'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.)
Health & Safety: A Look Back, Gallop Ahead
By
John E. (Jack) Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director, 1986-2018
August 7, 2015
By Jack Roberts
MHSAA executive director
We are just completing year six of eight during which we have been addressing the four important health and safety issues that, for ease of conversation, we call the “Four Hs.”
During the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years, our focus was on Health Histories. We made enhancements in the pre-participation physical examination form, stressing the student’s health history, which we believe was and is the essential first step to participant health and safety.
During the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years, our focus was on Heads. We were an early adopter of removal-from-play and return-to-play protocols, and our preseason rules/risk management meetings for coaches included information on concussion prevention, recognition and aftercare.
Without leaving that behind, during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years, our focus was on Heat – acclimatization. We adopted a policy to manage heat and humidity – it is recommended for regular season and it’s a requirement for MHSAA tournaments. The rules/risk management meetings for coaches during these years focused on heat and humidity management.
At the mid-point of this two-year period, the MHSAA adopted policies to enhance acclimatization at early season practices and to reduce head contact at football practices all season long.
Without leaving any of the three previous health and safety “H’s” behind, during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years, our focus will be on Hearts – sudden cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death.
Coinciding with this emphasis is the requirement that all high school level, varsity level head coaches be CPR certified starting this fall. Our emphasis will be on AEDs and emergency action plans – having them and rehearsing them.
On Feb. 10, bills were introduced into both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, together called the “Safe Play Act (see below),” which addressed three of the four health and safety “H’s” just described: Heat, Hearts and Heads.
For each of these topics, the federal legislation would mandate that the director of the Centers for Disease Control develop educational material and that each state disseminate that material.
For the heat and humidity management topic, the legislation states that schools will be required to adopt policies very much like the “MHSAA Model Policy to Manage Heat and Humidity” which the MHSAA adopted in March of 2013.
For both the heart and heat topics, schools will be required to have and to practice emergency action plans like we have been promoting in the past and distributed to schools this summer.
For the head section, the legislation would amend Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments and eliminate federal funding to states and schools which fail to educate their constituents or fail to support students who are recovering from concussions. This support would require multi-disciplinary concussion management teams that would include medical personnel, parents and others to provide academic accommodations for students recovering from concussions that are similar to the accommodations that are already required of schools for students with disabilities or handicaps.
This legislation would require return-to-play protocols similar to what we have in Michigan, and the legislation would also require reporting and recordkeeping that is beyond what occurs in most places.
This proposed federal legislation demonstrates two things. First, that we have been on target in Michigan with our four Hs – it’s like they read our playbook of priorities before drafting this federal legislation.
This proposed federal legislation also demonstrates that we still have some work to do.
And what will the following two years – 2017-18 and 2018-19 – bring? Here are some aspirations – some predictions, but not quite promises – of where we will be.
First, we will have circled back to the first “H” – Health Histories – and be well on our way to universal use of paperless pre-participation physical examination forms and records.
Second, we will have made the immediate reporting and permanent recordkeeping of all head injury events routine business in Michigan school sports, for both practices and contests, in all sports and at all levels.
Third, we will have added objectivity and backbone to removal from play decisions for suspected concussions at both practices and events where medical personnel are not present; and we could be a part of pioneering “telemedicine” technology to make trained medical personnel available at every venue for every sport where it is missing today.
Fourth, we will have provided a safety net for families who are unable to afford no-deductible, no exclusion concussion care insurance that insists upon and pays for complete recovery from head injury symptoms before return to activity is permitted.
We should be able to do this, and more, without judicial threat or legislative mandate. We won’t wait for others to set the standards or appropriate the funds, but be there to welcome the requirements and resources when they finally arrive.
Safe Play Act — H.R.829
114th Congress (2015-2016) Introduced in House (02/10/2015)
Supporting Athletes, Families and Educators to Protect the Lives of Athletic Youth Act or the SAFE PLAY Act
Amends the Public Health Service Act to require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop public education and awareness materials and resources concerning cardiac health, including:
- information to increase education and awareness of high risk cardiac conditions and genetic heart rhythm abnormalities that may cause sudden cardiac arrest in children, adolescents, and young adults;
- sudden cardiac arrest and cardiomyopathy risk assessment worksheets to increase awareness of warning signs of, and increase the likelihood of early detection and treatment of, life-threatening cardiac conditions;
- training materials for emergency interventions and use of life-saving emergency equipment; and
- recommendations for how schools, childcare centers, and local youth athletic organizations can develop and implement cardiac emergency response plans.
Requires the CDC to: (1) provide for dissemination of such information to school personnel, coaches, and families; and (2) develop data collection methods to determine the degree to which such persons have an understanding of cardiac issues.
Directs the Department of Health and Human Services to award grants to enable eligible local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools served by such LEAs to purchase AEDs and implement nationally recognized CPR and AED training courses.
Amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to require a state, as a condition of receiving funds under such Act, to certify that it requires: (1) LEAs to implement a standard plan for concussion safety and management for public schools; (2) public schools to post information on the symptoms of, the risks posed by, and the actions a student should take in response to, a concussion; (3) public school personnel who suspect a student has sustained a concussion in a school-sponsored activity to notify the parents and prohibit the student from participating in such activity until they receive a written release from a health care professional; and (4) a public school's concussion management team to ensure that a student who has sustained a concussion is receiving appropriate academic supports.
Directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to develop public education and awareness materials and resources to be disseminated to schools regarding risks from exposure to excessive heat and humidity and recommendations for how to avoid heat-related illness. Requires public schools to develop excessive heat action plans for school-sponsored athletic activities.
Requires the CDC to develop guidelines for the development of emergency action plans for youth athletics.
Authorizes the Food and Drug Administration to develop information about the ingredients used in energy drinks and their potential side effects, and recommend guidelines for the safe use of such drinks by youth, for dissemination to public schools.
Requires the CDC to: (1) expand, intensify, and coordinate its activities regarding cardiac conditions, concussions, and heat-related illnesses among youth athletes; and (2) report on fatalities and catastrophic injuries among youths participating in athletic activities.