'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.)
Jacques to Receive Forsythe Award for Local Leadership, Peninsula & Statewide Service
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
February 1, 2024
Serving as athletic director at Michigan’s northernmost high school, Calumet’s Sean Jacques has impacted student-athletes not only in his community, but across the Upper Peninsula and all the way to the state’s southern borders as a member of the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s Representative Council. To recognize his far-reaching contributions across several leadership roles, Jacques has been selected as the 2024 honoree for the MHSAA’s Charles E. Forsythe Lifetime Achievement Award.
The annual award is in its 47th year and 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 contributions to the interscholastic athletics community at the local, regional and statewide levels. Jacques will be honored during the MHSAA Girls Basketball Finals on March 23 at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center.
A 1985 graduate of Calumet, Jacques taught for one year at Lansing Everett before returning to his alma mater in 1992, when he began teaching primarily technology and metal shop until becoming the athletic director and an assistant principal in 2008. He served in those administrative roles through the end of the 2021-22 school year and currently is an instructor for the Calumet-Laurium-Keweenaw school district’s Upper Peninsula Virtual Academy.
During his tenure as athletic director, Calumet added junior varsity hockey, junior varsity and varsity softball, and varsity baseball, bowling and gymnastics teams. He led facility upgrades including the addition of a turf football field, new locker rooms and an additional gymnasium, creating a home not only for Copper Kings athletes and coaches but for those from all over the northern UP as Calumet is a frequent host of MHSAA District and Regional events plus Coaching Advancement Program (CAP) sessions.
Also under his direction, Calumet became the first Upper Peninsula school to join the MHSAA School Broadcast Program, and he created the high school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012. In 2016, Calumet became the only Upper Peninsula school to earn the prestigious Michigan Exemplary Athletic Program honor from the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA).
“When I became athletic director, my goal was number one, we were going to run a classy program. We were going to do it right. We weren’t going to be lazy about anything, not take the easy road. I wanted to do right for the kids, the school district and the community,” Jacques said. “We went after a lot of different things. It’s very cliché, but we really did try to put kids first. Every decision we made, we always tried to make decisions with that in mind – what’s best for the kids – and worked hard to be innovative and try to run a quality, classy program.”
His impact hardly has been contained to the Keweenaw Peninsula. He served as president of both the Keweenaw Area Athletic Directors group and Upper Peninsula Athletic Directors Association from 2014-22, in addition to serving as commissioner for the Western Peninsula Athletic Conference from 2012-22 and the Great Lakes Hockey Conference from 2009-22. He began his tenure on the Upper Peninsula Athletic Committee in 2014, when he also was first elected to the MHSAA Representative Council as the delegate for Class C and D schools in the Upper Peninsula. He is serving on the MHSAA’s Audit and Finance Committee currently, and will conclude his tenure on Council in December.
Jacques also served as an MIAAA regional representative for more than a decade and was named Regional Athletic Director of the Year by the MIAAA in 2013 and 2016. The Upper Peninsula Athletic Directors Association named him its Upper Peninsula Athletic Director of the Year in 2019.
Jacques also currently is among eight mentors to new athletic administrators across the state as part of the MHSAA’s first-year AD Connection Program. In this role, Jacques directly works with 16 recently-hired athletic directors as they navigate the job’s many and various responsibilities.
“Sean Jacques brings knowledge of so many aspects of school sports, not only the work done day-to-day as an athletic director but as an innovator who developed an athletic department recognized and respected across the state,” MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said. “His community, the Upper Peninsula and Michigan as a whole continue to benefit from his dedication and leadership – and we’re fortunate he’s sharing that expertise with the next generation of athletic directors as part of our mentorship program.”
Jacques has contributed nearly as significantly on the field of play. He has been an MHSAA registered official for 35 years, in hockey for the entirety and adding track & field in 1994-95 and cross country in 2009-10. He officiated at the MHSAA Hockey Finals in 2016 and has served as a board member for the Copper Country Hockey Officials Association, including as its scheduler for 14 years. He has 40 years as a registered official with USA Hockey, serving as officiating supervisor for the Michigan Amateur Hockey Association (MAHA) for 20 years and as Michigan’s referee-in-chief from 2006-15, and he was a member of USA Hockey’s national instructor staff from 1997-2019. An accomplished college official as well, he worked in that capacity for more than 25 seasons, including 15 at the Division I level in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) and Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA).
His time at Calumet has included stepping into many more roles to help provide student-athletes with the fullest possible experience. He served as public address announcer for football for 16 seasons and Calumet hockey for more than a decade. He also lent his voice to radio broadcasts for Calumet volleyball and coached freshman football at the school for two seasons.
Jacques has served on the boards for the Calumet Hockey Association, Calumet All-Sports Booster Club and Calumet High School Band Parents Club, the latter two as treasurer. He remains president of the Hall of Fame board.
“I’m a Calumet grad, and when you’re the athletic director at the school you’re from, I think it’s something a little bit different,” Jacques said. “You bleed the school colors and put that extra effort in because it’s home.”
Jacques played football as a student at Calumet and served as the hockey team’s student equipment manager as a senior. He earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial education in 1989 from Northern Michigan University, and then a master’s in educational administration from NMU in 2000. He received his certified master athletic administrator (CMAA) designation in 2020 from the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) – becoming the only Upper Peninsula athletic director to achieve that accomplishment.
Jacques also has served his community as a volunteer firefighter since 1991 and as assistant fire chief since 1998.
Past recipients
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
2012 - Bill Mick, Midland
2013 - Jim Gilmore, Tecumseh; Dave Hutton, Grandville
2014 - Dan Flynn, Escanaba
2015 - Hugh Matson, Saginaw
2016 - Gary Hice, Petoskey; Gina Mazzolini, Lansing
2017 - Chuck Nurek, Rochester Hills
2018 - Gary Ellis, Allegan
2019 - Jim Derocher, Negaunee; Fredrick J. Smith, Stevensville
2020 - Michael Garvey, Lawton
2021 - Leroy Hackley Jr., Byron Center; Patti Tibaldi, Traverse City
2022 - Bruce Horsch, Houghton
2023 - Karen Leinaar, Frankfort
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.
PHOTO Calumet athletic director Sean Jacques, second from left, presents the Class C girls basketball championship trophy to Copper Kings coach Jeff Twardzik in 2015.