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6 Days of Hoops on MHSAA TV
March 15, 2016
By John Johnson
MHSAA Communications Director
An unprecedented six straight days of MHSAA Girls and Boys Basketball Tournament coverage will take place this week on MHSAA.tv and FOX Sports Detroit.
The week starts out with three days of Boys Regional and Girls Quarterfinal coverage produced by participants in the MHSAA’s School Broadcast Program.
The championship live streaming this week begins at 1 p.m. Thursday with the first of two Class C Semifinal games in the Girls Basketball Tournament, and concludes on Saturday when FOX Sports Detroit will provide coverage for the 19th consecutive year. The boys coverage includes two reigning champions – Flint Beecher in Class C and Powers North Central in Class D. Here’s the complete video basketball schedule for the coming week:
Monday – Class D Boys Basketball Regional Semifinals at Mt. Pleasant Sacred Heart
Fulton v. Baldwin – 6 p.m.
Big Rapids Crossroads Academy v. Muskegon Catholic Central – 7:45 p.m.
Monday – Class C Boys Basketball Regional Semifinals at Flint Hamady
Southfield Christian vs. Sandusky – 6 p.m.
Flint Beecher v. Detroit Cornerstone Health/Technology – 7:30 p.m.
Monday – Class D Boys Basketball Regional Semifinals at Negaunee
Powers North Central v. Lake Linden-Hubbell – 6 p.m.
Crystal Falls Forest Park v. Rock Mid Peninsula – 8 p.m.
Tuesday – Class A Girls Basketball Quarterfinal at Fenton
Port Huron Northern v. St. Johns – 7 p.m.
Tuesday – Class B Girls Basketball Quarterfinal at Fowlerville
Grand Rapids South Christian v. Dearborn Heights Robichaud – 7 p.m.
Tuesday – Class D Girls Basketball Quarterfinal at Negaunee
Newberry v. Stephenson – 7 p.m.
Wednesday – Boys Basketball Regional Finals
Class D at Mt. Pleasant Sacred Heart – 7 p.m.
Class C at Flint Hamady – 7 p.m.
Class D at Negaunee – 7 p.m.
The boys basketball games at Mt. Pleasant Sacred Heart are being produced by the School Broadcast Program at the Mt. Pleasant Tech Center. The games at Flint Hamady are being produced by the SBP at Flint Kearsley; and the games at Negaunee are being produced by Negaunee High School. The Girls Basketball Quarterfinal at Fenton is being produced by the SBP at Montrose High School, and Haslett High School is producing the game at Fowlerville.
Thursday – Class C Girls Basketball Quarterfinals
Niles Brandywine/Grand Rapids Covenant Christian winner v. Traverse City St. Francis/St. Ignace winner – 1 p.m.
Flint Hamady/Ithaca winner v. Ypsilanti Arbor Prep/Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett winner – 2:50 p.m.
Thursday – Class D Girls Basketball Quarterfinals
Wyoming Tri-unity Christian/Pittsford winner v. Waterford Our Lady/Kingston winner – 6 p.m.
Mt. Pleasant Sacred Heart/Gaylord St. Mary winner v. Newberry/Stephenson winner – 7:50 p.m.
Friday – Class A Girls Basketball Quarterfinals
Ann Arbor Huron/Detroit M.L. King winner v. Port Huron Northern/St. Johns winner – 1 p.m.
Northville/Warren Cousino winner v. East Lansing/Hudsonville winner – 2:50 p.m.
Friday – Class B Girls Basketball Quarterfinals
Detroit Mumford/Detroit Country Day winner v. Grand Rapids South Christian/Dearborn Heights Robichaud winner – 6 p.m.
Bay City John Glenn/Manistee winner v. Marshall/Grand Rapids Catholic Central winner – 7:50 p.m.
Saturday – Finals – FOX Sports Detroit – All games streamed live on FOX Sports Go!
10 a.m. – Class D – LIVE
Noon – Class A – LIVE
4 p.m. – Class C – LIVE
10 p.m. – Class B – Same Day Delay
In addition, there will be free live video streams of all postgame press conferences, the postgame award ceremonies, the 3-Point and Free Throw Shooter’s Challenges and the presentation of the Miss Basketball Award by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan. The FOX Sports Detroit telecasts also will be posted on MHSAA.tv for on demand viewing following each contest.
The continued Basketball coverage is part of six straight weekends of live MHSAA Championship coverage on MHSAA.tv, and online viewers can catch every weekend of action for one low cost of $14.95.
A Month Pass on MHSAA.tv for $14.95 will give a viewer access to events over a 30-day period from the time it is purchased. Over the next two weeks of live winter championship coverage, the following events will be featured:
- Boys Basketball Regionals – March 14-16
- Girls Basketball Quarterfinals – March 15
- Girls Basketball Semifinals – March 17-18
- Boys Basketball Quarterfinals – March 22
- Boys Basketball Semifinals – March 24-25
A Day Pass is available for $9.95. All events will be available for free on-demand viewing by three days following their initial live airing.
