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Honorees Examples of Excellence
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
March 13, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Dave Hutton had stepped away from the hockey program he’d started at Grandville High School more than a decade before when he was asked to come back and save it from extinction.
The team had struggled with low student interest – not to mention decreasing skill – and was under consideration to be eliminated in 1991. So Hutton volunteered to start over again. Order returned, the team quickly became successful and never had a losing season under Hutton before he retired from the sport in 2002.
He’s the first to say he was just one person who assisted in reviving the program. But he also served as an example – a common role he and Jim Gilmore surely shared during careers that have earned them this year’s Michigan High School Athletic Association’s Charles E. Forsythe Award
“It’s been important to me to do it properly; that’s how basically I always looked at it,” Hutton said of being a high school coach. “I was trained well by a lot of mentors, and consequently I tried to do things first class.
“When it comes down to being a coach, you set an example for fellow coaches. But more importantly, you want the athletes and parents to have a positive reaction to what you do, be proud of the program they are part of.”
The annual award is in its 36th year and is named after former MHSAA Executive Director Charles E. Forsythe, the Association's first full-time and longest-serving chief executive. Forsythe Award recipients are selected each year by the MHSAA Representative Council, based on an individual's outstanding contribution to the interscholastic athletics community. Hutton and Gilmore will receive their honors during quarter breaks of the MHSAA Class A Boys Basketball Final on March 23 at the Breslin Student Events Center in East Lansing. Gilmore will receive his award during the break between the first and second quarters, and Hutton will receive his during the break between the third and fourth quarters.
Gilmore and Hutton have made contributing to Michigan high school athletics their lives’ work over the last four decades. Gilmore served four school districts over a 37-year career before retiring in 2008. He coached and taught at his alma mater Grant High School before moving on and eventually serving as athletic director at Kalamazoo’s Barbour Hall Academy (while also assisting at Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Central High School). He was the athletic director and coached at Morenci High School and then served as athletic director at Tecumseh High School. Gilmore was named to the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2004 and also served that school year as president of the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.
Hutton, 64, has coached the Grandville High School boys golf team for 42 seasons and also started and led the ice hockey program for 18. His golf teams have posted a 520-180-9 dual meet record, made the MHSAA Finals 20 times and won Class A MHSAA championships in 1976 and 1988. His hockey teams over two stints as coach amassed a record of 212-189-23 with two Regional titles and a Division 1 Semifinal appearance in 2001, his second-to-last season coaching that sport.
“Jim Gilmore and Dave Hutton have made long-standing contributions to their respective sports and communities. Their dedication and high regard for school athletics are signified by their decades of work,” MHSAA Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts said. “Their continued efforts – Dave Hutton as a coach and MHSAA Finals director, and Jim Gilmore with the MIAAA – show that for both, this is a life-long commitment. We’re proud to honor Jim Gilmore and Dave Hutton with Forsythe Awards.”
Gilmore, 65, coached football for 25 years at Grant, Barbour Hall and Morenci, and baseball for 15 seasons. He served on MHSAA site and officials selection committees for seven sports and as president of both the Tri-County Conference and Southeastern Conference. He was instrumental in renovations during his tenures at Morenci and Tecumseh and also wrote the athletic code book that established academic standards for Morenci athletes.
Gilmore also has volunteered in various capacities in his church and communities, and remains active in the MIAAA as part of the past presidents council and the awards and lifetime member committees.
“It’s something I wanted to do even when I was in high school,” said Gilmore, noting former Grant High principal, athletic director and football coach Ray Rynberg as a key mentor. “I was just watching what he did, and it was something I was really interested in as a kid. Participating in athletics, and then having the opportunity after finishing school to coach and be an athletic director, that was really something I enjoyed immensely.”
