The House Gillette Helped Build
February 1, 2012
Maribeth Johnston’s description made it easy to imagine the bustling activity that was Janet Gillette’s Comstock Park athletic office for 20 years.
Gillette and her secretary’s desks, piled with shelves of labeled and color-coded binders. A wall-sized white board calendar marked with sports activities for the next two months. Floor to ceiling shelf units, labeled cubbies and a copy machine loaded with paper of various colors. Trophies on shelves awaiting their turn in the school’s display case.
And then there were the two most telling images of Gillette’s legacy during four decades as a part of Comstock Park schools. On other walls were hundreds of pictures of students, athletes, coaches and staff. And in the center of the athletic office were two large work tables, usually occupied by student volunteers stuffing envelopes, organizing and counting uniforms or taking any on other task to help out.
“Her attention to detail, service for others and devotion to make every event ‘special’ is what endears her to the people in our school system,” wrote Johnston, who recently finished her 24th season as the school’s volleyball coach, in a letter of recommendation for the MHSAA’s Women in Sports Leadership Award. “The athletic office is a wonderful place. But the person who makes it all happen is Jan Gillette.”
Gillette attended Comstock Park, came back as a teacher and coach, and retired in 2010 after spending her final 19 school years as athletic director. She is the 25th woman to be recognized with the WISL Award for exemplary leadership capabilities and positive contributions to athletics. The award will be presented during Sunday’s Women In Sports Leadership Conference banquet at the Lexington Lansing Hotel.
“One of my quotes that people always hear is there’s no greater privilege in life than to have an impact on a young person. I got to do that every day,” Gillette said. “And they impacted my life as well."
A 1973 graduate of Comstock Park, Gillette began coaching at the school just a year later. A four-sport athlete in high school, she eventually coached girls tennis, softball, volleyball and middle school basketball while also joining the district’s teaching staff in 1977 after attending Grand Rapids Community College and Grand Valley State (playing two sports at the former). Gillette then served as the high school athletic director beginning in 1990.
Under her leadership, Comstock Park served host to numerous MHSAA postseason tournaments, including 15 Lower Peninsula Track and Field Finals and multiple Girls Competitive Cheer Finals. Gillette also was active with the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, serving as a presenter at numerous conferences and developing a coaches handbook.
“Few administrators have such a long record of hosting MHSAA Finals, evidence again of Janet Gillette’s drive to contribute not only at Comstock Park, but to high school sports on a larger scale,” said John E. “Jack” Roberts, executive director of the MHSAA. “Her involvement with female athletics dates back nearly to their inception. Jan’s impact will continue to be felt for years to come, and her contributions set a high standard for administrators in the future. We’re proud to honor her with the Women In Sports Leadership Award.”
Girls sports have evolved the most since Gillette first joined the athletic scene. Back then, seasons were only eight weeks, and volleyball, bowling and softball were not yet sponsored by the MHSAA. “To see what we have now, it’s just awesome,” Gillette said.
She is a member of the Comstock Park Athletic Hall of Fame, and has been recognized as Regional Athletic Director of the Year by the MIAAA, Athletic Director of the Year by the Michigan Competitive Cheer Coaches Association and the West Michigan Basketball-Football Association, and Comstock Park Employee of the Year in 2004. She also received the MHSAA’s Allen W. Bush Award in 2006 for her service to high school athletics.
In the community, Gillette has served as a coach in the Northwest Little League and been active with the Alpine Baptist Church as an AWANA Director and a Sunday School teacher.
“Mrs. G” hardly has disappeared from the school scene. She still manages the school’s volleyball tournaments and cheer invitationals, and the 250-person effort that makes the Division 3 Track and Field Final happen each spring.
She’s the first to credit all of those helpers, as well as the school boards, principals and superintendents who led the district during her career.
“I love Comstock Park. I love the community. I grew up there, and my dream was always to become a coach and a teacher,” Gillette said. “I didn’t want to do anything else because of the impact my teachers and the staff had on me, and the coaches.
“To go back to your own home town, what better could there be?”
