Vicksburg AD Roy Honored Nationally for Service to School Sports
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
February 15, 2022
VICKSBURG — Accepting an award on a national stage is an impressive feat for any athletic director.
But it was even more special for Vicksburg AD Mike Roy, who shared that stage with his mentor and good buddy.
While Roy was presented a Distinguished Service Award from the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association in December, retired AD Mike Garvey was inducted into its Hall of Fame.
“This award from the NIAAA was exceptionally special to me because Mike got inducted the very same night into the NIAAA Hall of Fame,” Roy said.
“To be able to receive that award with someone who means so much to me and has guided me and been so influential in my career was the icing on the top, the cherry.”
Garvey said to be mentioned as Roy’s mentor “is an amazing compliment. When the Hall of Fame asked me to send some photos, I had to have him in one.”
The two men first connected 23 years ago when Garvey left Lawton High School for the AD’s job in Delton. Roy filled the Lawton position.
“Mike took me under his wing,” Roy said. “He introduced me to another great friend, Fred Smith.
“Just a couple guys who are awesome gentlemen who are recognized throughout the country.”
Garvey reflects that admiration.
“Mike Roy has been recognized in Michigan and it’s time the rest of the country knows how great he is.” Garvey said.
“It was wonderful to share the stage with him. He’s a high-energy person who attacks everything with vigor. He gets things done.”
Two years ago, Roy received the MHSAA’s Allen W. Bush for service, prompting a Roy-like comment.
“With my joking, sarcastic system, I said to myself, ‘I must be getting old because I’m starting to get these awards and being recognized for it,’” he said.
“But, really, upon hearing it, you just sit back and are really taken aback and humbled by it.”
Rooted in Paw Paw
Roy started his athletic career in Paw Paw with football, basketball, baseball and track in high school.
After turning down offers from Division III schools, Roy accepted a football scholarship to University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which was an eye-opener.
“I found out very quickly when I got to UNLV to play football that I was no longer the big fish in the pond,” he said. “I was a very small fish in a very big pond.
“Going to UNLV forced me to grow up. Sometimes when reality smacks you in the face, it kind of wakes you up.”
That experience helps him guide high school athletes today.
“Looking back now, there are some things I wish I had done on the academic side of it,” he said. “I wasn’t a great student; I wasn’t a terrible student. I wish I had done better.
“My career goal at that time, wishful as it was, was to be an NFL player.”
At UNLV, Roy earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education and health with an endorsement in driver’s education and a master’s in instructional and curricular studies.
Once back in Michigan, Roy coached golf and strength and conditioning at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, taught strength classes at Western Michigan University and was an assistant to Kalamazoo College men’s basketball coach Joe Hacklin.
Roy applied for a job at Vicksburg High School — which he did not get.
Instead, he was hired to replace Garvey at Lawton, also teaching strength and conditioning, and coaching varsity basketball.
Three years later, Roy became AD at Vicksburg, a job he has had for the last 20 years.
Accolades began piling up, including the certified master athletic administrator designation from the NIAAA in 2005, Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrator Association (MIAAA) Athletic Director of the Year in 2012, MIAAA president in 2019-20, NIAAA delegate at the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) national conference for 10 years and being named a finalist for National Athletic Director of the Year from the National High School Coaches Association.
At the NHSCA ceremony, Roy said he noticed one of the other finalists.
“One of the guys, when I looked, I said ‘Oh my gosh. He’s been an AD for 45 years.’
“Here I’m sitting with not even half that under my belt, wondering if I’m going to get 45 years in.”
Ever humble, Roy makes a point several times of mentioning that any award he receives is a culmination of efforts from a great support staff.
“I tell people in my joking way, ‘It’s my ugly face that gets the award, but when people come to Vicksburg they meet my ticket-taker or see my game management is on point,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be able to get half this stuff if I didn’t have the athletic secretary (Rhonda VanderKamp) I have. She’s phenomenal.”
VanderKamp, who has worked with Roy all 20 years, said they work well together.
As for sharing in any awards, “I’m honored but truly he deserves those awards,” she said. “We just complement each other.
“I’m so honored when I attend some of the conferences and they go around the room and ask you how many years you’ve been an athletic secretary and how many ADs have you been through. I can say only just one. It’s awesome.”
Showing off a great home
Under Roy, Vicksburg has hosted more than 100 MHSAA postseason events, and he takes pride in the workers and facilities.
“I’ve always been big on the appearance of our facilities,” he said. “Unfortunately, the outside community doesn’t get to see our library. They don’t get to see our science labs and all the other wonderful things we have going on in the building.
“When they come to Vicksburg, they’re drawing their assumptions on how they’re treated when they walk through the gate, how do the facilities look, are the trash cans overflowing, are things broken.”
He said when the MHSAA asks or looks for people to step up and host tournaments, “We have always been willing to do that. I ask our people and they say yes, we want to bring people to Vicksburg and show off our facilities.”
Roy also implements ideas he hears at various conferences.
