in town.
He retired as a teacher at Homer Community Schools in 2010. In addition to being a substitute teacher at Litchfield, umpiring and working as an official in other sports, he writes about sports for the Hudson Post-Gazette and Homer Index, two weekly newspapers. He’s done that since 1996. He also is a historian for the Hudson football team and area athletics.
He’s never far from some aspect of sports.
“I’m just trying to give back to the communities, to the sport,” Mullaly said. “I wanted to do something positive.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) A scoreboard donated by Bill Mullaly stands tall at Pittsford High School. (Middle) Mullaly, middle, stands last July with Jo Ann and Watson Clark in front of a scoreboard he donated to Will Carleton Park; the photo was taken during the 22nd David Clark Memorial Baseball Tournament. (Top photo courtesy of Pittsford High School; middle photo courtesy of Bill Mullaly.)