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'Distinguished' Garvey Serves Hackett Well
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
March 28, 2017
KALAMAZOO — Mike Garvey’s high school sports career took him to Switzerland, England, West Germany, Belgium and France.
As unorthodox as that was, it set the foundation for his life’s work as a director of athletics, currently at Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep.
For his work in high school athletics, Garvey has a collection of honors and awards, including his latest: a 2016 National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association Distinguished Service Award, presented at the national banquet in Nashville, Tenn., in December.
“It was pretty neat,” said Garvey, who prefers talking about his coaches and athletes instead of himself.
“I don’t have a job; I have a mission and my mission is to serve the kids, which is really why this one means so much to me, because it’s a distinguished service award.”
The award, based on service to the NIAAA and interscholastic athletics at the local, state and national levels, followed his 2015 Allen W. Bush Award from the MHSAA for “giving and serving without a lot of attention,” he said. “Mr. Quiet and Humble,” he added with a laugh.
“While Mike’s first priority is at his school and the students there, he involves himself in league, state and national organizations, sharing his knowledge and experience with others so they can become better at what they do,” said Gary Ellis, athletic director at Allegan High School for 17 years before retiring in 2013.
“His willingness to mentor others has had a positive effect on many districts within his conference and throughout the state.”
Coaches enjoy working with Garvey, said Jesse Brown, who is starting his 12th season as Hackett’s head baseball coach.
“The great thing about Mike is that he is focused on the kids first,” Brown said. “As a coach, we put kids first. It puts us on the same page immediately.
“It’s that relationship building he has, even with his coaches. I look at him as a mentor for me. He’s very, very open and is willing to help you grow. He pushes you to do that, too.”
With none of 27 varsity head coaches working in the building, Garvey has an interesting dynamic, keeping in touch with them through emails or phone calls when they are not on campus.
“We have an awesome staff here, and that makes my life easier,” Garvey said. “Our head coaches own their programs. I tell them, ‘If I wanted to be the head coach in your sport, I would have hired me. So go run it.’ I think they like that.”
Garvey recently finished his term as the liaison between the state and national associations, and he is MIAAA coordinator for leadership training.
At the national level, he teaches “Coaching for Character,” starting each class with a quip: “‘I thought this class was characters in coaching.”
New initiatives at Hackett
Garvey was instrumental in starting two initiatives for athletes at Hackett: The Captains Clinic and, this year, an award called Scholar Athletic of Distinction.
He instituted the clinic because with no varsity head coaches in the building, “I felt like throughout my career, I watched coaches and their captains but it really didn’t mean anything,” he said.
“You’re the most popular kid, and you’re going to get one of those little captain’s bars at the end of the season. That wasn’t good enough.”
The clinic is a three-hour session and this year totaled 57 athletes. Any captains who do not attend lose that status.
“This year, we talked about what it means to be a good teammate,” he said. “They appreciated the pizza at the end. Free T-shirt and pizza; I got kids right there.”
Sophomore Natalie Toweson not only attended the clinic but helped design the T-shirts.
“His big thing is quotes,” Toweson said of Garvey. “I think I learned a lot from seeing other leaders and what they take out of certain situations. He has senior captains come in and share their experiences and how you can follow their lead because they’re really big role models to the underclassmen.
“Mr. Garvey brings a lot of energy and experience. He gives us new experiences, like playing Class A schools we’ve never played before, but is also very supportive and is at every game he can be.”
For the scholar-athlete award, Garvey has a rubric where athletes get points for years on freshman, junior varsity and varsity teams; bonus points for extra service hours, a higher GPA, all-conference, serving as captains and captains clinics attended.
Long way back to Michigan
Growing up in Detroit, Garvey attended Catholic schools, but during his first month as a freshman at Birmingham Brother Rice, his father was transferred to Geneva, Switzerland, for his work with Chrysler.
Mike’s sophomore year, his dad was transferred to the office in London, where Garvey honed his athletic skills.
“I was in an American school, so we did have sports,” he said. “In Europe the school sports aren’t that big because the parents don’t think they’re that good, so we competed with other American schools, which meant that for tournaments or competitions, we’d go to what used to be West Germany.
“We’d go to Belgium; we would go to France. It was really cool. When I moved back at the end of that last year, I had been in way more countries than I had been in states.”
Garvey competed in soccer, rugby, wrestling, baseball and swimming, which “was not my best sport,” he quickly added. “I just kind of had a jock heart and loved sports.”
After high school, he spent the next year in Europe and finally decided he had to choose a career.