“I always try to network and find out who’s doing something better than I’m doing and borrow that,” he said. “The neat thing about athletic directors in our association is we’re willing to share everything.
“We’re different than coaches who have a secret play or a playbook and don’t want anybody to know those plays.”
He noted that not everyone is cut out to be an athletic director.
“Most think all I do is sit around and eat popcorn, a hot dog and watch contests and how cool that is,” he said, laughing.
He said they do not see the contact with officials and support staff, refilling of concession supplies, setting up transportation to away games, notifying parents of any changes or problems and working on game schedules for next year.
As for non-AD duties, Roy spends time with his two children: Harper, a 5-foot-8 seventh grader whom he coaches on a 12-and-under softball team; and Ryker, a fourth grader involved in football, basketball, wrestling and baseball.
Doing things the right way
Roy said former Gull Lake AD Mike Foster helped craft his philosophy that high school sports are more than just winning.
“To me, in high school educational athletics, we’re here to grow the whole child and just not teach him how to win,” he said.
“I’m hiring my coaches who are going to be the best role models for my kids. We do want to win, because it’s important, but it’s not the ultimate goal for me.”
Speaking of coaches, Roy noted that his mentor is now an employee.
“Funny thing,” he said. “Mike Garvey’s my golf coach here. I always try to surround myself with some talented individuals.”
Garvey said Roy is the only reason he agreed to coach the boys golf team, and he would not consider doing it for anyone else.
“With his coaches, they’re a family and he’s like the patriarch who shows a lot of love and respect,” Garvey said.
***
Garvey was one of 10 inductees making up the 13th class of the NIAAA Hall of Fame honored in December. Garvey served as an athletic administrator for 24 years through 2018 with stops at Lawton, Delton Kellogg, Otsego and Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep. He received the MHSAA’s Allen W. Bush Award in 2015 and Charles E. Forsythe Award in 2020. He also was an assistant coach on two MHSAA Finals wrestling championship teams and as head coach led Lawton to the Class D title in 1990.
Garvey has been an active member of both the MIAAA and NIAAA and the Michigan Wrestling Coaches Association, and a member of the faculty for the NIAAA’s Leadership Training Institute while also serving as Michigan’s coordinator for the program. In retirement, he has continued to contribute to school sports in a variety of other ways as well including as a meet manager of the MHSAA’s Team Wrestling Finals at Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo.
Among additional accolades at the state and national levels, Garvey received the NIAAA’s 2016 Distinguished Service Award and the George Lovich State Award of Merit in 2009 from the MIAAA.
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) Vicksburg athletic director Mike Roy gives much credit to his secretary Rhonda VanderKamp, his assistant during the entirety of his two decades at the school. (Middle) Roy takes a minute to take a photo with Donald Duck during a conference in Orlando, Fla. (Below) Roy and his children Harper and Ryker await the presentation of his MHSAA’s Allen W. Bush Award. (Photos courtesy of Mike Roy.)
Nurturing Our Lower Level Programs
May 15, 2014
By John E. “Jack” Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director
When I’ve been faced with the most difficult choices as to different courses of action for the MHSAA, I’ve tried to face up to this reframing of the issue: “If we were creating the MHSAA for the first time today, would we do this, or would we do that?”
For example, would we or would we not limit coaches’ contact with athletes out of season? Would we have a 90-day period of ineligibility for transfer students or would it be 180 days?
There are other examples of such “either, or” questions I could provide, but none is as difficult or defining as this: Should school sports under the MHSAA’s auspices provide more opportunities for 7th- and 8th-graders and new opportunities for even younger students?
I won’t be coy about what I think our answer should be. I haven’t always felt this way, and I recognize it is a different opinion than some who are quoted in this publication; but today it’s my belief that if we were creating the MHSAA for the first time in 2014, the MHSAA would allow more contests and longer contests for 7th- and 8th-graders, and the MHSAA would have competition policies and programs for younger middle schoolers too.
I believe this is what parents want for their children and what students want for themselves; and I believe, within reason, that the better we serve these students in their junior high/middle school years, the stronger high school sports will be and the better these programs will support the educational missions of schools.
I believe we must begin to serve middle school students more comprehensively, and that our doing so today is the best hope we have for retaining comprehensive programs for high school students tomorrow. Not only does the lower profile and pressure of lower level programs nurture the highest ideals of educational athletics, they provide our highest hope for preserving those ideals at the high school level.
The Lasting Impact of First Impressions
The over-arching question before us is how to maintain policies that encourage multiple sport experiences for students at the junior high/middle school level while at the same time adjusting those policies in terms of grade level served and the numbers and lengths of contests allowed in order to be more attractive to junior high/middle school parents and to school districts which desire additional competition opportunities in the school setting for students prior to high school.
There is a good healthy discussion in our midst about the scope of junior high/middle school athletics – how much should occur and how young it should commence; and the result of these discussions may have long-lasting effect on students, schools and the MHSAA.
Here are two central issues:
1. Contest Limits
Many people over many years have contributed to developing the current season limitations for the number of contests permitted by MHSAA member junior high/middle schools. These good people have believed in a philosophy of sports at this level that encourages students to try multiple sports.