Hutton served as a member of the Michigan Golf Coaches Association Board for 24 years – and as president in 1984 and 1994 – and has directed a combined 18 boys and girls MHSAA Golf Finals. He was named Michigan golf Coach of the Year in 1977 by the National High School Athletic Coaches Association, Midwest Regional Coach of the Year in 1988 and the NHSACA’s national Coach of the Year in 2001. He also was recognized as the MIGCA Coach of the Year in 1976 and 1988 and as the Michigan High School Coaches Association Coach of the Year in 1977 and 1989. He was inducted into the MIGCA Hall of Fame in 1993 and the MHSCA Hall of Fame in 2002.
Hutton retired from the classroom in 2010 after teaching math and science at the elementary and middle school levels at Grandville for 41 years. He also has impacted his local golf community as a United State Golf Association junior tournament director and Professional Golf Association co-chairman of “Club for Kids” for Kent County.
“There’s still this satisfaction in seeing players in either sport be successful and continue to enjoy the sport when they’ve left (high school),” Hutton said. “There are times when kids say they’ve had enough of that. But it’s nice to see, just being a part of their growth in a sport as it continues beyond, whether they play in college or even as an adult in a rec league or church league, that they enjoyed it and learned something when you were their coach.”
Hutton received his bachelor’s degree from Grand Valley State University in 1967 and his master’s from Michigan State University in 1977. Gilmore received his bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University in 1975 and followed with graduate studies both at WMU and Eastern Michigan University.
Past recipients of the Charles E. Forsythe Award:
1978 - Brick Fowler, Port Huron; Paul Smarks, Warren
1979 - Earl Messner, Reed City; Howard Beatty, Saginaw
1980 - Max Carey, Freesoil
1981 - Steven Sluka, Grand Haven; Samuel Madden, Detroit
1982 - Ernest Buckholz, Mt. Clemens; T. Arthur Treloar, Petoskey
1983 - Leroy Dues, Detroit; Richard Maher, Sturgis
1984 - William Hart, Marquette; Donald Stamats, Caro
1985 - John Cotton, Farmington; Robert James, Warren
1986 - William Robinson, Detroit; Irving Soderland, Norway
1987 - Jack Streidl, Plainwell; Wayne Hellenga, Decatur
1988 - Jack Johnson, Dearborn; Alan Williams, North Adams
1989 - Walter Bazylewicz, Berkley; Dennis Kiley, Jackson
1990 - Webster Morrison, Pickford; Herbert Quade, Benton Harbor
1991 - Clifford Buckmaster, Petoskey; Donald Domke, Northville
1992 - William Maskill, Kalamazoo; Thomas G. McShannock, Muskegon
1993 - Roy A. Allen Jr., Detroit; John Duncan, Cedarville
1994 - Kermit Ambrose, Royal Oak
1995 - Bob Perry, Lowell
1996 - Charles H. Jones, Royal Oak
1997 - Michael A. Foster, Richland; Robert G. Grimes, Battle Creek
1998 - Lofton C. Greene, River Rouge; Joseph J. Todey, Essexville
1999 - Bernie Larson, Battle Creek
2000 - Blake Hagman, Kalamazoo; Jerry Cvengros, Escanaba
2001 - Norm Johnson, Bangor; George Lovich, Canton
2002 - John Fundukian, Novi
2003 - Ken Semelsberger, Port Huron
2004 – Marco Marcet, Frankenmuth
2005 – Jim Feldkamp, Troy
2006 – Dan McShannock, Midland; Dail Prucka, Monroe
2007 – Keith Eldred, Williamston; Tom Hickman, Spring Lake
2008 – Jamie Gent, Haslett; William Newkirk, Sanford-Meridian
2009 – Paul Ellinger, Cheboygan
2010 – Rudy Godefroidt, Hemlock; Mike Boyd, Waterford
2011 – Eric C. Federico, Trenton
2012 – Bill Mick, Midland
PHOTOS: (Top) Grandville boys golf coach Dave Hutton appeared with his 1988 team in the MHSAA's 1988-89 Book of Champions. (Below) The Tecumseh scoreboard hangs in the gymnasium Jim Gilmore once called home; he led renovation efforts during his tenure as athletic director. (Photo courtesy of Tecumseh High School.)