The School Broadcast Program gives members an opportunity to showcase excellence in their schools by creating video programming of athletic and non-athletic events with students gaining skills in announcing, camera operation, directing/producing and graphics. The program also gives schools the opportunity to raise money through advertising and viewing subscriptions.
1975 Class D Football Film Finds Way Back to MHSAA for All to Enjoy Again
By
John Johnson
MHSAA Communications Director emeritus
April 11, 2023
Chasing history was one of the most enjoyable parts of serving at the MHSAA for nearly 34 years. Researching information, but especially what I considered for a long time to be talking to the “old guys” (now I’m one of them) and soaking up their verbal histories of our games.
It also involved chasing down old photos, broadcasts and game films – especially those which preceded our more modern video era beginning in the 1990s.
When I arrived at the MHSAA in 1987, there was a shelf of old 16mm film canisters of an assortment of Boys Basketball Finals from the 1950s to the 70s – certainly not a complete set. The Association would shoot some game action from each quarter and the trophy presentations. They’d be sent out to the participating schools to show to the students (I remember watching a Mt. Pleasant Sacred Heart game in 1967 when I was in fifth grade). Some would find their way back to the office – most would not.
Will Robinson, the legendary Detroit Public School League coach who led Pershing High School to the league’s first MHSAA titles (in 1967 and 1970) after a district-imposed hiatus from 1931-61 from statewide tournaments, would pull my chain every time we saw each other about those games featuring Spencer Haywood and Ralph Simpson, among others. We never found them.
So it became a project to try and track down as many old game films of state championships as we could.
Any conversation with someone with a history tone always included a question about the whereabouts of a game film or video. One of those recently bore fruit.
When Crystal Falls Forest Park played in the 8-Player Football Finals at the Superior Dome in Marquette back in 2017, I spent a lot of time talking with living legend Bill Santilli, who led the Trojans to the Class D crown in the very first year of the tournament in 1975, and who would later coach the school to a second state title (2007) and serve as athletic director. He said he had a box on his desk collecting dust that he didn’t know what to do with – that box contained an old video tape from that game.
I uttered four little words – “Send It To Me.”
After a while the tape arrived in East Lansing, and I got our video production friends at When We Were Young Productions/Rush Media in Wisconsin on it. This winter, they found someone who could convert it and sent me a file that was recently posted to the MHSAASPORTS Channel on YouTube. You can watch the Trojans play Flint Holy Rosary by Clicking Here or watching above.
There are all kinds of old game films/videos and artifacts in attics, closets, garages, etc., in every town. Two of our Muskegon historians – Ron Pesch, the MHSAA’s history guy; and the old broadcaster, Jim Moyes, who called games on the radio for years in the Port City – can tell stories of their own about discoveries they have made. Moyes found all kinds of mementos while working on his book on the history of high school track & field in Michigan, and sitting with Ron at this year’s Girls Basketball Finals, he told a story of finding the mother lode of photographs from one of his other historical passions – silent film star Buster Keaton – who spent ten summers in the Actor’s Colony in Muskegon.
Pesch found a listing for Eleanor Keaton, Buster’s widow, using a telephone book (remember those?), made a phone call and shortly thereafter, on a vacation to California, was in her living room where he was loaned a photo album and family scrapbook containing all kinds of images from their time in Muskegon. Many of those images appear in a soon-to-be-released documentary, while the album and scrapbook now reside in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences library in Beverly Hills, Calif. You can preview the film by Clicking Here.
So if you think you have something of a state championship that could be utilized on a bigger platform and enjoyed by everyone, drop a note to [email protected]. If something needs to be converted to a more modern format, you’ll get a copy back, and the footage will be eventually viewable on the MHSAA’s YouTube channel.
To help guide your search, think in the following terms:
► Just about anything before 1990. But there are gaps during the 90s that need to be filled as well.
► Only Championship games and Semifinal games, unless something momentous occurred (like Richie Jordan’s 60-point game for Fennville against Bridgman in a Regional Semifinal in 1965, which is still an all-time tournament single-game record for boys basketball).
► For a list of what’s in the MHSAA archives prior to 2000 – Click Here. A long-term project is to get all of the games on the list and up to about 2010 uploaded to the YouTube channel. Most games from 2013-14 on can be viewed on the NFHS Network, and some games between 2010 and 2013 are available for purchase as DVDs from PrepFilms.com.
PHOTO Posing with the championship trophy after the 1975 Class D Football Final are (left to right): Forest Park tight end Bryan LaChapelle, quarterback Richard Mettlach, head coach Dick Mettlach and running back Bill Santilli.