![St. Clair boys gymnastics](/sites/default/files/2021-04/210414_Pesch_2H.jpg)
Over 2 Eras, Boys Gymnastics Vaulted Into MHSAA History
By
Ron Pesch
MHSAA historian
April 14, 2021
Williamsburg, Michigan, and the shore of Elk Lake, seems an unusual spot to serve as an epicenter. Especially for something like gymnastics.
But during the late 1950s, it was exactly that.
“LOOK MA, I’M FLYING” was the title of an Aug. 5, 1957 Sports Illustrated article detailing the happenings at Charlie Pond’s National Summer Palaestrum.
“At Elk Lake, Mich.,” wrote SI, “exhilarated youngsters have learned to leap, jump and fly through the air with the greatest of ease at the National Summer Palaestrum, a gymnastic camp devoted from June to August to developing physical skills among boys and girls from 8 to 18. The enrolled campers concentrate on tumbling, trampoline, free exercise, apparatus work and balancing under Charlie Pond, the University of Illinois gymnastic coach with a penchant for developing fine, coordinated bodies. ... The camp accommodates 120 youths in each of four two-week periods.”
“His frame,” stated Al Barnes in the Traverse City Record-Eagle in 1958, “is somewhat slight and his blond, brush-cut hair leads you to think of him as, possibly, a professor of archaeology. But at his spacious summer camp on Elk Lake, about 14 miles northeast of Traverse City, (Pond) is one of the kids. He is as much at home on a trampoline as his more youthful understudies and he can do his stint on the high rings or the uneven parallel bars.”
Pond took over as head coach of the University of Illinois men’s gymnastics team in 1949. Between 1950 and 1958, his teams had won nine straight Big Ten titles (the streak would extend to 11 consecutive) and four NCAA national titles (outright wins in 1950, ’55, ’56, then a tie with Michigan State in 1958).
Pond’s first Elk Lake Palaestrum was hosted in 1956. A Chicago Tribune advertisement indicated it ran from June 18 to August 12.
“The establishment of a summer gymnastics palaestrum had been a dream for Pond for many years. ‘When I saw the Elk Lake Inn property,’ (Pond) said, ‘I knew that was it and I had to have it. It was ideally located and the climate in this area is excellently adapted for an outdoors activity.’”
By the 1958 season, the Palaestrum included options for two-week courses as well as day camp instruction. Public open house events were hosted to showcase activities. Children facing disabilities visited the camp and were encouraged to try the various equipment. That year the Palaestrum added a spectacular season-ending demonstration for the public, hosted at the Traverse City St. Francis gymnasium. The following year, the show was christened the “Night of Stars.”
Pond’s annual gathering was staffed by the top names in college gymnastics, including his clinic director, Michigan State coach George Szypula, plus University of Michigan’s Newt Loken, Georgia Tech’s Lyle Welser, Bill Meade from Southern Illinois, and Dr. Eric Hughes from the University of Washington among others, as well as numerous university and Olympic athletes who enjoyed the opportunity to perform, train and teach in a beautiful setting.
The Report That Shocked the President
Featured on the cover of that 1957 SI was Bonnie Prudden, a pioneer advocate for physical fitness. Contained within was a 24-page report on U.S. Fitness.
“Sports Illustrated in this issue presents the findings from a nationwide survey of activity and, in some cases, lack of it on behalf of physical fitness during the past two years,” wrote the magazine’s publisher H.H.S. Phillips Jr. “These are the years since President (Dwight D.) Eisenhower, alarmed by the results of the Kraus-Prudden study on fitness of our children, spotlighted the problem by means of a White House luncheon.”
Using a test devised by Austrian doctors Hans Kraus and Sonja Weber, the study found “that 56 percent of American children had failed at least one of a battery of fitness measures, including leg lifts and toe touches. By contrast, only 8 percent of European children had failed even one test component.” The presentation of the results led to the creation of the “President’s Council on Youth Fitness.”
“Ultimate solution must take the form of community and individual action,” continued Phillips in his “Memo from the Publisher.” “The series of weekly illustrated physical fitness lessons developed by Bonnie Prudden, which begins this week in Sports Illustrated, represent action which individuals may start taking at once.”
The Elk Lake Summer Palaestrum piece was part of the 24-page report. Charlie Pond felt that gymnastics were the base of every sport, and the article included an interesting sentence:
“Pond-trained pupils have passed the Kraus-Weber tests with ease.”
The Return of Gymnastics
The direct impact of the Summer Palaestrum and the establishment of the President’s Council on prep sports in Michigan is lost to time. But it is interesting to note that, after a 30-year absence, in May, 1960, the Michigan High School Athletic Association announced the reintroduction of a state gymnastics meet to its array of postseason activities. The first championships were scheduled for March 18, 1961, at Ionia High School.