Past Women In Sports Leadership Award recipients
1990 – Carol Seavoy, L’Anse
1991 – Diane Laffey, Harper Woods
1992 – Patricia Ashby, Scotts
1993 – Jo Lake, Grosse Pointe
1994 – Brenda Gatlin, Detroit
1995 – Jane Bennett, Ann Arbor
1996 – Cheryl Amos-Helmicki, Huntington Woods
1997 – Delores L. Elswick, Detroit
1998 – Karen S. Leinaar, Delton
1999 – Kathy McGee, Flint
2000 – Pat Richardson, Grass Lake
2001 – Suzanne Martin, East Lansing
2002 – Susan Barthold, Kentwood
2003 – Nancy Clark, Flint
2004 – Kathy Vruggink Westdorp, Grand Rapids
2005 – Barbara Redding, Capac
2006 – Melanie Miller, Lansing
2007 – Jan Sander, Warren Woods
2008 – Jane Bos, Grand Rapids
2009 – Gail Ganakas, Flint; Deb VanKuiken, Holly
2010 – Gina Mazzolini, Lansing
2011 – Ellen Pugh, West Branch; Patti Tibaldi, Traverse City
PHOTOS courtesy of Comstock Park High School.
Flivver Finds Home at Home of the Flivvers
April 25, 2018
By Dennis Grall
Special for Second Half
KINGSFORD – A wide variety of animals exist as high school mascots in Michigan, ranging from Bison to Gators, to Eagles and Hawks and to Tigers and Panthers.
You can also watch a variety of fighters prowl the sidelines, from Patriots to Warriors, Titans to Swordsmen, to Nimrods and Roughriders, Crusaders and Fighting Irish, and Knights and Trojans and Gladiators.
There are also unusual mascots like Dux and Chix, Wykons and Hematites, Pharaohs and Technicians, Navigators and Gryphons, Achievers and Dreadnaughts, Saddlelites and Railsplitters, Battling Bathers and Flying Gs, Griffons and Shorians.
But Kingsford is among the few schools with a genuine vehicle for a mascot, which maybe could be used to transport any of these others to the playing field.
The Flivvers are the mascot of the Upper Peninsula school on the northern border of Wisconsin, just blocks from the neighboring Mountaineers of Iron Mountain. Two downstate schools – Boyne City and Perry – have Ramblers as their mascot in honor of the old Nash car.
"This was one of the best days I've had at Kingsford," Flivvers' athletic director Al Unger said of having a restored 1923 Ford Model T brought into the middle school building by the main entrance in September 2017.
The idea began to chug along two years ago when a handful of people were chatting about a school mascot. Unger said the group thought "how cool it would be to have a real-deal mascot" for the school.
The Berlinski/Hosking family happened to have an old Model T and were willing to donate it to the school. Unger's uncle, Clyde Unger of nearby Spread Eagle, Wis., was asked to use his restoration and rebuilding skills to renovate the car. He spent about 1,200 hours tearing it down and putting everything back together.
"The car really came back together," said Al Unger.
The Flivvers have been Kingsford's nickname since the early 1930s, coming from the old Ford Motor Co. plant in the area. The plant, which opened in 1925 and once employed 7,000 people, built cars and later used leftover wood to make Kingsford charcoal barbecue briquettes.
Al Unger said an Iron Mountain Daily News sportswriter during that time began using Fords as the school nickname, and it soon adjusted to Flivvers, or Flivs – a nickname for the old Model T vehicles.
Developing school spirit was one of the goals the group talked about when it discussed finding an old vehicle, Unger said.
The car's renovation included a new paint job, breaking from the standard Henry Ford refrain of all black to a spiffy blue to match the maize and royal blue school colors. "There have been a lot of positive reviews," said the Kingsford athletic director.
The car was unveiled to the students and some community members at the adjoining football field/track, perhaps the first time all of the students in the three buildings were released for a specific event, Unger said.
It was then shown to the public when the Flivvers hosted the Escanaba Eskymos for the regular-season finale football game in October. "It was awesome," Unger said of the night that included coverage from the Upper Peninsula's three television stations.
The vehicle now is displayed in a three-sided glass enclosure with a gate. Unger said plans are in the works to place the vehicle in the community’s July 4 parade "and we will consider rolling it out for special occasions.
"You can't help but walk by and stare at it and feel a sense of pride," he said.
Unger said 95 percent of the project was donated. "We spent a few dollars on the enclosure," adding everyone "has been ecstatic" about the unique mascot.
Denny Grall retired in 2012 after 39 years at the Escanaba Daily Press and four at the Green Bay Press-Gazette, plus 15 months for WLST radio in Escanaba; he served as the Daily Press sports editor from 1970-80 and again from 1984-2012. Grall was inducted into the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 and serves as its executive secretary. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Upper Peninsula.
PHOTOS: (Top) The Flivver, on display at the Kingsford middle school building. (Middle) Kingsford’s restored Model T, a 1923 “Flivver.” (Photos courtesy of the Kingsford athletic department.)