Coaches Return With College Knowledge
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
February 24, 2016
North Farmington boys basketball coach Todd Negoshian is not so vain to believe he’s at the top of his profession.
After all, he’s nearing just his fifth season running what is considered one of the top programs in the Oakland Activities Association.
What Negoshian is certain of is that he is a better coach now than he was during the early 2000s when he entered the profession as an assistant at North Farmington under his father, Tom Negoshian.
In addition to Todd Negoshian’s years as a high school coach, he spent three seasons (2004-07) as an assistant coach at Oakland University under coach Greg Kampe. Having worked at the college level has not only added to his knowledge as a coach but also given him an opportunity to work with different people under different circumstances but with similar goals.
“I learned a lot from Kampe,” Negoshian said. “I learned a lot about relationships. He has the uncanny ability to (scold) a kid and then 30 seconds later have your arms around him. It’s about building relationships.
“It’s his approach to coaching. There’s so many things you learned outside of coaching.”
This brief stint at the collegiate level gave Negoshian, 35, a whole new perspective on how to coach and how to be a coach. Building relationships takes time, and to those committed to being a coach who cares about his or her players, it’s paramount to allow for that time.
Some coaches, like John Beilein at University of Michigan, start out coaching at the high school level, move on to college and remain there. A number of others statewide have taken paths similar to that of Negoshian.
LaMonta Stone at River Rouge and Steve Hall at Detroit Cass Tech started coaching at the high school level and have recently returned to their roots after each spent several years as a college coach.
Stone played for the legendary Lofton Greene at River Rouge and then coached the Panthers to a Class B title in 1999. Stone ambitiously sought a position at the next level and was quite successful. He spent two seasons at Eastern Michigan, two at Ohio State and 10 at Bowling Green before returning to River Rouge last season as head coach.
And he has no regrets.
“At that point, I had goals,” Stone said of making the jump to college. “There were things I wanted to do. I still have goals. People ask me, would I go back to college? I don’t know. If the situation was right, I might.”
Stone, 49, returned for two reasons: family and community. Last season he was able to coach his oldest son, LaMonta, Jr., his senior year. Stone also has two other sons, ages 6 and 9.
Basketball is king in River Rouge. Greene won a record 12 MHSAA titles and the program has won two more since his departure. But the Panthers relinquished their claim as a state power soon after Stone left and haven’t been much of a factor in the tournament since. Stone intends on changing that.
“It’s a situation where, I’d been (coaching in college) for 14 years,” he said. “I’d reached all my goals. The only one I didn’t was to become a head coach. But you’re an assistant in the Big Ten. You can’t get much higher than that.
“The opportunity to come back to that community, I just couldn’t pass up. I get to be more of a part of my sons’ lives.”
In addition to the high school season, Stone said he enjoys coaching during the summer, in camps and individually.
“I can, within the (Michigan High School Athletic Association) rules, work with kids outside of Rouge,” he said. “I get calls all the time saying can you work with my son. I work with them but they can’t come to Rouge. I like it that way. There’s no pressure on me or them.”
Hall, 45, was one of the state’s top players when he graduated from Cass Tech in 1988. He played four years in college (Washington, Virginia Tech) before playing professionally overseas. In 1996 he became the head coach at Detroit Rogers, an all-boys school in the Detroit Public School League. Hall spent nine seasons there and won three MHSAA titles before the school closed.
Hall went to Detroit Northwestern in 2005 and spent three seasons there, winning one PSL title, before accepting a position as an assistant coach at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. He spent four seasons there before becoming an assistant coach at Youngstown State. On Aug. 25, Hall officially came back to Detroit as athletic director and boys basketball coach at Cass Tech.
Like Stone, Hall was looking for a more stable lifestyle. Family came first, and the opportunity to coach his alma mater was too good to pass up.
“A lot had to do with my life at this stage,” he said. “I have two young boys (ages 7 and 4) and to be more a part of their lives is important. If I wanted to spend time with them, we’d go to a game where I was recruiting a kid and that would be our time together on that given day.