Gymnastics for boys, and also in some places for girls, had taken hold at a sprinkling of schools around Michigan.
A fixture for men at state colleges and universities, as well as at the summer Olympics since their modern birth in 1896, the sport was among the original postseason activities sponsored by the MHSAA at its formation in late 1924 and 1925. However, during the early 1930s, high school athletics were under attack. Detroit city schools, led by health and physical education director Vaughn Blanchard, had initiated a self-imposed boycott of MHSAA postseason play following the 1929-30 school year to focus strictly on intracity play. In late March 1932, following a conference in Traverse City, the Michigan Education Association pushed for athletic reforms, stating they felt there was an over-emphasis on tournament competition among high schools of the state.
During the prior year, due to – among other things – the initial impact of the Great Depression, the MHSAA had made cuts and alterations to its programs. The annual state basketball tournaments were reorganized; separate tournaments were conducted for Upper and Lower peninsulas. Track & field saw the elimination of the javelin and discus events, while the annual gymnastics meet – won by Monroe in four of the seven years, including both 1930 and 1931 – was discontinued by the Association.
From 1932 until reinstatement, whatever statewide gymnastics competition occurred at the prep level happened under club, YMCA and Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) guidance.
Surprise Hotbed
Edwin Joseph Bengtson arrived at St. Clair as a new teacher in 1956. His brief biography in the Port Huron Times-Herald at the time of hire noted he came from Waltham, Mass. A former semi-professional baseball player, he would teach physical education.
In 1959, he started a gymnastics program at the school with nine students.
“The response has been terrific. Our kids are so enthused with gymnastics they go out and work on their own,” Bengtson told the Times-Herald following the 1960 season. “Last year we had only one medal winner. This season, we’ve already won 20 medals and 19 trophies and have high school and YMCA state champions.”
Junior Tom Hurt, the team’s top gymnast, earned the high school trampoline title, while freshman Jim Arnold won tumbling honors. The 1960 high school championships, hosted at Michigan State University’s Jenison Field House, was an AAU-sponsored event.
The St. Clair program included 36 students, both boys and girls, ranging from second graders to juniors in high school, and the coach expected to award at least seven varsity letters at season’s end.
He found little competition in the immediate area, and his teams competed against schools with much larger enrollments for the most part. Practices were three hours a day, six days a week. “We’ll give exhibitions any time. All you have to do is ask us. … We’ve even met at 4:30 a.m. for trips to various colleges in order to work out with their teams.
“I also use a camera to take movies of the gymnasts in action. We later show the films and break down the various mechanics to help the performers improve. You could say we show films like football coaches do to find mistakes. Gymnastics depend on mechanics, courage and body discipline.”
So it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise when – led by Hurt – St. Clair, one of only two Class B-sized schools competing against 12 schools with Class A-sized enrollments, won the MHSAA’s 1961 Final competition. Or that the squad would repeat as champion in 1962 and 1963. Many of those St. Clair gymnasts would soon populate university squads: Hurt, with teammates Dennis Smith and Ron Aure, would each excel at Michigan State, while Arnold earned All-America honors at Eastern Michigan University. Arnold’s younger brother, Dave, first starred at Central Michigan before transferring to Michigan State.
Deadlocked with Ionia with two events remaining, a win by Aure in the long horse, and second, third and fifth-place finishes by Saints in all-around, gave Bengtson’s squad a 16-point win. Ionia ended in second, topping Alpena, the runner-up in 1961.
In the 1963 championship competition, the Saints topped Ann Arbor 144½-110½. Ionia finished third on the day. A total of 137 athletes from 15 schools competed. Ann Arbor’s Chris Vandenbrock ended the day as top all-around individual, but the next three were St. Clair’s Jim Arnold, Aure and Smith. Arnold captured four second-place finishes, a fourth, an eighth, and a tie for first in the still rings event. Aure finished with firsts in tumbling, vaulting, and the floor exercise.
According to the Hillsdale Daily Press, Tim Mousseau of Alpena, who as an eighth grader lost both legs when trying to hitch a ride on a slow moving New York Central train, was one of the sensations of the meet winning the parallel bars and finishing second in the still rings. (In college, Mousseau would compete for the University of Michigan.)
Over four seasons, Bengtson’s team won 70 of 84 dual or triangular meets, finishing second on eight occasions. In July 1963, the inevitable arrived. Bengtson was offered the opportunity at Auburn University, where he would work to establish and coach the women’s gymnastics program.