“My two options in my brain were teach PE (physical education) and coach or be a dentist,” he said. “Vastly different. The year after I graduated, I stayed to help my previous coaches in London, and I was sold.”
After graduating from Western Michigan University, Garvey took a job in Illinois where he taught four hours of French, a language he learned while in Switzerland, and two hours of religion.
He was also head coach of wrestling and baseball and a football assistant coach.
Four years later, he moved back to Michigan, teaching at Lawton High School. That led to his first job as director of athletics, spanning his last five years there.
Garvey went from Lawton to Delton Kellogg, where he spent seven years as AD.
“I really felt like I grew there because I was away from my comfort zone,” he said. “It was stand up and be the guy. That’s where I got real involved with the state AD association.”
When Delton added assistant principal duties to his job description, Garvey decided he did not want to play the good guy (AD)/bad guy (assistant principal) roles and took a job at Otsego High School.
“I got to be involved in the building process,” Garvey said. “I loved Otsego and the people I worked with, and I worked with an awesome principal (Herve Dardis).
“I was involved in all the building stuff: the stadium, the ball fields, the tennis courts, the building. It was really fun.”
In 2010, Garvey had the opportunity to return to his Catholic roots when the AD position became available at Hackett.
“I went through the interview process, and I decided I had to come home,” he said. “My kids (Erin and Kristy) went here and I knew 20 years ago I was going to finish at a Catholic school.”
As conflicted as he was at making the choice, Garvey knew he made the correct one.
“It was really hard to leave Otsego because as an administrative team we had put together the facilities, which were outstanding.
“But I just couldn’t say ‘No’ to a Catholic school. I just couldn’t do it.”
And he remains up to the two toughest challenges in his work leading Hackett’s athletic department.
“No. 1, keep all our programs strong because we don’t have that many kids, yet we offer a crazy number of opportunities for them,” he said. “To keep those programs viable, we need bodies.
“The other hard part is I’m married to my best friend (Jennifer) and it keeps me away from her. When this becomes a job, then I’m done.”
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) Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep athletic director Mike Garvey holds up his NIAAA Distinguished Service Award; adjacent, attendees of a “Captains Clinic.” (Middle) Retired Allegan athletic director Gary Ellis, Hackett baseball coach Jesse Brown, sophomore athlete Natalie Toweson. (Below) Garvey enjoys some down time with grandson Dylan Alexander (left) and granddaughter Maya Wilson. (Photos courtesy of Mike Garvey; plaque photo and head shots by Pam Shebest.)
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'Always just a phone call away'
March 30, 2012
By the time Charles Schwedler joined the Bullock Creek school district nearly 19 years ago, Bill Mick had moved on to other educational roles in the Midland area.
They had never worked together. They didn’t know each other from a previous experience. Schwedler, now his district’s Superintendent, had never worked with either of Mick’s children.
The only connection they shared was an interest in the success of Bullock Creek’s students.
“Bill has always been just a phone call away for anything that I have needed from the day I arrived in Bullock Creek,” Schwedler wrote in his letter of recommendation for this year’s MHSAA Charles B. Forsythe Award. “That may not sound all that unusual except for the fact that he really has never had a reason to help me. … Bill intuitively knew that if I succeeded, kids would have a better shot at succeeding. No hidden agenda; just what’s best for kids.”
For more than four decades, Mick contributed to high school athletics as a coach, administrator and then mentor to those who followed him in those roles. That drive, which has continued after Mick’s official retirement from education, made him this year’s recipient of the MHSAA’s highest honor.
The Forsythe Award is in its 35th year and is named after former MHSAA Executive Director Charles E. Forsythe, the Association's first full-time and longest-serving chief executive. Forsythe Award recipients are selected each year by the MHSAA Representative Council, based on an individual's outstanding contribution to the interscholastic athletics community. Mick received the award during halftime of Saturday’s Class B Boys Basketball Final at Michigan State’s Breslin Center.
“I think it’s just being around athletic directors, particularly the new or younger athletic directors, that keeps the juices flowing, so to speak,” Mick said. “It goes both ways. I think I have experiences I can share with people that can help them. And it sounds trite, but it’s the truth: Their enthusiasm makes them flow faster.”
Mick began his career at Bullock Creek Public Schools from 1963-76, first as a science and physical education teacher and later as a counselor and Guidance Department head. He then moved to Midland Public Schools, serving as a counselor at Midland High and then Counseling Department Head at Midland Dow until becoming the district’s Coordinator of Health, Physical Education and Athletics from 1985-97. Mick finished his educational career as a part-time counselor at Midland’s Windover High School from 1997-2002 and then again at Bullock Creek High School from 2002-03.