“And I have a passion for this school. This whole year has been learning on the fly. At Rogers there was a lack of numbers. Here football is huge. We didn’t have a football team at Rogers. And here I have a surplus of numbers. It’s a different dynamic. Rogers was the smallest school in the PSL by enrollment. Cass is the biggest.”
Hall said he doesn’t miss the hours of travelling on the road, going into countless gymnasiums recruiting players and trying to convince them and their coaches that his university was the right one. It’s not that his responsibilities as athletic director and coach are less demanding. But being able to go home every night and see his children and sleep in his bed has its rewards.
Hall said he had more than a few conversations with Stone on returning home.
All three coaches agree that experience has its benefits. It’s not that coaching is any easier at this time. The challenges are still there and in many ways demand different approaches.
“Every stop makes you better,” Negoshian said. “Anytime you coach kids, the more you are around them, it helps.
“The game has changed. Society changed. Kids don’t want to fight through tough times. That’s why you see so many transfers. Everybody wants to be the hero. They want the focus on them. And it’s just not them. It’s the family. I’m not sure all of the parents are committed. They don’t want to go to A, B and C to get to D.”
Hall said the expectations for incoming freshmen and their parents are so different than it was when he was in high school. Then students went to a certain school, whether it was a power like Detroit Southwestern or a neighborhood school like Detroit Mumford, to be a part of an established program.
“It’s a trickle down from college,” Hall said. “It’s not, ‘I want to send my kid to a great program.’ There’s the attitude that if my son isn’t a part of it as a freshman, I’ll go somewhere else instead of being part of the process.”
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Current River Rouge boys basketball coach LaMonta Stone returned to his alma mater after serving as a college assistant including at Bowling Green. (Middle) Todd Negoshian, LaMonta Stone, Steve Hall. (Top photo courtesy of LaMonta Stone.)
'Up North' Powers Add Intrigue in Class D
March 2, 2018
By Dennis Chase
Special for Second Half
TRAVERSE CITY - Can regular-season perfection lead to postseason hardware for the Hillman Tigers?
Will this be the last March Madness hurrah for Frankfort coach Reggie Manville?
Can Buckley, which just pulled off a rare feat, recapture the magic of last season?
Those are three of the intriguing Class D boys basketball storylines in the northern Lower Peninsula as MHSAA tournament play begins next week.
Hillman
It’s been quite a ride for coach Eric Muszynski and his Hillman Tigers.
With a win at Rudyard tonight, Hillman can clinch its second 20-0 regular season in three years.
The Tigers went 20-0 in 2015-16 and nearly equaled that feat last season before suffering a last-second setback to Lincoln Alcona in the regular-season finale.
“A banked, 3-point shot at the buzzer,” Muszynski said, recalling the 65-62 loss.
That defeat snapped Hillman’s 57-game regular season and North Star League win streaks and 43-game home win streak.
How did the Tigers respond? Well, they’ve started new streaks.
With the girls finishing the regular season 19-1, the two squads posted the best combined record among all schools in the state.
“Exciting basketball, exciting times in Hillman,” Muszynski said.
But the girls campaign came to a sudden end Wednesday in a two-point district loss to Rogers City, a team the Tigers beat twice during the regular season.
Now it’s left to the boys to carry the torch.
The fact this team is on another run comes as no surprise. Muszynski returned four starters, plus sixth man Jared Juergens off a 24-2 team.
Four players average in double figures - Juergens (14.8), point guard Brandon Banks (14.2), forward Andrew Funk (10.7) and 6-foot-4 center Kory Henigan (10.1). The fifth starter, forward Billy Kolcan, is the jack of all trades, averaging 7.5 points and a team-leading 4.2 assists and four steals per game. Funk is a 41 percent 3-point shooter.
Henigan is the only junior.