“I hate to leave St. Clair,” he said to the Times-Herald. “The people here have been awfully nice to me and my family, but this is a wonderful opportunity.”
Shake-up in Williamsburg, Move to MSU
While the gymnastics “Palaestrum” camp continued to operate under new leadership and instruction at Williamsburg, the “National Summer Gymnastics Clinic” moved to Michigan State University’s campus in 1961, run by MSU’s Szypula. The veteran coach had started the Spartans' men’s gymnastics team in 1947 and would retire in 1988. During an MSU career that spanned 41 years, he produced 48 individual Big Ten champions and 18 NCAA individual champions.
The three-pronged purpose of the six-day clinic, the school’s gymnastics coach told the Lansing State Journal, was “to develop better performance in gymnastics techniques, teaching, and officiating.” The 1962 gathering, as usual, featured a staff comprised of college coaches and past Olympian performers. Enrolled were nearly 150 boys and girls from 17 states and Canada. The MSU gymnastics coach said week-long elementary and secondary school level instruction were in “keeping with President (John F.) Kennedy’s emphasis on physical fitness.”
Bengtson was among the staff of 15 at the 1963 Clinic, and both Jim Arnold and Ron Aure were among the registrants. Arnold finished the week as the clinic’s top male high school senior performer.
By 1965, more than 200 young athletes from across the U.S. and Canada were on hand. Bengtson was again among the board and staff, now numbering 25.
“One of the highlights of the (1967) Clinic was the use of the new Ampex Videotape machine – one of the most modern machines available,” noted a post-clinic recap that appeared in Mademoiselle Gymnast,” one of the array of niche magazines that now focused specifically on the growing sport. “This machine was loaned to the Clinic by ‘Biggie’ Munn, Athletic Director at Michigan State University. We plan next year to use this machine more extensively.”
The location in East Lansing, at the center of the Lower Peninsula, certainly made the “National Summer Clinic” attractive to those interested in the sport. Around 300 were in attendance for the 12th annual Clinic at MSU in 1969. “We felt a clinic was needed,” Szypula told the Free Press. “Youngsters were not being taught fundamentals and advanced skills properly, and consequently physical educators need to learn techniques … of giving them a sense of security when they first begin gymnastics that require them to turn upside down.”
“During the six days of the clinic, both sexes try floor exercises, vaulting, tumbling and trampoline. The girls go on to the balance beam and uneven parallel bars, while boys acquire skill at even parallel bars, the horizontal bar, rings and side horse.”
Staffing for the 1969 clinic included, among others, three former members of Olympic teams: Jackie Klein Uphues, Ernestine Russell Carter, and Fred Orlofsky (who served as Western Michigan University coach from 1966 to 1996), as well as Clarenceville’s Thompson. The program continued to wrap with an extravagant “Night of Stars” performance.
Southeastern Michigan Leads the Way
Both Alpena and Ionia began their gymnastics program in 1955. Alpena excelled early, earning AAU high school titles in 1957 and 1959. In a write-up on the team in the school’s 1958 Anamakee yearbook, it was noted that female members of the squad were entered in an AAU state meet for the first time. By 1960, the school also sponsored a girls team.
“State Champions! That’s our gymnastics team,” proudly shouted the 1964 Ionia yearbook as coach Vernon Vance led his 11-gymnast boys squad, featuring six seniors, to the title. Mike Husted earned first-place honors in the parallel bars and still rings and accumulated the most points on the day to claim the all-around medal. He would continue his gymnastics career at the University of Michigan.
The event featured 324 performances by 127 competitors from 11 schools. According to coverage in the Daily News, “to save time, there were three events going on all the time” for judges to evaluate.
Vance guided the Bulldogs to a second-place finish among a field of 18 schools and 125 gymnasts in 1965, finishing behind Ann Arbor, before accepting a teaching and coaching position at Lansing Waverly schools. Ionia, led by senior Joe Sawtell, again ended as runner-up in 1966, this time guided by coach Norman Brooks.
Coach Marv Johnson, who took over the gymnastics program at EMU in 1963, promoted and encouraged the growth of the sport in southeastern Michigan. Hosting annual all-state invitational meets, and training and providing judges, served as catalysts for the success of the sport in Lower Michigan according to Modern Gymnast magazine. The formation of the highly competitive Southeastern Michigan Interscholastic Gymnastics Association, established in 1966 by eight teams, was also credited with the strength of gymnastics programs from the area.
Runs to the state title by coach Richard Shilling’s teams at North Farmington (1966 and ’67) and by archrival Livonia Clarenceville (1968 and ’69), coached by Chuck Thompson and assisted by Ned Duke, illustrated the point.
