'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.)
'Larger-Than-Life' Pennfield AD Admired for Statewide Service
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
April 14, 2021
BATTLE CREEK — To many Battle Creek sports enthusiasts, Bernie Larson was known as “Mr. Pennfield.”
But for two former athletes, twins Chris and Cam Larson, that was not the case.
“I never knew him or thought of him as Mr. Pennfield; he was Dad,” Chris said.
Larson, 78, who served as athletic director at Pennfield for 29 years, died March 14 after an extended illness.
A memorial service is being planned for May 15 at a time and place to be determined.
“A lot more remembrances come back when someone passes,” said Chris Larson, who lives in Virginia. “You hear so many stories from people who remember him, including former students and coaches.
“It’s great to hear the impact he had on so many people that you never knew about.”
Stories are plentiful when it comes to Bernie Larson.
“He was a heckuva golfer,” said Karen Leinaar, the current executive director of the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA) who during an early stop served as athletic director at Delton Kellogg, which with Pennfield for a time was part of the Kalamazoo Valley Association. “If you needed golf balls on the course, everyone said, ‘Just ask Bernie.’ He always had them.”
The reason?
“If he had one ball in his bag, he had 50 or 60 in his bag,” said Larry Wegener, former Battle Creek Central athletic director. “He had milk crates full of golf balls in his garage” that he found on the course or fished out of ponds.
Championship City
When Larson was named Pennfield’s athletic director in 1970, it became a family affair.
“I had no clue, no clue,” said Joni, Larson’s wife of 56 years. “We never trained to be wives of athletic directors. We learned the most from other wives.”
She became involved in the job, selling tickets at home games. When their sons were old enough, they helped out with the field.
“They knew where the flag was kept and how to play the national anthem. They learned how to keep score” and were active in playing sports, she recalled.
“Cam (who lives in Minnesota) played football, baseball and basketball,” Chris Larson said. “I played tennis, golf and basketball. We grew up playing little league baseball and football.”
One family favorite was the yearly athletic directors conference at Grand Traverse Resort.
“He was there for business; we kids were there for fun,” his son said. “As we got older, we went to the auditorium that was filled with booths with sports-related things.
“As a kid we went around and grabbed the swag. It was a kids of athletic directors thing.”
It was not all fun and games.
“Bernie Larson was instrumental putting Battle Creek on the map athletically,” Leinaar said. “Four of (the ADs), Bernie, Ralph Kenyon of Harper Creek, Glen Schulz of Lakeview and Larry Wegener of Central put on the tournaments and had crews of people every year right there helping.
“Their hard work and commitment to the MHSAA, running perfect tournaments, made Battle Creek a stop for athletics for many, many years. Many times, Bernie led the pack.”
In spite of his willingness to help others, there was a caveat, Leinaar said.
“He would say to me, ‘Karen, I’ll help you out however I can, but remember, Pennfield is going to win.’
“Pennfield joined the KVA in the late 1980s, so we saw each other quite a bit. Our football games were always barn burners as were track and field.”
Wegener recalls those days full of tournaments and 65-hour work weeks.
“We did so many MHSAA events, I think a lot of people thought we were on the staff,” he said.
Those tournaments included more than 50 state championships in baseball and softball, team and individual wrestling, volleyball and girls basketball.
Brett Steele, Pennfield’s current AD, said Larson “was still a strong presence in the athletic department and community as a whole even after he retired.
“Up until last winter, Bernie still helped out at football and basketball games as our officials host. He knew most of the officials in those sports and was a familiar face to many when they worked games at Pennfield.”
Larson had served as an MHSAA basketball and baseball official. He also helped found and is a member of the Pennfield Hall of Fame and coached both girls and boys golf.
He received the MHSAA’s Allen W. Bush Award in 1997, the MHSAA’s Charles Forsythe Award in 1999 and was the MIAAA State Athletic Director of the Year for 1991-92.
All About Family
In spite of the hours spent with his job, Larson was a good family man, Wegener said.
“He spoke highly of his kids,” he said. “Chris and Cam were the pride of his life. Joni was a real good fit for him.”
Wegener said Larson was a larger-than-life guy.
“If you were going to run a tournament and you brought a notebook full of stuff for your tournament, Bernie brought a briefcase.
“If you brought a briefcase, Bernie brought a suitcase. He just believed in being prepared for everything.”
One thing the athletic directors did a lot was frequent restaurants, and Larson had his favorites.
“Perkins whenever he traveled, the Pancake House every Sunday and the Irish Pub,” Chris Larson said.
A person could always spot Larson. He was with one with the napkin tucked over his shirt.
“He always wore a suit and tie and would use a napkin as a bib because he was always spilling something on his necktie,” Joni Larson said.
Another thing her husband was famous for was his jokes.
“He always had a favorite joke that I’d hear 27 times,” she said, laughing. “It was like he had a joke of the week, and everybody had to hear it.”
During summers, Larson taught driver’s education at the school, something Chris Larson remembers well.
“I remember on the last day of driver’s ed, you drove for 45 minutes,” he said. “My brother and I and one other kid were in the car, and I drove to Lansing to the MHSAA and we sat in the parking lot while my dad went inside.
“I know the MHSAA through his eyes and through my own eyes.”
Larson’s love of sports transferred to his sons.
“We all share a love of golf and would play together any chance we got, but over the past years his health wouldn't allow him to play,” Chris Larson said. “I miss that very much.”
Another tradition is being carried on by his son, but it evolved in an unusual way.
The twins were a Christmas surprise for Bernie and Joni.
“They didn’t do ultrasounds routinely back then (1974) so we didn’t know,” Joni Larson said. “We had Bernie’s middle name, Leon, picked out as a first name,” Joni Larson said.
“When we found out there were twins, we gave Chris ‘Leon’ as his middle name and Cameron ‘Noel’ which is Leon backwards, so both had dad’s middle name.”
Chris Larson has continued the tradition, giving his oldest son, Joshua, Leon as a middle name.
Chris Larson echoed the thoughts of many who knew Mr. Pennfield as a people person.
“In my opinion, he was the most Christian man I knew. He lived a Christian life and he shared it with others,” Chris said.
“He was chaplain for some baseball and basketball teams. He knew somebody everywhere no matter where we went in the state.”
Chris Larson paid a special tribute to his father after the funeral.
“He had a parking spot in the circle of the old Pennfield High School right in front of his office,” he said. “His van was there all the time.
“One of the things I did after the funeral was just hang out there for a while.”
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) Longtime Pennfield athletic director Bernie Larson also raised his family in the district, with sons Chris (left) and Cam among those to wear the uniform. (2) Bernie and Joni Larson were married 56 years. (3) Among Larson’s longtime colleagues were former Delton Kellogg athletic director Karen Leinaar and retired Battle Creek Central athletic director Larry Wegener. (4) The Larson family, more recently, from left: Cam, Joni, Bernie and Chris. (Family photos courtesy of the Larson family; head shots by Pam Shebest.)