The girls team also featured a senior-laden lineup. Coach John Kuzewski started four seniors and had six contribute – point guard and scoring leader Lyndsey Ryba, Eve LaFleche, Andrea Taratuta, Kristin Kenyon, Jozie Appelgren and Autumn Jones. Ryba, who averaged 17 points a game, signed with Concordia to play basketball and softball. Brooke Jones was the only junior in the starting lineup.
“The girls played as a team and played with a common goal,” Kuzewski said. “I think the two teams pushed each other to do their best.”
Kuzewski just finished his 12th season as head coach. He replaced Muszynski, who stayed on as the boys coach when the girls season switched to winter.
Muszynski is now in his 13th season with the boys. His teams have taken it to a new level the last five years, sporting a 109-7 record. The Tigers reached the Quarterfinals in 2015 and 2017, but ran into three-time Class D champion Powers North Central.
Muszynski is pulling double duty this winter. He also coaches the school’s third and fourth graders. His oldest son, Ty, is a third-grader.
“I’m coaching at our lowest and highest levels,” he said, laughing. “I’m going from breaking presses and running 50 different sets to teaching kids how to dribble and shoot.
“It’s been really refreshing, honestly. For me as a coach, it’s so rewarding because it allows me to go back to an age when I fell in love with the game. It’s been rejuvenating to go back to square one. I’ve even brought my (varsity) players to the (youth) practices to remind them of what it was like when they fell in love with it, too.
“And the young kids really look up to the older guys. It allows them to dream big.”
If Hillman wins its District, the Tigers would play in a regional at Traverse City Central – instead of going north as in previous years. It’s possible Hillman could face Frankfort in a Regional opener.
“They’re really good,” Muszynski said. “That league (Northwest) is such a grind every night.”
First things first, however.
The boys might be reminded about what happened to the girls this week. Hillman’s District opener is at – you guessed it – Rogers City.
Frankfort
And speaking of Frankfort, Manville is not saying publicly if this will be his last season as head coach.
“I’m still debating,” the 71-year-old insisted. “I’ll wait until the end of the season to make a decision. It’s been a fun season.”
Manville’s coached 32 years, including the last seven at Frankfort, where he’s changed the culture. After Thursday night’s 51-31 win over Onekama, Manville is 128-38 at the Northwest Conference school. His teams have won five Districts, three Regionals and three league titles, sharing the Northwest this season with Maple City Glen Lake and Buckley.
Manville spent most of his coaching career in Flint. He started as an assistant at Flint Northern in 1978, the year the Vikings won the Class A title. He would later coach Flint Southwestern for 13 seasons. His last team, featuring Mr. Basketball runner-up Charlie Bell, was ranked No. 1 in the state after the regular season.
“In Charlie’s senior year we won the Saginaw Valley (League) championship and the Flint city championship,” Manville said. “That was the first time the school had ever done that.
“That (mid-1990s) was the era of the Flintstones. There was some really tremendous basketball (played) back then in Flint.”
After that 1996-97 campaign, Manville, who had his 30 years of teaching in, retired to the Lake Michigan community of Elberta, which flanks Frankfort on Betsie Bay.
“I’m an avid fisherman,” Manville said. “I have a cottage on the Au Sable River in Grayling, where I fly fish almost all summer. Here (on Lake Michigan), I love to fish steelhead salmon. That’s what basically brought me (north) – the fishing.
“I’m either in waders or I have a whistle around my neck.”
Manville, who served as village president in Elberta for four years, has had his health issues. He’s had three heart attacks.
“I feel good right now,” he said. “I’m just getting old, that’s all. I turn 72 in June.”
This has been one of the most competitive Northwest Conference races in history. Frankfort lost twice to Glen Lake, Glen Lake lost twice to Buckley and Buckley lost twice to Frankfort.
“Go figure,” Buckley coach Blair Moss said.
Frankfort (18-2) boasts a veteran cast with five seniors in the starting lineup and two others in the rotation. Jaylon Rogers and Matt Loney, who played on varsity as freshmen, are the scoring leaders; Rogers is over 1,200 career points, Loney is closing in on 1,000.