Those two schools, less than eight miles apart, both entered the March 1968 MHSAA tournament with a single loss as they split their regular-season meets. In the Final, Clarenceville out-pointed the 1967 champion, 144½-139. Trojans senior co-captain Charles Morse won four events – horizontal bar, parallel bar, still rings and side horse and earned the all-around title. (As a junior in 1967, Morse had won four events).
According to the Plymouth Observer, the 5-foot-5, 140-pound Morse had been “handicapped during his younger days by a paralysis condition in his hips, his knees and ankles.” (Morse would later compete in three events at Michigan State, captain the Spartans and win the 1970 Big Ten title on the parallel bars.)
Jim McCannon, Clarenceville’s other captain, entered seven events, placed in all, and finished second in the all-around standings. Thirty schools had competed at the meet, hosted at Hillsdale High School.
Tom McArt of North Farmington won the free exercise while his teammates Terry Boys and John Peeples tied for top honors in the long horse.
“Thompson began the team five years ago with only a few participants,” noted the school’s yearbook, celebrating the championship. According to the Detroit Free Press. Thompson had graduated from Michigan State, where he had competed “as a trampoline and tumbling specialist and capped a Big Ten second place finish in 1960 with a third in the NCAA tournament.”
Duke, an eighth-grade science teacher at the junior high, was a former captain of the gymnastics team at the University of Michigan.
The Impressive Gymnasts of Taylor
Taylor Kennedy then rattled off four straight Finals championships spanning 1970-73 – just four years after starting a program. The program was guided by coach Roger Bechtol, with strong assistance by Joseph Sawtell. Bechtol had earned 11 varsity letters at Taylor Center High School, before playing four years of baseball at EMU. As a senior in 1962 at EMU, he also earned a letter on the school’s gymnastics team. Sawtell had won the 1966 MHSAA all-around as a student at Ionia before earning two varsity letters in the sport at Eastern.
Randy Mills grabbed the horizontal bar championship as a junior in 1970, grabbed parallel bars and all-around honors for Kennedy in 1971, and then followed his brother Lanny to compete at EMU. Mark O’Malley earned MHSAA titles in the floor exercise in both 1972 and 1973 before leading WMU’s gymnastic team to a pair of Lake Erie League titles.
Between 1970 and 1976, all three Taylor high schools - Kennedy, Truman and Taylor Center – would produce boys gymnastics champions.
“Coach Bechtol did something to inspire us. I can’t really describe it” said Tom Gonda, Jr., 50 years after winning the 1972 state pommel horse event for Kennedy at the meet hosted at Ann Arbor Pioneer. “His attitude was: supportive, curious, encouraging, positive. It wasn’t: dogmatic, fearful, intimidating or forceful.”
Bechtol would then lead Taylor Truman to the boys state gymnastics title in 1978. He coached gymnastics for 14 years, winning 10 league titles and, besides the five Finals championships, totaled two runner-up finishes in the sport. His teams posted a 189-32 record over the span. Bechtol was also an outstanding baseball coach at Kennedy then Truman, winning 492 games over 32 seasons.
Girls Sports Gain MHSAA Sponsorship
After long discussion at an Oct. 18, 1971 meeting, the MHSAA’s Girls Athletics Advisory Committee concluded that the Association should move forward with sponsorship of state meets in gymnastics, track & field, golf and tennis. At its December 1971 meeting, the MHSAA Representative Council, acknowledging the growing sponsorship of girls activities at member schools and the committee’s recommendation, decided to conduct a gymnastics championship during the 1971-72 school year. If all went well and schools desired, meets and tournaments in the other sports would begin during the following school year.
Three months later, in March 1972, Taylor Kennedy became the first school to earn the state’s girls gymnastics title. The team slipped past East Lansing by the slimmest of margins, 216.25-215, in a six-event match hosted at Hillsdale. A total of 275 gymnasts from 33 schools competed in the first girls championship. Merry Jo Hill of East Lansing (who would later compete at Arizona State) won the first all-around competition, placing first in the floor exercise, tying for first in tumbling, and finishing second in the balance beam and uneven parallel bars. Amy Balogh led Kennedy with wins on the balance beam, the uneven parallel bars and with a second in vaulting to finish second all-around.
Then the Kennedy girls, like the Kennedy boys, repeated as champions in 1972-73. (The same school year, the MHSAA sponsored its first Upper Peninsula girls gymnastics meet, won by Iron Mountain).
From 1972 through 1981, with the passage of Title IX, interest and participation in girls gymnastics soared across the nation. According to surveys, 52 girls teams competed in prep gymnastics in Michigan during the 1972-73 school year. For 1979-80, the number of girls teams had climbed to 140.
