As Season 50 Begins, Johnson Continues Nurturing Opportunities Into Lasting Successes
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
April 13, 2022
Kay Johnson’s high school athletic career consisted of a field hockey game, one or two volleyball matches and a basketball game.
“We would get the gym one night a week, and we’d play something,” she said, recalling her days at Whitmer High School in Toledo, Ohio. “There weren’t a lot of opportunities.”
The introduction to sports was all she needed, however, to form a lifelong passion for athletics. Johnson is starting her 50th season this week as softball coach at Morenci High School in south central Michigan. The school is less than two miles from the Ohio border but has long been on the Michigan map when it comes to sports.
Much of that credit belongs to Johnson. She’s coached multiple generations of Bulldogs athletes. At one time she coached four sports – basketball, volleyball, track and softball.
“In the winter we would have basketball practice until 5, then the girls would spend the next half hour working on their spring sports,” she said. “I would catch our softball pitchers in the gym and our track athletes would put some work in.”
In the spring of 1976, Johnson coached Morenci to a league championship in softball and the Lower Peninsula Class D track & field championship.
“We were very successful in the 1970s,” she said. “We got a head start on a lot of people. We had all of our sports going pretty strong those first seven or eight years.”
Johnson arrived at Morenci at about the same time Title IX was becoming law. The legislation protected people of all genders from discrimination in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.
Morenci, she said, got a leg up on other schools in the area when it came to sports. Part of that was the push she gave sports at the school.
“I knew in the eighth grade that I wanted to be a physical education teacher,” she said. “Out of high school I went to Adrian College, and I played everything I could. I played basketball, field hockey and volleyball and played two years on the tennis team.
“Adrian encouraged women to get involved in sports, so I was fortunate there, too.
“At Morenci, we had a superintendent, Harold Hall, whose daughter was a good athlete, and he wanted her to participate in sports. It didn’t happen overnight because of Title IX, but it developed. We had a lot of girls participate.”
She didn’t necessarily dream of one day becoming a coach but accepted the role when she got to Morenci.
“I was the physical education teacher,” she said. “It was kind of assumed the PE teacher would be a coach. They sort of just gave me the sports to coach. I was okay with it.”
There were some growing pains with girls athletics.
“In the winter, our basketball team would have to wait until after wrestling meets to have a practice,” she said. “Some nights our practices were from 9:30 or 9:45 to 10:30. Most of our girls did two or three sports. Finding gym time was a struggle.”
Things that athletes take for granted these days, such as uniforms, were also difficult to come by.
“We wore the same T-shirts for all of our sports the first few years,” she said. “It wasn’t until we pushed for it that every sport had their own uniforms. I don’t think anyone was suing anyone in Morenci back then, but there were little pushes here and there to make things happen. I don’t even remember when the pay for coaches started evening out. Nothing happens without a push.”
Over the years, however, Title IX took hold and athletes from Morenci and all over the state and nation benefited.
As the seasons grew and things evolved, Johnson eventually stopped coaching varsity track & field, volleyball, and basketball, although she had huge successes in each sport. Johnson was teacher for 23 years and middle school principal for 15. After retiring she went a couple of years without a formal title but covered assorted duties such as middle school volleyball coach, volleyball scorekeeper, filming for boys basketball and football and running concession stands. Soon, she became athletic director, a position she left a few years ago.
Softball, however, has remained her constant.
“I’m still challenged by it,” she said. “That’s what keeps me coming back.”
The Bulldogs went 19-14 last year and won the 25th District title of Johnson’s tenure. She also has 11 league titles, nine Regional titles and two Class C Finals championships (1985 and 1986) in softball. Her 949 career wins put her firmly in the top 15 among the state’s all-time winningest softball coaches. Technically the 2022 season is No. 49, although she’s been coach for 50. The 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19.
“I still coached all winter to get the girls ready,” she said. “We just didn’t have a season.”
Johnson said she has been happy coaching at Morenci. In 1978, she briefly coached basketball at another Lenawee County school when it appeared Morenci was not going to have high school athletics due to a millage not passing. She was juggling coaching the girls at Morenci and at another school, but when the millage passed and sports were restored at Morenci she gave up the other school.
“I’ve never really looked to go anywhere else,” she said. “I never looked to coach in college. The recruiting never interested me.”
Johnson has 23 athletes in the Morenci softball program this year including some who have not played softball before, meaning she’s teaching the game almost from the bottom up.
“I just have to be patient,” she said. “I enjoy the challenge of seeing where we start to where we end. I’ve never been one to coach to win the first game of the season. I want to win the last.”
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) Morenci softball coach Kay Johnson talks things over with player Rebekah Shoemaker during last season’s Division 4 Regional. (Middle) Johnson confers with the home plate umpire. (Photos by Doug Donnelly.)
Game May Change, But Success Continues as Wilson Nears 800 Coaching Wins
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
April 16, 2024
SOUTH HAVEN — No dugouts, no outfield fences, $25 bats.
Things have come a long way since Wilma Wilson took over the coaching reins at her alma mater 35 years ago.
“When I played, we didn’t have fences, we didn’t have dugouts; we had benches,” the South Haven softball coach said. “If you hit a home run, it had to be an in-the-park home run because there were hardly any parks that had any fences.
“It’s come a long way. Now you go to fields that are turfed. I love it. I’m glad to see the change for the girls and to see more emphasis on them playing and being involved.”
With a 791-406 record over her 35 years coaching the Rams softball team, Wilson is closing in on 800 career wins. Her current record puts her 19th among MHSAA coaches and just 16 victories behind former Monroe coach Vince Rossi’s 807 victories.
