Jackson Area Efforts Net New Officials

February 16, 2016

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

Recruitment of new high school officials to eventually take the reins from those currently conducting MHSAA events is a challenge faced all over Michigan. 

The Jackson Area Officials Association is working to restock its ranks by recruiting directly from local schools and developing them with help from veteran mentors.

Eight new officials – ages 15 to 24 – who worked a series of youth and middle school games together earlier this month, are among those who have been introduced through a program that begins with a meeting at the end of the high school basketball season between JAOA official Bill Walker and local athletic directors, coaches, fellow officials and other young adults he’s made contact with over the course of a season. From that meeting, Walker builds a list of potential candidates to become officials and then invites them to the annual JAOA Legacy Camp in June.

The camp includes two days of scrimmages between local teams, plus classroom and mechanics teaching. Similar to the MHSAA Legacy program, new officials are paired with veterans, and clinicians evaluate their work during scrimmage play. Walker then keeps in touch with the new officials during the rest of the summer, plugging them in for local youth tournaments and scrimmages, and uses as many as possible while assigning officials for youth tournaments over the winter.

All eight officials who worked the event this month are part of the JAOA legacy partnering, and some of the group already are working games at the junior varsity level – with one, a 19-year-old, recently completing his first varsity game. They come from a variety of Jackson-area schools – Parma Western, Napoleon, Jackson Christian, Michigan Center, Concord and East Jackson. Walker said the recruiting effort has a 60 percent success rate so far. (This June’s legacy camp will be the third.)

“By next season, all (eight) will be official MHSAA registered officials,” he said, noting most currently are registered. “It’s great to have these schools support this program. We all benefit from added, good officiating.”

Passing it forward

Our Battle of the Fans trip to Charlotte on Friday included a conversation about a Feb. 2 game between the Orioles and Mason, which has a pair of athletes fighting cancer. The Charlotte student section dressed in blue that night in support of junior Storm Miller, and during halftime passed buckets to raise money for Miller’s GoFundMe account set up to help pay for his care.

Mason, in turn, provided support Friday to an Owosso alum, 2012 graduate Cody Greger, who remains hospitalized at University of Michigan’s hospital with injuries sustained during a house fire in November. Fans and students collected donations to assist Greger’s family with his care.

“This event was yet another example of the values that school sports teach young people,” Owosso athletic director Dallas Lintner wrote on the school’s website. “And it stands as a testament of the integrity of the young adults that represent our schools and the (Capital Area Activities Conference.)."

100 years of hoops

A decade before the formation of the Michigan High School Athletic Association, Eastern Michigan University – then known as Michigan State Normal College – hosted what is believed to be the first organized high school basketball tournament in state history.

EMU will celebrate this anniversary Saturday in conjunction with the Eagles men’s basketball game against Toledo. Game time is noon at EMU’s Convocation Center, and during a break in play the athletic department will recognize the 12 schools that took part in that 1916 tournament – Marine City, Dundee, Milan, Mancelona, Farmington, Elkton, Royal Oak, Middleville, Lansing, Mount Clemens, Wayne and Saline.

More history, courtesy of EMU:

The game of basketball was developed by James Naismith in 1891 at Springfield College in Massachusetts. As a means of promoting the game throughout the country, physical education professor and EMU's first athletic director Wilber Bowen asked his good friend Naismith to bring the game to the Michigan State Normal College (now known as Eastern Michigan University).  

The first basketball game west of the Allegheny Mountains was played at Michigan Normal in 1894 to recognize the new physical education program and to dedicate the new gymnasium on campus.  

Then in 1916, Bowen, along with instructors Elmer Mitchell and Lloyd Olds (who was also credited with the introduction of the striped referee jersey), organized the first high school basketball tournament in Michigan. A total of 300 invitations were sent out to all Class B schools in the state. Twelve schools responded, and the first high school boys tournament was held on the Ypsilanti-based campus on March 23-25, 1916.

Entrance to the tournament was free and (the event was) played at the Michigan State Normal School Gymnasium. However, expenses related to transportation, room, and board had to be provided by the participating schools. The MSNC's Physical Education Department made it easier for schools to participate by making arrangements with local residents to provide food at 20 to 25 cents a meal and lodging at 25 cents a night for each player.
    
