Changing of the Capital Guard
August 16, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Who would I pick to coach a Lansing area boys basketball Dream Team? Sportswriters get a lot of questions like that, from radio hosts or fans, or roommates who grew up nearby.
To not offend the other coaching friends I’d made in my decade-plus in Lansing, I kept that answer within the roommate circle for a long time – until I decided Okemos' Dan Stolz and Lansing Everett's Johnny Jones were so incredible their colleagues would understand my choice.
I could’ve never picked between them. Their styles different, the results were the same. Both had stars over their decades, but I also saw both do more with less and in ways that regularly went unmatched during the 13 years I was a twice-weekly watcher of high school hoops for the Lansing State Journal.
It’s only a coincidence that both decided to retire from coaching during this same summer. But it’s certainly a double loss for mid-Michigan specifically and the statewide basketball community as a whole.
So why were these guys my Dream Team combo?
- Of course, they won a lot.
According to a report from local HOMTV, Stolz finished with a record of 428-99 at Williamston and then Okemos, where he took over for his father Stan in 1994-95. That win total is only eight more than Dad's, giving the family 828 wins over roughly four decades.
Tracking down Jones’ record wasn’t as easy. But based on the paper trail I’ve been running since I got my start in Lansing, he had 334 wins after the 2003-04 season, which likely means he too finished right around 400 – with a few hundred more leading the Vikings girls.
And they were the kind of standout high school players too whose stories had become legend – Jones for Battle Creek Central once taking down a top-ranked team by himself, while it was said Stolz could still dunk into his 40s after playing for his dad and the Chieftains back in his day.
- They won at the highest levels.
Jones is one of only a handful who has won MHSAA championships with both girls and boys teams – his girls teams won Class A in 2000 and 2001 and his boys won Class A in 2004. Everett’s girls program, by the way, was near-winless just a few years before Jones took over and led it to its first run to a Final in 1999.
Stolz never got his MHSAA title, his Chieftains falling to Saginaw Arthur Hill 85-84 in the 2006 Class A Final – the only MHSAA boys title game ever to go two extra periods. But against what many locals considered long odds, Stolz led Okemos from the cozy Class B-dominated Capital Circuit into the highest division of the Capital Area Activities Conference, where the Chieftains continued to win against the likes of Everett, Lansing Sexton, Lansing Eastern, Holt, Grand Ledge, East Lansing and Jackson in what is arguably the toughest league in the state.
Another interesting “by the way:” Stolz did lead Okemos’ softball (1999) and girls tennis teams (1993) to MHSAA championships.
- They won by doing the things others weren’t.
Jones’ girls teams were loaded with talent – a number of players went on to major college programs – but they were unstoppable because of a fullcourt press that handcuffed opponents and set a trend that others like Lansing Waverly and East Lansing also used to win Class A titles. Jones' best boys teams had an all-state post combo of Derick Nelson and Goran Suton, but still had to contend with Grand Ledge’s Al Horford (now of the Atlanta Hawks) two and three times a season.
And, it must be noted that Jones was one of fewer than 20 coaches who continued coaching both the boys and girls teams even after the girls season was moved from fall to winter for 2007-08.
Stolz similarly had his share of good players – Johnathon Jones maybe the best of all. But again, playing in a league with a number of other similarly-talented players (and in the postseason against Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Kalin Lucas and others), Stolz was unmatched in Greater Lansing when it came to gameday strategy. His teams always had a plan, and frequently made it work when the odds seemed stacked against -- which made apparent upsets hardly surprises at all.
Stolz has been replaced by Jeff Wonch, who led Bath to the MHSAA Class C title in 2007. He most recently coached at Potterville. Jones' replacement is former Everett star Desmond Ferguson, who played briefly in the NBA with the Portland Trail Blazers and was a volunteer assistant for the Vikings last season.
Gooding & King Work to Fill SW Michigan's Officiating Ranks, Schedules
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
December 12, 2023
KALAMAZOO – Cheer them or boo them, without officials, there are no games. That’s just a fact in the sports world.
Two area men are tasked with supplying those officials for Southwest Michigan schools, and it is not always as easy as it seems.
Portage’s Todd Gooding is in charge of assigning football referees for 70 schools across eight leagues, with 500 officials on his staff.
Vicksburg’s Rob King assigns officials for girls and boys basketball in five leagues and has 290 men and women on his roster to work 1,100 games throughout the hoops season.
“We have six females on staff,” King said. “We’re looking to add more. I think the girls who are playing enjoy having a female ref on the court with them, plus it shows them they can do this, too.”
Although totals were dropping a few percentage points every year, the MHSAA still registered an average of 10,317 officials annually during the decade ending in 2019-20. But the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that spring played a large part in a decrease in registered officials by 12 percent for 2020-21, down to 8,090.
