Television sportscaster Dave Diles once referred to sports as the “toy department”. The late Fred Stabley, Sr., former Sports Information Director at Michigan State University, said what was so great about picking up the sports section of the newspaper in the morning was that “you could read about people’s achievements” instead of their troubles.
To a great extent, both representations are still
very true today. Granted, what happens in sports at all levels nowadays
unfortunately mirrors our societial ills more than ever before, but athletics
are still a world all their own -- still the proverbi al field of dreams.
Many times people come up to the writer and say,
“It must be great to be in your job...you get to go to all those events
and watch all those games!” Sometimes, you wish they knew everything
that goes into the job. In reality, though, it’s really not th at bad.
But one of the nicest parts of my job, maybe
even the best part of my job, comes when you get to recall and replay some
of the greatest moments in high school sports in this state:
• Just how long was Kevin Smith’s shot
that sent to overtime the 1977 Class A boys basketball finale between Birmingham
Brother Rice and an Earvin Johnson-led Lansing Everett team? (Depends
on who you talk to.)
• Did Menominee’s Francis Tallent really
score on all nine rushing attempts in that football game in 1928 and run
up 527 yards in the process? (Yes. In fact, the story goes that after
the first few attempts, the opposing school just let Tallent run rather
than risk injury by trying to tackle him. The yardage record stood until
1990.)
• Does a kid from a small school in the
Eastern end of the Upper Peninsula really hold the record for the high jump
in all classes in both peninsulas at the MHSAA finals? (Yes. John Payment
of Brimley cleared 7-1 in the 1989 U.P.Class D Finals, breaking the 10-year
old mark of two Lower Peninsula Class A performers.)
• Name the only school to win four consecutive
MHSAA Girls Basketball championships. (Flint Northern from 1978 to 1981.)
You can get lost talking about old games with
people and talking about records. In fact, the biggest problem you run into
during the process is keeping the proverbial fish from getting bigger every
time you talk about it.
Anyway, when I landed at the MHSAA 10 years ago,
the records kept were very basic -- mostly which teams had won championships.
There was not a lot of information on hand about individual performances.
It seemed that delving into the archives for
old records would naturally occupy much of my initial time at the Association.
But there were bigger projects to take on.
However, in the past 24 months, it has become
apparant that if something isn’t done soon to centralize records of
years past, and gather old photos and memorabalia of significance, the opportunity
to do so will be lost altogether.
As far as records are concerned, the MHSAA has
contacted various coaches associations, requesting information they might
have to be submitted, and numerous newspaper stories have turned up in different
part of the state, assisting the Association in requ esting this information.
As of this writing, the Michigan Wrestling Association
has submitted a complete set of its records, a gentleman named Walter Michael
from New Baltimore has donated approximately 50 years of souvenir programs
from the MHSAA Boys Basketball Finals and nume rous newspaper clippings,
and assorted telephone calls and mail inquiries bring new information to
the forefront every now and then.
It’s a start — a good start —
but it’s not enough.
Everything the MHSAA has culled together in terms
of records was compiled into a 14-page listing which was published last
summer in its annual Book of Champions. This list will be updated and expanded
this summer. The theory is that we’ll list the infor mation as we get
it, and the best performances will stand as records until someone can document
even better performances.
In time, we expect to develop a publication chock
full of information and photographs recognizing the performances of some
of the great student-athletes, coaches and teams of past years.
But we need your help. We know that in old files,
trunks and boxes in schools, basements, garages and attics across this state
are old newspaper clippings, programs, statistical sheets, photos, yearbooks
and memorabalia which have been tripped over so m any times that they’re
about ready to be sent to the landfill just to get them out of the way.
Maybe the artifacts that some members of your family previously cherished
just don’t have the same value to you anymore.
If you have it — we want it.
If it’s a record you want to submit for
the book, we need appropriate documentation. A newspaper clipping, scorebook
or stat sheet will do. If you can part with a photo or a yearbook of significance,
we’d appreciate it. If you can’t part with the orig inals, send
them to us anyway — we’ll make copies and return the originals
intact. If you have artifacts you can part with, they may find their way
into the display cases in the new MHSAA offices from time to time. If your
school has published a book commemorating the history of its sports program
or a specific sport, send us a copy. If you have a question about whether
or not something is a record, call the MHSAA office at 517.332.5046 and
ask for John Johnson.
If a record is good enough, we’ll even pass
it on for possible inclusion in the National High School Sports Record Book
published by the National Federation of State High School Associations.
We’d love to hear from you. We’d love
to talk about those old games with you and look at those old pictures and
other pieces of athletic memorabilia.
You know, life in the toy department isn’t
so bad after all.