That first tournament saw Marine City defeat Dundee in the championship game, 23-22.

The winning team was awarded a silver shield mounted on an oak base. Second prize was a silver cup, and the third place team received a banner. Individual participation awards to all players were also provided. The Ypsilanti Press at the time felt the Normal School "went first class with the awards."

For tickets to Saturday’s game and event, which will be followed by the EMU women’s team taking on Northern Illinois, call the EMU Ticket Office at (734) 487-2282 or visit EMUEagles.com/tickets.

Following up

• Second Half’s Chip Mundy this fall wrote a story on the emergence of Ida’s football team on the way to making the Division 5 Semifinals and finishing its best season ever. A theme of that story was Ida’s philosophy of building “brick by brick,” coined by defensive line coach Gary Deland, who himself was building back after emergency triple-bypass heart surgery.

“From that very first practice in the summer to the last game as a senior, everything is built brick by brick,” Deland said for that story. “I can draw a correlation between that and my recovery, what I’ve gone through. It’s the same thing. It’s brick by brick.”

Kim Farver sent along this photo of Deland holding up a brick after the team’s 43-20 Regional Final win over Buchanan.

• We released the last batch of this year’s MHSAA-Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award winners today, and one of the highlights during the 27 years of the contest came two years ago when we caught up with some of our winners from the first 25 years – including Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood’s Abby Cohen, who has gone on to co-found a company and help develop a smartphone application, Wing, to help asthma patients monitor their lung function.

Here’s a look at a video describing the technology she’s helped create:

Similarities Tie Slugging Pair's 1991 Pursuit of .600 Average, Paths After

By Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com

June 11, 2024

They both remember chasing the identical goal 33 years ago.

It wasn't so much that Hastings' Nick Williams and Dwain Koscielniak of Gaylord St. Mary were aware in 1991 of becoming the first MHSAA-recognized .600 hitters in state history. What the two remember most about their magical final high school seasons has little to do with records, but simply closing out outstanding baseball careers with a bang.

"I think it was the same scenario for both of us," Williams said. "You just want to get a hit, drive the ball every time you're up."

It may be forgotten now, but in an era where tracking batting averages wasn't as simple as inserting a thumb drive and a couple clicks on a laptop, it's easy to see how the one-of-a-kind hitting exploits of Williams and Koscielniak may be overlooked. For instance, with just days left in their senior seasons neither knew they were closing in on the state record for batting average of .577 by Greg Atkinson of Maple City Glen Lake in 1985. The two were more focused on helping their teams win District titles and then beginning their summers.

About all the pair really knew was that magical seasons were about to end. Both were batting over .600, but when ballplayers are hitting that well, there's a fine line in maintaining such rare territory. As both found out – one painfully so and the other happily – every at-bat is critical. Koscielniak wound up slugging a pair of homers in his final game to finish with a .629 mark while Williams, who started the last day of his senior season with a hefty .612 mark, went hitless for the first time all spring to finish at 591.

While the chase to hit .600 is obviously an entertaining story, it's only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amazing parallels between the lives of Koscielniak and Williams, who lived 170 miles apart growing up in Gaylord and Hastings, respectively.

Both, for example, were outstanding dual-sport athletes. Koscielniak graduated second on the Michigan football career rushing list with 5,078 yards from 1987-90, and he still owns the state single-game record of 529 yards against Pellston on Oct. 26, 1990. Williams, meanwhile, averaged 24 points per game as a senior in basketball and could have been a dual-sport athlete at the next level if not for sticking with baseball.

In addition, both went on to stellar collegiate careers. Williams was a second-team all-Mid-American Conference selection in 1995 as a junior, and Central Michigan University captain as a senior. Koscielniak played two years at Mott Community College before becoming a slugging catcher/infielder at Ferris State. He was named Player of the Year in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1994 when he won the league’s triple crown hitting .403 with nine home runs and 37 RBIs.