However, interest in boys gymnastics waned. During the 1972-73 school year, according to the MHSAA, Michigan had 27 boys teams. The total climbed to 34 in 1975-76. But by 1979-80, the total had fallen to 23. The next school year, the count was down to 18. The exact reason for the decline remains unknown.
Inflation during the late 1970s, followed by recession – the most severe since World War II – certainly impacted prep sports across Michigan as numerous school millage requests failed, impacting extracurricular activities including music programs across the state. Between 1979 and 1982, Michigan’s population dropped.
Gymnastics never was a revenue sport. Increased pressure to balance budgets, in addition to the growing number of athletic opportunities available for both boys and girls, quietly played a factor.
Last of the Champions
Ann Arbor High School, winner of the first boys gymnastics meet back in 1925, won the 1965 tournament. Renamed Pioneer High School in the fall of 1968 when the district’s new Huron High School opened its doors, Pioneer grabbed back-to-back titles in 1974 and 1975. (Dennis Rumbaugh, Newt Lokin, Jr. and Dorian Deaver each contributed first-place finishes, then later competed for U-M. Paul Hammonds did the same before joining the team at MSU.) The Pioneers earned a fourth and final title in 1979.
Huron won the 1978 boys title under head coaches Carey Culbertson and Kurt Golder. Golder, a 1972 Alpena graduate, was a three-time letter winner in gymnastics at Michigan. Later an assistant coach at Michigan State, then at Iowa, he was named head coach of the U-M men’s gymnastics team in July 1996, taking over following an 0-16 season. Only the fourth coach in the team’s more than 80-year history, his squads have won four of the school’s six national titles.
Alpena earned its first MHSAA boys gymnastics title in 1977, then grabbed consecutive championships in 1980 and 1981.
Longtime coach Jack Discher guided Alpena to that first crown.
“What made the championship even sweeter,” noted the Alpena News years later, “was the Wildcats won it on their home floor in front of one of the largest crowds ever for a state final.”
Discher had come to Alpena from North Dakota, taking charge in 1967. With his assistants, he turned out strong teams and stellar athletes including among others Roger Tolzdorf, Howard Welsh, Lynn Cousineau, Scott McKenzie, Ken Donakowski, Tom Nadeau, Golder and his brother Cory.
He went back to North Dakota after that school year to coach girls gymnastics at Fargo North. His assistant, Ray Timm, an Alpena graduate and another former gymnast at U-M, took the Wildcats to their back-to-back titles.
The 1981 championship would be the last for the boys sponsored by the MHSAA. At a May 1981 meeting, ironically held in Alpena, the MHSAA Representative Council took up the topic of boys gymnastics.
“Four School teams and individuals from a maximum of ten schools participated in the 1981 Final Boys Gymnastics Meet,” noted the Council in the minutes of the meeting, published in the MHSAA’s monthly bulletin. “After considerable discussion of Handbook Regulation 11 Section 1, Interpretation #69, it was determined that the MHSAA should not sponsor a Final Boys Gymnastics Meet for the 1981-82 school year. It was with reluctance that the Council made the decision but it felt that the Final Tournament should not be continued when only ten schools in the state sponsor boys gymnastics.”
A decade later, eight high schools in Michigan, including ionia, Ann Arbor Pioneer, and Ann Arbor Huron, still sponsored boys gymnastics programs during the 1990-91 school year. Among the boys coaches was George Szypula at East Lansing. The count continued to dwindle. By 2005, there were none.
Tumbling Forward
In 1976, owner and director of the “Palaestrum” Ruth Ann McBride told the Free Press that the 1972 Olympic Games, which featured the Soviet Union’s Olga Korbut, “set off a gymnastics boom in America,” especially among girls. Two-thirds of her campers, ranging in age from 9 to 18, were female. Romania’s Nadia Comăneci was expected to do the same in 1976.
McBride was a former gymnast, attendee and/or coach at Williamsburg and Michigan State. Her father Francis Inskip had been one of the original investors in the Pond’s Palaestrum. She had been associated with the Williamsburg Elk Lake site since 1962 and had been the camp’s director since 1966.
While the popularity of the sport among girls has since declined, especially since the sponsorship of competitive cheer championships by the MHSAA began in 1994, the girls tournament lived on. Following the 2002-03 school year, the Upper and Lower Peninsula tournaments consolidated into one.
Statistically, while nothing exists to connect the early popularity of the sport to the “National Summer Gymnastics Clinic” or the Williamsburg “Palaestrum,” it certainly seems logical that the annual events had impact.
A survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) showed 1,097 high schools in 36 states sponsored boys gymnastics programs during the 1979-80 school year. Now, only 104 high schools in seven states still have boys gymnastics programs. In total, there are only 1,580 participants. Of those 104 schools, 52 are in Illinois. Fewer and fewer colleges and universities sponsor men’s teams. Today, the sport – at least for most males – is mostly taught in gymnastics clubs and junior Olympics.
Gonda, who went on to become a highly-respected and successful thoracic surgeon, reflected on the changes.
“We’ve lost something with the demise of high school gymnastics,” he said. “Many times, the men in gymnastics didn’t always find another talent for other sports.”
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) Ed Bengtson and his St. Clair team won the 1961 championship after boys gymnastics rejoined the list of MHSAA-sponsored tournament sports. (2) Monroe won the last of the first wave of MHSAA boys gymnastics championships in 1931. (3) Winner of three events at the MHSAA Final, Michael Husted helped lead Ionia to the 1964 title. (4) The 1968 Livonia Clarenceville team won the first of two straight titles. (5) Tom Gonda Jr. won the 1972 state pommel horse event for Taylor Kennedy. (6) Ann Arbor Huron’s 1978 champions were coached by a pair of former University of Michigan gymnasts, Carey Culbertson and Kurt Golder. Golder, a 1972 Alpena graduate, today serves as U-M’s men’s gymnastics coach. (Photos gathered by Ron Pesch.)
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Flyers to Terriers, Quakers & Orioles
December 15, 2020
By Ron Pesch
Special for Second Half
Education and all that comes with it, in case you haven’t noticed, is changing. Of course, that’s always been the case. Virtual learning is simply the latest transformation.
Once we were a nation filled with one-room school houses. By 1910, postcard evidence shows that, at least in Michigan, nearly every town of size had a high school, and that these buildings were showcases for community pride. From wood to brick to limestone, many of the earliest structures had bell towers. By the 1920s, in larger cities, small schools run by neighborhood churches were quite common. Most from those days were multiple-story buildings.
In hindsight, some of those buildings seem incredibly large for the communities they served. Others, too small – especially come the post-war baby boom era, when the suburbs exploded with growth and opportunity and Michigan’s major cities began to shrink in size. The 1950s and 1960s saw numerous Upper Peninsula and rural schools consolidate, while various big-city suburban districts split into two.
Continued development beyond the first ring of suburbs and decreasing birth rates have combined, with the introduction of school of choice in 1996, to played havoc with enrollments and facilities in more recent times. Today, public and private academies seem to pop up and disappear overnight.
For someone trying to follow along, there are plenty of challenges.
A TOOLBOX
Historians, like many others, require a toolbox to accomplish their work. One of my favorite tools is a spreadsheet that I created several years back. I refer to it as “The List.” It’s my Master List of Michigan High Schools, and I reference it often. But lately, the document has been in a bit of disarray.
It’s been a mess before. Without a focused sabbatical or a grant, it likely will never be polished quite to my satisfaction.
Lost somewhere in time
Scattered to the four winds are details about the naming of schools, their consolidations, relocations and closings. Sadly, stories of how and why schools selected nicknames are often forgotten.
Parochial schools can present challenges of their own. Seemingly countless have opened, closed, consolidated or relocated over the years in Michigan. The city of Detroit alone has played host to a least 32 “Saint” high schools, from St. Agatha to St. Vincent.
Detroit Catholic Central’s history includes five sites in three separate cities. As noted in my document, Catholic Central is an “All-Boys” school and today located in Novi. Few recall that, beginning in the fall of 1928, there was also a Detroit Girls Catholic Central. It closed in 1969.
Grand Rapids Catholic Central, founded in 1906, states it is the “oldest coeducational Catholic high school in the nation.” They have been known as the Cougars since 1930 or before. Muskegon Catholic Central consolidated three local schools – St. Mary, St. Joseph and St. Jean – and opened in the fall of 1953.
Flint Powers represents another example. My spreadsheet notes that the school’s full name is Flint Powers Catholic Central, and that it was named in honor of Rev. Luke M. Powers. The athletic teams are nicknamed the Chargers. The school was formed by the merger of seven Genesee County schools in 1970 – Flint Catholic schools Holy Redeemer, St. Agnes, St. John Vianney, St. Mary, St. Matthew, St. Michael and Mt. Morris St. Mary. Within the spreadsheet, I also capture their team nicknames: Flyers, Crusaders, Hornets, Wildcats, Panthers, Warriors, and Shamrocks, valuable information in case I find opportunity to write about their athletic accomplishments.
Garden City High School split into Garden City East and West in the mid-1960s, then reunited beginning with the 1982-83 school year. Royal Oak divided into Dondero and Kimball high schools in the late ’50s. They again unified in 2006. Pontiac High School split into Central and Northern in 1958. They merged back into Pontiac High in 2009.
