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This Week in High School Sports: 1/6/17
January 6, 2017
The latest edition of "This Week In High School Sports" features the retirement of Gary Thompkins’ basketball number at Jackson High School, discusses officials ratings in its "Be The Referee" segment and finishes with an MHSAA Perspective on high school letterwinners jackets.
The 5-minute program, powered by MI Student Aid, leads off each week with feature stories from around the state from the MHSAA’s Second Half or network affiliates. "Be The Referee," a 60-second look at the fine art of officiating, comes in the middle of the show; and is followed by a closing MHSAA "Perspective."
Listen to this week's show by Clicking Here.
Past editions
Dec. 23: Battle of the Fans VI, gifts we all enjoy including some we may not immediately recognize - Listen
Dec. 16: Williamston boys basketball, recognition for a longtime northern Michgian official - Listen
Dec. 9: New baseball pitch limit, MHSAA rules relation to national championship events - Listen
Dec. 2: Defense reigns in Division 4 Football Final, teaching class in both victory and defeat - Listen
Nov. 25: Novi's repeat volleyball championship, giving thanks for schools' weather-related work - Listen
Nov. 18: Pewamo-Westphalia football star Jared Smith, behind-the-scenes heroes - Listen
Nov. 11: Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart girls cross country, Big Ten move to Friday night football - Listen
Nov. 4: Upper Peninsula 8-player football showdown, how high school sports in Michigan have it pretty good compared with other states - Listen
Oct. 28: Montrose School Broadcast Program athletes, Football Playoff excitement - Listen
Oct. 21: Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett boys tennis, Football Playoffs selection breakdown - Listen
Oct. 14: Sturgis girls golf, latest from "You've Got to be Kidding Me" file - Listen
Oct. 7: Grand Ledge boys soccer, recent NFHS Hall of Fame selection Ken Beardslee of Vermontville - Listen
Sept. 30: Grand Rapids South Christian boys soccer, Michigan teams supporting many worthy causes - Listen
Sept. 23: Newberry football, downsides of national coverage of high school sports - Listen
Sept. 16: MHSAA study of concussions in high school sports during the 2015-16 school year - Listen
Sept. 9: Benton Harbor football, football rules differences between high school and college/pro levels - Listen
Sept. 2: Fenton boys cross country, debuts of new football stadiums - Listen
Aug. 29: Haslett no-contact football practices, multi-sport participation and sportsmanship - Listen
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Whymer Made Blue Water Moments into Memories
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
September 29, 2020
When considering all the reasons Jim Whymer was a beloved and Hall of Fame sportswriter in the Thumb area, one stands out above the rest – he cared.
He cared about the quality of the sports section at the Times Herald in Port Huron. He cared about making sure the impossible task of covering schools and sports as equally as possible was accomplished. And he cared about what the newspaper meant to the community.
But most of all, he cared about the people he was writing about.
“He wasn’t going in it just to get a story – he cared about people,” said Shawn Sharrow, a 1994 Marine City graduate who coached basketball at Marine City and St. Clair. “He cared about relationships. As much as he liked sports, he liked people and building those relationships over the years. After he did an interview with you, he would stand there and talk with you for another half hour. He just wanted to develop those friendships.”
Whymer, who worked at the Times Herald from 1978 through 2012, died this past Thursday of metastatic melanoma. He was 64.
He is survived by his wife, Patty, his children Traci Whymer (Tyson Connolly), Kyle (Amanda) Whymer and Joel (Rachel) Whymer, and his grandson, Finn; and by his mother Teresa, sister Michele Seif and brother Bill (Pattie).
He also is survived by the countless yellowing press clippings with his byline that can be found in hundreds of scrapbooks throughout homes in the Blue Water Area. Clippings that no doubt made special memories that much more special for those holding onto them.
“I think like no other person I’ve been around, he made kids feel special,” Port Huron Northern boys basketball coach Brian Jamison said. “He had an amazing ability to make kids feel special. It was in his articles and how long he would take to talk to a kid. He would know the kid’s uncle and their cousin, and he would talk to them about that. I think kids genuinely felt better after talking to him.”
Whymer won several awards for his journalism, including a spot in the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan Hall of Honor and the Port Huron Sports Hall of Fame.
Good luck finding those awards displayed anywhere, though. Whymer was more interested in making sure the athletes and coaches were getting proper recognition.
“He was really thorough and really interested in what we were doing, even in little old Deckerville when he had Port Huron and Port Huron Northern in his backyard,” Deckerville football coach Bill Brown said. “He’d come up to Deckerville, he’d even go to playoff games – we'd play across the state and he was there. Then after the game, he would just ask you respectful questions. It’s just too bad, because he’s definitely going to be missed. Everybody looked forward to seeing him. He was more than welcome here; he probably could have stayed overnight at someone’s house if he needed to.”
Brown, Jamison and Sharrow had interactions with Whymer as players and coaches. Brown also got to see Whymer as an official, as Whymer worked for more than three decades officiating basketball, baseball, softball and football games throughout the area.
“You can’t even get mad at the guy because he’s such a good guy,” Brown said with a laugh. “He was always square with you.”
Jamison also coached both of Whymer’s sons, and currently has Kyle as his junior varsity basketball coach at Northern. All of the Whymer children played sports at Northern, with Traci being part of an MHSAA title-winning tennis team and Joel setting records on the basketball court and earning a scholarship at Lake Superior State University. (He would later transfer to Grand Valley State.)
“Jim’s always been more like family to me,” Jamison said. “I think everyone feels that way about him. He’s like your fun uncle that you love to talk to. Jim always did a nice job of keeping the story separate from him being the dad. In that respect, he made it easy on me. He was very, very supportive of his children. That’s something – as special as other people felt – that guy was truly all in for all three of his kids when it came to sports and school. I think he was an ultra-professional, and he didn’t want to overwrite about his kids.”
After leaving the Times Herald, Whymer began working in the athletic department at St. Clair County Community College, where he continued his quest to make things as special as possible for student athletes. His main duties included scheduling high school and middle school events at the college’s Fieldhouse – whether it be smaller local tournaments or a multi-day holiday basketball showcase that grew to more than 40 teams.
The Fieldhouse can fit more than 2,000 spectators, and Sharrow said if not for restrictions because of COVID-19, a memorial service for Whymer could fill it. That’s likely not an exaggeration.
“He might be showing up at your practice in the last 10 or 15 minutes, and he always walked in the gym with a smile on his face,” Sharrow said. “If he was ever having a bad day, you’d never know it. He made athletes feel important. Even watching him as a coach talking to my players, you could see their faces light up that they were going to be in the paper and that Jim Whymer wanted to talk to them.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Longtime sportswriter Jim Whymer works the phones during his time at the Port Huron Times Herald. (Middle) Whymer also was an MHSAA-registered official for 35 years. (Below) Whymer is survived by his wife Patty and their three children. (Photos courtesy of the Whymer family.)