Among his various contributions to athletics, Mick served on the MHSAA Representative Council for three years and in a number of roles with the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA) over 24 years. He coached cross country, track, football and basketball, and has served as an instructor in the MHSAA Coaches Advancement Program.
He remains part of the committee that organizes the MIAAA’s annual statewide conference, and also makes a trip to the MHSAA office once a year to assist in a conference for new athletic directors. He passes on lessons from the challenges he's faced over the years, with an eye on new ones that continue to crop up.
“The whole electronic media thing, things happen so much quicker. There is so much more with the Internet, and that’s probably the biggest change I can see since I got started,” Mick said. “(And) the role of the AD now is so much more complex, and we don’t see as many fulltime ADs. They have other responsibilities and obligations, so much on their plates – probably more than we had on our plates when we were ADs.”
Mick has received multiple honors from the MIAAA, including the State Award of Merit in 2002 and Distinguished Service Award in 2008. He also received the MHSAA’s Al Bush Award in 1998 for his many contributions to the association, and the Midland Area Community Foundation’s Lloyd Osborn Award in 1997 for his service to youth and athletics in that community. He was inducted into the Midland County Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.
Mick also was an MHSAA Track Finals meet manager for three years and served as executive secretary of the Mid-Michigan B league for five.
“Bill Mick contributed to high school athletics in a number of mentorship capacities during his career, and he remained engaged in that service after his retirement,” said MHSAA Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts. “Through his work with the MHSAA and MIAAA, Bill has provided valuable training to the next generation of leaders. We’re proud to honor Bill Mick with the Forsythe Award.”
A Tawas High School and Albion College graduate, Mick also received a master’s degree from Central Michigan University and did post-graduate work at Saginaw Valley State University.
His father and brothers all were superintendents and his mother was a teacher. His wife Mary Lou was an elementary school counselor for Midland Schools, and together they still attend a number of Battle Creek basketball games – where they now watch the children of those they taught, counseled and mentored.
They have two sons who are both doctors, one living in California and the other in Maine.
Past recipients of the Charles E. Forsythe Award are:
1978 - Brick Fowler, Port Huron; Paul Smarks, Warren
1979 - Earl Messner, Reed City; Howard Beatty, Saginaw
1980 - Max Carey, Freesoil
1981 - Steven Sluka, Grand Haven; Samuel Madden, Detroit
1982 - Ernest Buckholz, Mt. Clemens; T. Arthur Treloar, Petoskey
1983 - Leroy Dues, Detroit; Richard Maher, Sturgis
1984 - William Hart, Marquette; Donald Stamats, Caro
1985 - John Cotton, Farmington; Robert James, Warren
1986 - William Robinson, Detroit; Irving Soderland, Norway
1987 - Jack Streidl, Plainwell; Wayne Hellenga, Decatur
1988 - Jack Johnson, Dearborn; Alan Williams, North Adams
1989 - Walter Bazylewicz, Berkley; Dennis Kiley, Jackson
1990 - Webster Morrison, Pickford; Herbert Quade, Benton Harbor
1991 - Clifford Buckmaster, Petoskey; Donald Domke, Northville
1992 - William Maskill, Kalamazoo; Thomas G. McShannock, Muskegon
1993 - Roy A. Allen Jr., Detroit; John Duncan, Cedarville
1994 - Kermit Ambrose, Royal Oak
1995 - Bob Perry, Lowell
1996 - Charles H. Jones, Royal Oak
1997 - Michael A. Foster, Richland; Robert G. Grimes, Battle Creek
1998 - Lofton C. Greene, River Rouge; Joseph J. Todey, Essexville
1999 - Bernie Larson, Battle Creek
2000 - Blake Hagman, Kalamazoo; Jerry Cvengros, Escanaba
2001 - Norm Johnson, Bangor; George Lovich, Canton
2002 - John Fundukian, Novi
2003 - Ken Semelsberger, Port Huron
2004 – Marco Marcet, Frankenmuth
2005 – Jim Feldkamp, Troy
2006 – Dan McShannock, Midland; Dail Prucka, Monroe
2007 – Keith Eldred, Williamston; Tom Hickman, Spring Lake
2008 – Jamie Gent, Haslett; William Newkirk, Sanford-Meridian
2009 – Paul Ellinger, Cheboygan
2010 – Rudy Godefroidt, Hemlock; Mike Boyd, Waterford
2011 – Eric C. Federico, Trenton
PHOTO: Midland's Bill Mick (right) receives the Charles B. Forsythe Award from MHSAA Representative Council president James Derocher during halftime of the Class B Final.