More recently, in 2012, Wyoming Park and Wyoming Rogers merged. Ypsilanti Willow Run and Ypsilanti High School consolidated into Ypsilanti Community Schools in 2013.
Flint’s oldest high school, Central, shuttered in 2009, followed by Flint Northern in 2013. Albion was absorbed into Marshall in 2013. Word is Saginaw and Saginaw Arthur Hill will soon unite.
Once, Michigan had four high schools that used “Flyers” as their nickname: previously mentioned Flint Holy Redeemer, Detroit St. Andrew, Grosse Pointe St. Paul and Willow Run, which used the nickname as a nod to the area’s ties to Airforce Plant 31, constructed by Ford to manufacture twin-finned B-24 bombers during the early 1940s for the war effort. Today, there are no schools left in Michigan that carry the nickname.
“The List” reminds me that Ferndale changed from the “Railsplitters” to the “Eagles” when they moved from old Ferndale Lincoln High into the newly-opened Ferndale High School in the fall of 1958. They are not to be confused with the “Railsplitters” of Ypsilanti Lincoln or Lincoln Park.
Caledonia once used “Scotties” as the nickname for its athletic teams, but the students chose to change the nickname to the more intimidating “Fighting Scots” in the late 1960s. (I’m still trying to chase down the actual school year of the alteration.)
“The List” explains why the Midland “Chemics” have a lion named Vic for a mascot. (It seems that in 1938, a new high school was built and “the Student Union decided to start some new traditions in order to display pride in their new high school. The school purchased a stuffed lion – a symbol of pride – to be used as a mascot. The name Vic was chosen for the mascot in short for the word ‘Victory’, voted in by the students.”)
Uniqueness
Distinctive nicknames fascinate me, but I always want the story behind the choice. I have written on the subject previously. Digging around the internet, I recently found a reference that was new to me. Alpena St. Anne’s high school athletic teams apparently were nicknamed the “Couturemen.”
The dictionary describes “Couture” as a designer, maker and seller of custom clothing. The word is French in origin. So I shipped off an e-mail the other day to a parish secretary in Alpena, with a question about the very unusual nickname. My question worked its way to Fr. Frank Muszkiewicz.
“St. Anne Church had been the "French" church here in Alpena when there were the more ethnic heritage Catholic communities,” he responded. “My understanding is that St. Anne had a high school until 1951, when Catholic Central High School opened in Alpena …
“Looking at a history book of St. Anne Church in Alpena,” he continued, “I did see a couple of pictures of boys' basketball teams from the 1920's and 1940's, however it seems the team name was the "Big Reds". So, I'm not sure where the "Couturemen" name came from that you found.”
From the late 1920s into the 1940s, it became quite popular to tie nicknames to teams. But before a moniker was assigned, it wasn’t unusual for newspaper writers to refer to a team by the school colors, or blend the last name of a coach with the word “men” when penning a story about a local squad. For example, Bay City Central’s teams often were called “Nevittmen” after coach Garland Nevitt before taking on the nickname “Wolves” around 1927. Muskegon’s teams were “Jacksmen” after their coach, J. Francis Jacks, before they were called the “Big Reds.”
A December 1940 newspaper, covering a game between Ludington St. Simon and St. Anne, gives a hint that this might be the case at St. Anne’s. A player at St. Anne, who happened to foul out of the game, had the last name, Couture. Perhaps there is a similar connection in St. Anne’s history.
Identities
In September 1928, Lansing Eastern athletic teams became known as the Quakers. “The name is derived from the location of the school,” stated the Lansing State Journal, explaining the unusual choice. “Pennsylvania was the original home of the Quakers of the Colonial period of our history, and the new high school, being situated on Pennsylvania Avenue, will be known by the name of the original settlers in the Keystone State.”
In a November 1929 contest conducted by the State Journal, East Lansing, “long without a nickname,” became the Trojans. “The nickname was the choice of more than 50 per cent of the students.”
In May 1930, The Ludington Daily News noted that “Recently the Northern Michigan Big Six Athletic conference stimulated interest among pupils of the six cities in athletics and team competition … High School pupils of the respective towns proposed nicknames for their school teams and indicated their favorite by vote. Manistee chose the name of ‘Chippewas,’ Traverse City, ‘Trojans,’ Petoskey ‘Northmen,’ Cadillac ‘Vikings’ and Big Rapids ‘Cardinals.’ The time-honored name of ‘Orioles’ was voted to be retained by Ludington high school pupils, completing the list of six schools.”