The last two school years saw a bounce-back of four percent, and recruiting and retaining efforts continue. But Gooding and King – also veteran officials themselves, Gooding for 25 years and King for 24 – and their assigning colleagues across the state have the closest look at the effects of fewer officials as they work to schedule at the local level and make sure everything is covered.
Doing so gets even harder with unforeseen roadblocks.
One of those challenges for Gooding came in August when extreme heat forced most schools to reschedule or delay their football games.
“Everyone was trying to get their games in,” he said. “We were moving start times back, then we were moving days. Football is a little different than basketball or baseball because you can only play within so many days, so we were really squeezed against the schedule.
“I had a school or two reach out on Monday or Tuesday (before the Friday night game), so they looked ahead at the heat. Some of them waited, waited, waited, and then in some cases, it posed some big challenges because most of those crews had been spoken for.”
For a typical football Friday, Gooding staffs 30 or 35 games, “which is really difficult because everybody wants to play Friday night.”
Some referees in both football and basketball “double dip” by officiating games at freshman or junior varsity levels on nights other than Friday.
Gooding said at one time he hoped to go to seven officials for a football game, but with a shortage of officials, “Right now we’re just lucky to staff five in the games we have, and we’re still very short.
“Parents are a key component to a shortage of officials. A lot of it is more at the youth level, but everyone has to remember the sportsmanship aspect. Without officials there are no games, and sometimes we lose track of that, and that’s one reason there’s a shortage.”
Still, King noted that officiating provides more advantages than disadvantages.
“Everyone hears about the bad stuff, getting yelled at by fans and coaches, but those are so small,” he said.
“After a season of doing this, you learn to block out that stuff and realize it’s just part of the game. Fifty percent of people are mad at you every time you blow the whistle, so you get used to that.”
Pay raises in some leagues enticed many of those who “retired” to return, King said, but both he and Gooding agree the camaraderie developed while officiating is what makes it most special.
“It’s more about the time you spend on the floor with guys, in the locker room, driving to games, grabbing something to eat after the games, just talking about life, just building friendships,” King said. “That’s the part you remember.”
Gooding added some games stick in his memory more than others.
“My first varsity game (refereeing) was Lawton playing Saugatuck,” he said. “I show up and Channel 3 was there. I wondered what’s going on.
“Both schools were 0-8, both senior classes were 0-35. Somebody had to win, and it was my first varsity game. I think Saugatuck won, and it was close to 25 years ago.”
Another memory came as he officiated a basketball game.
“A girl from Benton Harbor (Kysre Gondrezick in 2016) had 72 points,” he said. “It’s in the record books. and you’re just one small part of that and you remember them.”
Officiating is not only for adults. Even teenagers still in high school can become referees as part of the MHSAA Legacy Program.
King recently hosted an officiating summit at Paw Paw for high school athletes.
“There are nine schools in the Wolverine Conference and six of them brought 10 to 15 kids,” he said. “Myself and another official presented on basketball. They also did something on other sports.
“We got the kids up blowing the whistles and doing some of the signals. Three reached out wanting to get involved.”
King said officiating is a great way to earn money, especially while in college.
“You’ll work maybe two or three hours at the most and make $150 to $300 depending on the level,” he said. “Your friends will have to work six-, seven-, eight-hour days to make that much money.
“You can also block your schedule. We have a software with a calendar on it. If there are days you know you can’t work because you have classes or other things, you just block those days out, so you control your own schedule.”
With training, freshmen and sophomores can work junior high/middle school games, and juniors and seniors are able to officiate at the freshman and junior varsity levels.
“Usually what we do is get you a mentor,” King said, “and you work with that mentor and make some money.”
Those Legacy officials hopefully continue in the avocation, eventually becoming the next mentors.
Officiating, like school sports in general, is a cycle that’s constantly in motion – both when it comes to filling the ranks and filling the schedule to cover games ahead.
For example, although football season is over, “I don’t know if there really is an offseason,” Gooding said. “Leagues are going to start giving me their schedules. We’ll get those into an Arbiter system. Everything’s assigned by Arbiter, a computer system where officials get their assignments.
“I’ll start evaluating the crews, reach out to the crew chiefs. They’ll let me know any changes in their crew dynamics. I’ll evaluate the year gone by, how they performed and then start getting ready to work on getting those games staffed. That will start after the new year.”
For more information on officiating, including the Legacy Program, go to the Officials page of MHSAA.com.
Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Todd Gooding, left and Rob King take a photo together while officiating the Division 4 Final at Ford Field in 2022. (Middle) Gooding signals during that contest between Goodrich and Grand Rapids South Christian. (Below) King officiates the 2019 Division 4 Boys Basketball Final at Breslin Center. (Photos courtesy of Gooding and King.)