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Bowling, Boys Lacrosse Set Fan Records
August 17, 2018
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Two sports repeated in setting postseason attendance records during the 2017-18 school year, as 1,390,590 total fans attended Michigan High School Athletic Association postseason competitions for which attendance is recorded.
The MHSAA Bowling Tournament – including Regionals and Finals for girls and boys, set an attendance record for the seventh consecutive season this past winter with 14,422 fans. Boys lacrosse, which also begins postseason play at the Regional level, set a record for the second straight season this spring with 12,759 fans – including a record 7,344 for Regional games.
The MHSAA annually tracks attendance for all sports except golf, skiing and tennis – for which admission typically is not charged.
The 2017-18 grand total of just under 1.4 million fans was a decrease of 6.8 percent from 2016-17. However, a couple of circumstances likely factored into the majority of that decline.
The first two weeks of 11-player football playoffs generally are among the highest-drawing events every school year – and last year’s saw a 19 percent decrease from 2016-17, as Pre-District games were played in unseasonably frigid weather across the Lower Peninsula and District Finals were played amid storms in many parts of the state.
Also, the Individual Wrestling Finals saw a 33 percent decrease in attendance after moving to Ford Field in Detroit from its previous home at The Palace of Auburn Hills. However, that decrease is misleading; the event went from three days and five sessions (with tickets required for each session) at The Palace to a two-day, three-session event at Ford Field. The average attendance per session this past winter actually increased by 892 fans from 2016-17.
Despite the District level decreases, football remained the highest-drawing tournament sport sponsored by the MHSAA, with 352,946 fans attending during the 2017 Playoffs including 60,435 combined for the 11 and 8-Player Finals – the most at that level of the tournament since the 2009 season. The MHSAA added a second division of 8-player playoffs last fall; however, that additional championship game contributed only a small amount to the overall 68-percent increase in attendance from the 2016 Finals.
Boys Basketball drew the second-most fans in 2017-18 – 311,494 – keyed in part by a 5-percent increase at the Regional level. Girls Basketball remained the most highly attended girls sport with 158,546 fans – including 104,243 at the District level, the second-highest total at that level of the tournament since 2009-10. Volleyball was the second-highest attended girls sport this past school year, with 105,414 fans making for an overall increase of nearly 3 percent from the 2016-17 tournament – with increases in attendance enjoyed at the District, Regional, Quarterfinal and Finals levels.
Two more girls sports saw increased attendance in 2017-18. Girls Swimming & Diving enjoyed increases at both the Diving Qualification and MHSAA Finals levels for a total of 4,946 fans – a 7-percent increase from 2016-17. Girls Gymnastics also enjoyed increased attendance at both levels of its postseason for a grand total of 2,314 fans – the most for that sport since 2002-03 and an increase of 7 percent as well from the previous season.
Two more sports also set MHSAA Finals records. The Softball Finals, held in conjunction with the Baseball Finals at Michigan State University, drew 6,860 fans to set a record for the second straight season (and baseball drew its most Finals fans since the 2006 season). The Team Wrestling Finals – contended for the first time at Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo – enjoyed a 19-percent increase from 2016-17 with an audience of 9,469 fans that broke the record set at the conclusion of the 2004-05 season.
Also of note:
• Although girls lacrosse saw a slight dip in overall attendance to 5,538 fans this spring, that total still was the third-highest since the MHSAA began sponsoring a postseason tournament for the sport in 2004-05.
• Boys Soccer Districts drew 15,438 fans, the sport’s fourth straight increase at that level and the most to watch Districts since 2008-09.
• The Girls & Boys Cross Country Finals drew 10,445 fans, an increase of nearly 3 percent and the highest total in six seasons.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.