“Kids haven’t fully matured yet,” they say. “Kids haven’t been exposed to some sports yet. They don’t know what they might like or be good at. So let’s have policies and programs that encourage new opportunities and experiences at this level.”
The season limits that have been put in place allow some junior high/middle schools, or their entire leagues, to fit four distinct seasons in a nine-month school year, consistent with this over-arching philosophy to encourage these students to try new things and learn.
There is another educationally grounded and equally astute group of administrators and coaches who are concerned that the current limits are too severe in comparison to non-school youth sports programs. For example, community/club basketball or soccer programs may schedule 15 or 18 or more games per season versus the MHSAA limit of 12 at the junior high/middle school level.
These folks think these restrictive limitations create a disincentive for kids to play school sports, and that many of those who have no place in junior high/middle school sports have no interest later in high school sports.
2. 6th-Graders
Historically, the popular opinion among educators has held that 7th and 8th grade is early enough for schools to provide competitive athletics, early enough to put youth into the competitive sports arena, and early enough to pit one school against another in sports.
Today, however, many educators and parents point out that such protective philosophies and policies were adopted about the same time “play days” were considered to be the maximum exertion females should experience in school sports. Some administrators and coaches argue that both our severe limits on contest limits at the junior high/middle school level, and our refusal to serve 6th-graders, are as out of date and inappropriate as play days for females.
Today, in nearly four of five school districts with MHSAA member schools, 6th-graders go to school in the same building with 7th- and 8th-graders. But MHSAA rules don’t allow 6th-graders to participate with and against 7th- and 8th-graders. In fact, the MHSAA Constitution doesn’t even acknowledge that 6th-graders exist.
Today, in many places, 6th-graders have aged-out of non-school, community sports, but they are not permitted to play on MHSAA junior high/middle school teams.
Last school year, 50 different school districts requested this rule be waived for them, and the MHSAA Executive Committee approved 46 of 50 waivers, allowing 6th-graders to compete on 7th- and 8th-grade teams. During 2011-12, 37 of 40 requests for waiver were approved, in all cases for small junior high/middle schools. Many of these schools want, and some of them desperately need, these 6th-graders to fill out junior high/middle school teams.
Young people are starting sports much younger today than 100 years ago when the MHSAA was created. Younger than even 50 years ago when the MHSAA was incorporated. If the MHSAA were created today to serve any students before 9th grade, I’m certain it would not leave out 6th-graders who are walking the same halls with 7th- and 8th-graders, and who have been playing competitive sports almost since the first day they started walking at all.
Eyes on the future
The most important thing we can do to enhance high school sports is to grow junior high/middle school sports programs. The earlier we disconnect young people from non-school sports and engage them in school-sponsored sports, the better our chances are of keeping high school athletic programs healthy, and the better our prospects are of keeping both participation rates and conduct standards high.
School sports are in competition for hearts and minds of young people. Our competition includes movies, jobs, cars, video games, boyfriends and girlfriends and club sports ... especially club sports. School sports needs to market itself better, and part of better is to be available earlier – much sooner in the lives of youth. More contests at the junior high/middle school level and more opportunities for 6th-graders should be parts of our marketing strategies on behalf of educational athletics generally.
For at least 50 years there have been predictions by people outside of our member schools that the system of school-sponsored sports that is almost unique to the United States would someday give way to the system of most countries where youth sports is provided by non-school community groups and private athletic clubs. Some people challenge school-sponsored sports on a program basis – for example, that competitive athletics creates a distraction to the core educational mission of schools. Others may challenge school-sponsored sports on a financial basis – that interscholastic athletics compete for the limited resources communities have to support their schools.
Today there also exists among our member schools a small percentage of administrators who have come to their leadership roles without involvement in school sports and who either desire and believe that interscholastic sports will be moved from schools to communities or who do not want but predict that such will occur as resources for schools continue to shrink.
I believe this is more likely to happen, or to happen sooner, if we do not change our approach to junior high/middle school sports. If we continue to restrict 7th- and 8th-graders to so few contests of such limited length compared to what those students have in non-school sports, and if we continue to offer nothing for younger students, we essentially and effectively force these students to non-school sports.
It is an often cited statistic that between 80 and 90 percent of all young people who ever begin playing competitive athletics stop playing before they reach the age of 13, meaning the vast majority of young people never, ever are involved in school programs. Thus, it is no mystery why people question the future of school sports. We’re doing nothing to make programs available to them. They have no experience in them.
Our restrictive and possibly outdated policies and procedures regarding contest limits and lengths and the age at which we begin to serve junior high/middle school students may assure that the dire predictions about school sports’ future will be accurate. We are doing too little, too late. It is marketing at its worst.
In my mind there is little doubt that we are doing too little too late with junior high/middle school students. Now the challenge before us is to think beyond “we can’t afford it” and make some necessary changes, while still avoiding a system that allows or even encourages schools doing too much too soon.