The Rams are 2-2 on the young season, but started off with a bang — actually three bangs over the right field fence in a one-run squeaker against Paw Paw on March 26.
Although the team has just 11 players, it is stacked with experience. Nine players saw action last season, and the five seniors have three or four years of varsity time.
Those seniors include twins Kamryn and Taylor Holland.
Against Paw Paw, Kamryn hit her first grand slam, a walk-off homer in a 12-11 win.
“I knew it was going to be close as soon as I saw it,” the third baseman said. “I just kept running and started jumping up and down when I saw it go over.”
She was one of the veterans instrumental in the team’s postseason play last year, as South Haven reached its Division 2 District Final before losing 6-2 to Hamilton.
The Rams are focused on a longer run this year.
“A lot of the girls have been on the same team, and we’ve played together the past three years,” Kamryn said. “We know enough about each other and work good together. Everything clicks.”
Her sister, a shortstop/pitcher, agrees she and her teammates already have solid connections and said Wilson is a big reason.
“I love how much she pushes me,” Taylor Holland said. “She’s always there when you need her. She’ll take you aside if you need anything and always wants us to be our best. I just love that about her, because she loves us on and off the field.”
Wilson does more than work on softball with the players.
“(Last week) I sat down with the girls and had a good heart-to-heart, working through frustrations, trying to help kids maneuver through things in life, whether at school, at home, in the game,” she said.
“That’s a huge part of coaching and what keeps me in it, knowing I can make a difference helping these kids manage life a little bit.”
Continuing the legacy
One of Wilson’s former players who is still very involved in the sport is her daughter, Marlee Wilson, in her first season as Western Michigan University’s head softball coach.
The Broncos won their 20th game of the season Sunday, making Wilson WMU’s winningest first-year softball coach.
“I coached her when she was small, coached her through high school, coached her in travel ball,” Wilma Wilson said. “She’s a very competitive kid, plays really hard. She has that same love for the game that I do, same drive.”
Marlee Wilson said one important thing she learned from her mom was to make softball fun.
“Practices in high school were always really fun,” she remembered. “It was the best part of the day. I couldn’t imagine it being any other way. (I want to) continue that and also develop the student athletes as people.
“There’s not a huge career in softball like there is in baseball and other sports, so you’re going to play four or five years in college then hopefully be prepared for life after sports, which (Mom) did a really good job with me.”
When she has a chance to talk with high school athletes, Marlee Wilson tells them to have fun and learn the basics of the game.
“That’s huge in high school,” she said. “At the college level, we can tell players who went through really good high school programs or travel programs that have those really good fundamentals or softball IQ.
“(Mom) does a really good job of developing players as a whole so when they get to that level, they understand that part of the game.”
Wilson played softball at WMU from 2014-18 and was a three-time academic all-Mid-American Conference honoree, a 2017 MAC Distinguished Scholar-Athlete and a four-time NFCA All-American Scholar.
Sparking like Sparky
Although Wilma Wilson calls him a “co-coach,” Dave Gumpert considers himself her assistant the last 11 years.
“I respect her many years as being a coach,” he said. “We talk things over, but she makes the final decisions.
“It’s been a really good relationship. She bounces things off me, I bounce things off her. It’s been a good run so far.”
Gumpert, who had a seven-year stint as a major league pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals, is the one who good-naturedly calls Wilson “Sparky” — and not because of her sparkling personality.
“She pretty much lets me run practice, and she walks around,” he said, smiling. “I played for (Tigers manager) Sparky Anderson and that’s what he did. He walked around the outfield, just talking to people and doing all the PR stuff while all the other coaches were getting the work done. So I like to tease her.”
Equipment has been another area of change during Wilson’s tenure.
“The equipment has gone crazy from the technology of bats,” she said. “A bat back in the day would be $20, $25. Now they’re $400.
“If take my school budget and buy balls for the season for both our (varsity and JV) teams and a bat, I’ve used two-thirds of my budget.”
But South Haven is making those bats work. Senior centerfielder Myraql McGee said hitting is among the team’s most noticeable improvements from a year ago.
“Our whole lineup is good power hitters. It doesn’t matter where you are, our lineup is pretty stacked,” said McGee, who will continue her career next season at Missouri Valley College.
“Fielding-wise, we could work on a couple things, but we don’t make as many errors at routine plays as many other teams.”
Other seniors are Sam Beeney and Kayley Gorham, and juniors are Madi Dotson, Grace Strebeck and Molly Verseput. Sophomores are Addison Dekoning and Erin Bos, and they are joined by freshman Ly’Nique Cunningham.
Gumpert was with Wilson when the Rams reached but lost in the Division 2 Final in 2018 and sees some similarities between that and this year’s team.
“Offensively, we had a good team, but I would dare to say this team is as good offensively as that team was,” he said. “It’s going to boil down to how well our pitching does, how well our pitchers progress. If we have the pitching I think we can develop into, I think we’ll be competitive with anybody.”
Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.
PHOTOS (Top) South Haven softball coach Wilma Wilson, right, welcomes home Kamryn Holland after Holland’s grand slam March 26. (2) The Rams enjoy watching Marlee Wilson’s Western Michigan Broncos this season. (2) Wilson, right, joins daughter Marlee to form an accomplished mother-daughter coaching tree. (4) South Haven senior Myraql McGee settles in under a fly ball. (Top and WMU photos provided by Wilma Wilson, family photo by Pam Shebest, and McGee action photo provided by McGee.)