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Back To The Mat On MHSAA TV
February 28, 2017
By John Johnson
MHSAA Communications Director
Whether it’s a takedown or a pyramid, you can watch more than 300 hours of live streaming video on MHSAA.tv this week with Finals in Girls Competitive Cheer and Individual Wrestling taking place, plus the usual serving of games from School Broadcast Program members.
Live Finals streaming this week begins at 2 p.m. Thursday from The Palace of Auburn Hills at the Individual Wrestling Finals. A dedicated camera will be on each of 12 mats on the floor, and include full graphics to indicate the participants in each match, plus full in-progress scoring information via Trackwrestling.
Here’s the complete wrestling coverage schedule:
- Thursday – First Round – 2 p.m.
- Friday (March 3) – Rounds 2-3-4 – 8:30 a.m. - Round 2 at 8:30 a.m. is the first Consolation round. Round 3 at about 10:30 a.m. is the second round in the Championship bracket. Round 4 at about 1:30 p.m. is the second round in the Consolation bracket.
- Friday – Semifinal Round – 7 p.m.
- Saturday (March 4) – Rounds 6-7-8 – 8:30 a.m. - Round 6 at 8:30 a.m. is the third Consolation round. Round 7 at about 9:45 a.m. is the fourth Consolation Round. Round 8 at about 11 a.m. is the final round in the Consolation bracket.
- Saturday – Final Round & Awards Presentations – 4:45 p.m.
Girls Competitive Cheer coverage begins Friday from The DeltaPlex in Grand Rapids. Here’s the complete schedule:
- Friday – Division 1 – 6 p.m. (Brighton, Grandville, Hudsonville, Lake Orion, Rochester, Rochester Adams, Rochester Hills Stoney Creek, Sterling Heights Stevenson)
- Saturday – Division 2 – 10 a.m. (Allen Park, Charlotte, Dearborn Divine Child, Flint Kearsley, Gibraltar Carlson, Grand Rapids Kenowa Hills, Muskegon Mona Shores, Muskegon Reeths-Puffer)
- Saturday - Division 4 – 2 p.m. (Adrian Madison, Breckenridge, Farwell, Houghton Lake, Hudson, Michigan Center, Pewamo-Westphalia, Shelby)
- Saturday - Division 3 – 6 p.m. (Comstock Park, Flat Rock, Howard City Tri-County, Lake Odessa Lakewood, Monroe Jefferson, Paw Paw, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep, Richmond)
The continued Wrestling and full Cheer 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 $9.95. Over the next three weekends of live winter championship coverage, the following events will be featured:
- March 9-11 – Ice Hockey Semifinals-Finals
- March 11 – Lower Peninsula Boys Swimming & Diving Finals
- March 14 – Girls Basketball Quarterfinals
- March 16-17 – Girls Basketball Semifinals
- March 21 – Boys Basketball Quarterfinals
- March 23-24 – Boys Basketball Semifinals
All events become available for free, on-demand viewing approximately 72 hours following their completion.
In addition to all of the tournament action, regular-season coverage of contests by participants in the MHSAA’s School Broadcast Program will bring more than 30 contests into homes over the coming week.
Included in the coverage: A piece of the Mid-Peninsula Athletic Conference title is on the line Tuesday when Iron Mountain visits Negaunee in boys basketball. Both teams are tied with Norway at 9-2 in league play entering this week’s action. Calumet could lock up a boys basketball title in the West-PAC this week, hosting Houghton and Hancock.
Here’s this week’s MHSAA.tv schedule of live video streams being produced by SBP members (All times Eastern Standard):
Tuesday, Feb. 28
- Freshman Boys Basketball – Wyoming Kelloggsville at Comstock Park, 4 p.m.
- JV Boys Basketball – Wyoming Kelloggsville at Comstock Park, 5:30 p.m.
- Boys Basketball – Big Rapids at Cedar Springs, 6 p.m.
- JV Boys Basketball – Pickford at Rogers City, 6 p.m.
- Regional Ice Hockey – Utica Eisenhower vs. Lake Orion, 6 p.m.
- Boys Basketball – Pickford at Rogers City, 7 p.m.
- Boys Basketball – Wyoming Kelloggsville at Comstock Park, 7 p.m.
- Boys Basketball – Essexville Garber at Mt. Pleasant, 7 p.m.
- Boys Basketball – Houghton at Calumet, 7:20 p.m.
- Boys Basketball – Iron Mountain at Negaunee, 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, March 1
- Girls District Basketball – Clarkston vs. Oxford @ Lake Orion, 5:30 p.m.
- Girls District Basketball – Imlay City vs. Croswell-Lexington @ Otisville-LakeVille, 5:50 p.m.
- Girls District Basketball – Grand Ledge at East Lansing, 6 p.m.
- Girls District Basketball – Munising vs. Ishpeming @ Negaunee, 6 p.m.
- Girls District Basketball – Waterford Kettering vs. Waterford Mott @ Lake Orion, 7 p.m.
- Girls District Basketball – North Branch at Otisville-LakeVille, 7:20 p.m.
- Girls District Basketball – Gwinn at Negaunee, 7:30 p.m.
- Regional Ice Hockey – Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood vs. Troy, 7:45 p.m.
- Girls District Basketball – Lansing Everett vs. DeWitt @ East Lansing, 8 p.m.
Thursday, March 2
- Freshman Boys Basketball – Bridgeport at Otisville-LakeVille, 3:55 p.m.
- JV Boys Basketball – Bridgeport at Otisville-LakeVille, 5:15 p.m.
- Boys Basketball - Bridgeport at Otisville-LakeVille, 6:45 p.m.
- Boys Basketball – Cadillac at Mt. Pleasant, 7 p.m.
- Boys Basketball – Gaylord at Alpena, 7 p.m.
- Boys Basketball – Rochester at Lake Orion, 7 p.m.
- Boys Basketball – Sparta at Cedar Springs, 7 p.m.
- Boys Basketball – Hancock at Calumet, 7:20 p.m.
Friday, March 3
- Boys Basketball – Genesee at Montrose, 7 p.m.
- Girls District Basketball – Final @ Lake Orion, 7 p.m.
- Girls District Basketball – Final @ East Lansing, 7 p.m.
- Girls District Basketball – Final at Otisville-LakeVille, 7:30 p.m.
Monday, March 6
- Boys District Basketball – Oxford vs. Pontiac @ Lake Orion, 5:30 p.m.
- Boys District Basketball – Marquette at Alpena, 6 p.m.
- Boys District Basketball – Clarkston vs. Waterford Mott @ Lake Orion, 7 p.m.
Be sure to check the Upcoming Events page at MHSAA.tv for schedule additions every day.
In its eighth year, 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.
All sporting events – Live or On-Demand – are available on a subscription basis only for their first 72 hours online. They become available for free, on-demand viewing approximately 72 hours following their completion. A portion of every subscription sold by a school goes to benefit its program. A complete list of participating schools can be found on the School Broadcast Program page of the MHSAA website.
Fans also can access scores of games in-progress on the NFHS Network website via ScoreStream. Click on the Scores button in the upper right corner.
A weekly staple on the MHSAA.tv website and the MHSAASports Channel on YouTube is back for another year with highlights of selected games last week produced by members of the Association’s School Broadcast Program.
This week’s highlights package includes action from the Team Wrestling Finals and a girls basketball game between Menominee and Marquette.
Schools interested in becoming a part of the School Broadcast Program should contact John Johnson at the MHSAA Office.
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.