Impressed, the Daily News quickly went to work to sponsor a county-wide contest with schools in Oceana County to select team nicknames. Later in the month, they announced results of the project.
“Scottville high school teams will henceforth be known as ‘Spartans,’ and Freesoil aggregation as ‘Buccaneers.’
“The team nicknames were decided upon by pupils of their respective institutions under a program of selections sponsored by the News.
“Two schools, Custer and Shelby, will retain their original team titles, (Ludington) St. Simon’s and Hart have not announced a final decision and Pentwater and Walkerville have made no report.”
Scottville’s choice of “Spartans” succeeded the name ‘Canners’ which had been used for a number of years, “a significant, but an unpicturesque appellation.” A rich agricultural part of the state, Scottville was home to a huge W.R. Roach and Co. canning facility. It closed in 2000 after nearly 90 years in business, displacing nearly 300 workers. “Wolverines” had also “won a goodly number of votes as did ‘Hornets.’”
“Cardinals” was retained at Custer.
“Word from Coach T.T. Thatcher at Shelby discloses Shelby’s choice as ‘Pee Wees.’ A selection made last year.
“Shelby voted in 1929 to use that name,’ he says, ‘and since then we have used an emblem on all our suits showing a Pee Wee and S.H.S on it. Our school colors are purple and white so the name is symbolic of the colors.”
For two of the schools, the decisions must have been relatively short-lived. By 1934, Shelby was using the nickname “Tigers.” Freesoil’s nickname had evolved into “Pirates” by the 1940s.
Earlier this year, the Hillsdale Daily News did a series of articles on the history of nicknames for schools in its coverage area. Hillsdale became the ‘Hornets’ in October 1932 following a poll of current football players and faculty. The Daily News at the time announced the nickname had won by a wide margin. Pittsford, it’s believed, first introduced its use of “Wildcats” “around the time the district consolidated in 1938.” At Waldron, “Spartans” was selected over “Lions” and “Bears” in a contest run by the school newspaper, also in 1938. “Students at the time were likely influenced by Waldron’s proximity to Michigan State University, among other factors,” noted the paper.
The Daily News piece on Litchfield was of special interest to me. The only high school in Michigan nicknamed Terriers, I didn’t know much about its origins – only that from my previous research, the nickname had survived a proposed alteration by the Litchfield Student Council during the 1956-57 school year.
“They aroused quite a discussion within the student body as to the idea of changing the name of our team – Terriers.” stated the school’s yearbook. “But the idea was dropped.”
“According to Litchfield schools employee Judy Bills, the Litchfield Terriers mascot came about through the influence of former teacher and coach Al Terry in the 1930s,” stated the Daily News article. “It was while Terry was teacher and coach in Litchfield schools that the athletic teams became known as the Litchfield Terriers, Bills said.”
For a historian, sometimes answers spur more questions.
Was Litchfield’s team nickname also swayed by Major League Baseball?
Allen Terry coached at Litchfield from 1932 through the fall of 1940 before continuing his career at Plainwell High School.
Interestingly, during that same timespan, a future MLB Hall of Fame inductee, Bill Terry, served as player-manager of the New York Giants. His team’s often grabbed newspaper headlines with a reference to the phrase, “Terry’s Terriers” in the connected article.
Did the sharing of “Terry” as a last name influence the nickname selection in Litchfield?
Who knows what the future holds for education, school districts and team nicknames across Michigan. Ypsilanti Community School students in grades 7-12 picked Grizzlies over Trailblazers and Flyers in 2013. There are six “Bears,” two “Black Bears” and a single “Polar Bears” on the MHSAA current active lists. Now there is one “Grizzlies.”
Today, “The List” contains 1,438 active and inactive high schools and totals 289 unique nicknames.
Wait.
There’s a St. Helen Charlton Heston Academy? It’s named after the actor, who played Moses in “The Ten Commandments.” It seems he spent part of his childhood in the area.
Make that 1,439.
(Thanks Eric Albright for the ‘Vic the Lion’ Story. I continue to seek out information on old departed high schools in Michigan as well as the stories behind nicknames. Please drop me a line.)
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) Logos which have come, and sometimes gone along with those MHSAA schools through the years. (2) Kalkaska High School – from a postcard postmarked 1908. (3) Old Pontiac High School, built in 1913-14, became known as Pontiac Central once Pontiac Northern opened in 1958. (4) Ypsilanti Willow Run’s Flyers logo. (5) The logo used by Lansing Eastern’s Quakers. (6) Litchfield’s Terrier, as it appeared on the cover of the 1963 yearbook. (7) The logo for St. Helen Charlton Heston Academy’s Patriots. (Images collected by Ron Pesch.)