They continue to rank among the elite on the MHSAA record book list for top batting averages for a single season. Both had flirtations with pro ball as Williams was taken by the Seattle Mariners in the 48th round of the 1991 MLB draft and later drew interest from Boston and Cincinnati following his time at CMU. Koscielniak was drafted by San Diego in the 32nd round in 1994 and reached High-A a year later. He batted .261 with 32 RBIs in 64 games over two minor league seasons.

Koscielniak and Williams, who unknowingly played against each other with their college teams in 1994, also both wound up in athletics after college. Williams became an associate athletic director at Central Michigan, while Koscielniak coached baseball at Gaylord St. Mary.

There's more as both players are fathers of college-level talents. Williams' daughter Jayden ran track at Central Michigan while another daughter, Taryn, is playing volleyball at Delta College. Koscielniak's sons Steven and Christopher both played baseball at Delta College, daughter Brooke is an equestrian at Saginaw Valley State, and youngest son Brett is a three-sport athlete at Gaylord St. Mary.

If there's one more nugget which Williams and Koscielniak have in common, it’s that both credit long hours of work for becoming outstanding hitters. Williams would use a tarp in the family garage for a makeshift hitting cage, while Koscielniak's offseason hitting quarters was a cage stuck away in a pole barn. Both said they would never have approached being .600 hitters without putting in loads of extra time.

"I got my swings in several times a week in the offseason, and that really helped me," said Koscielniak, whose professional career received its earliest spark when a Ferris State science teacher/part-time MLB scout wandered past the school's gymnasium and noticed Koscielniak practicing throws to second base from his spot as catcher during winter workouts.

Williams remembers getting in about 200 at-bats with summer travel teams in Hastings, Grand Rapids and Battle Creek between his junior and senior years.

"I had a lot of success as a hitter because I put the time in," said Williams, who remembers half a dozen scouts at every Saxons game as a senior. "I didn't play a fall sport, and I put in a lot of time just hitting. I became aware of being able to hit the ball the other way, and I think my confidence began to grow."

As for approaching the .600 mark during their final seasons, Williams and Koscielniak said they were blissfully unaware of any state batting records. Williams does recall never considering trying to preserve a .600 average by taking a game off down the stretch.

"No, I never (had) a thought of that – not even a conversation," he said. "A lot of time has passed since then, but I don't remember sitting out at all. No way. I was always going to play, and that's it."

Koscielniak also doesn't recall worrying about hitting 600. While Koscielniak was the first .600 hitter in state history, only 17 others have gone on to become MHSAA-recognized .600 batters. Dan Taylor of Kingsley holds the state record for highest average with a .688 mark in 2007.

Koscielniak also hit 17 home runs as a senior and finished his career with 35, which continues to rank eighth on that statewide all-time list.

"Back then if you loved the game, you just played. How it turned out for me is how it turned out," he said. "I was competitive and played hard. I played well at Mott and then Ferris State, and the door opened up for me a little."

Williams and Koscielniak remember one huge drawback in trying to hit .600: walks. Pitchers would simply not give them anything to hit. Williams remembers a doubleheader against Coldwater where he hit home runs in his first at-bats in both games, then received two intentional walks in both games. Koscielniak's two homers in his final game were followed by two intentional walks.

Such a stingy pitching philosophy was par for the course, they say.

"That becomes very difficult for a hitter," Williams said. "You have to be dialed in when you get your opportunities. It was a fun year for me, but a struggle at times because (the walks) make you feel like you're not doing your job for the team.

"I don't think hitting .600 was a big deal. We didn't talk about stats and those things. You keep track a little, but I had no idea till the end of the year. And in the end, it's not about stats. I loved playing baseball."

These days, Williams is an instructor as part of the physical education and sport faculty at CMU, teaching courses on professional and collegiate athletics. Koscielniak is an operation manager for Schwan’s Food Service and with his wife Liz owns the Gaylord Equestrian Center.

PHOTOS (Top) Dwain Koscielniak, left, and Nick Williams stand for recent photos; they were the state’s top high school hitters in 1991 as both pursued a .600 batting average. (Middle) They continue to rank among the elite on the MHSAA record book list for top batting averages for a single season. (Photos courtesy of Koscielniak and Williams.)