Griffin Kelly and Matt Stefanski - who signed to play football at Northern Michigan and Grand Valley State, respectively – are key cogs as well. Kirk Meyers, the quarterback on Frankfort’s team which reached the Division 8 Regional Finals, rounds out the starting five.
“We’re talented,” Manville said. “We’ve talked about potential the whole year. Potential is great, but it’s like I’ve always said, it’s the championships you win (that define your legacy). Sometimes, talent doesn’t always win.”
The Panthers’ championship quest started Thursday night at Onekama, a team that came into that contest with five losses – two to Buckley, two to Glen Lake and one to Frankfort.
“Onekama’s a really good team,” Manville said. “There’s a misconception our league is weak (after the top three teams). It’s not.”
Frankfort, meanwhile, has proven itself outside the league, too. A month ago, the Panthers snapped McBain’s 59-game regular-season win streak. McBain was ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press’ Class C poll at the time. Back in December, Frankfort edged Traverse City St. Francis, which went on to run the table in the Lake Michigan Conference.
Manville said the team’s goal is to win at least 23 games, which would set a school record. And 23 wins would put the Panthers in the Quarterfinals, a win away from the coveted Final Four. Frankfort reached the Semifinals in 2014.
“It remains to be seen what teams (in the Northwest Conference) are peaking and have a chance to make that run to the Breslin because everybody wants to get to the Final Four,” Manville said. “That’s the big deal.”
But there are no givens.
A year ago, Frankfort had its five-year District title streak end with a two-point loss to Suttons Bay.
And if the Panthers claim a District next week, there’s a potential showdown with unbeaten Hillman in the Regional opener.
“That would be a doozy,” Manville said.
Buckley
When Joey Weber went over 1,000 career points last week in a win over Kingsley, he became the third Buckley senior to accomplish that feat.
Turns out, that appears to be quite rare.
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Bears coach Blair Moss said. “You get one, you might get two, but three? That’s crazy.
“I don’t know where you would look (to find out), but I don’t think it’s happened often.”
Glen Lake’s Don Miller, who has been coaching high school basketball since the early 1970s, agreed.
When asked if he could recall it happening previously, Miller responded, “Three in the same class? No.”
Denver Cade and Austin Harris had earlier eclipsed the milestone at Buckley. Cade was the school’s all-time leader with 1,704 points heading into Thursday’s game at Suttons Bay, a 95-75 win. Harris was at 1,417, Weber 1,020.
“When it’s all said and done, they’ll probably be around 4,500 points amongst the three,” Moss said.
Miller had three players on the same team surpass 1,000 career points – Mark Swierad, Rich Baillergeon and Geof Kotila in the 1970s - but Swierad was in a different graduating class.
In fact, Baillergeon (2,144) and Kotila (1,639), Miller said, once had the state record for most points by two classmates before it was broken by Saginaw Buena Vista’s Mark Macon and Shawn Randolph.
Moss scored 1,558 in his playing days at Benzie Central. He graduated in 1974 before the 3-point line was introduced. He had a classmate, Tom Drobena, go over 1,300.
Buckley was on the other end of the 1,000-career point mark Tuesday night when Manton’s Hunter Ruell hit six 3-pointers en route to a 20-point performance in the Rangers’ 75-62 win over the Bears. Ruell’s last triple put him over 1,000.
Buckley finished the regular season 15-5 with Thursday’s win, a year after the Bears went 26-1 and finished runners-up to Powers North Central in Class D.
The Bears, who returned all five starters, started slowly, dropping two games before Christmas break.
“At the beginning of the year I thought we were a little complacent,” Moss said. “Our attitude was we’re just going to show up and win. I said, ‘Gentlemen, that’s not the way it works. What we did last year is last year.’
“We set the bar, and this year everybody was shooting for us. We got everybody’s best game.”
Buckley beefed up its schedule. The losses came against Kalamazoo Hackett, McBain and Manton – all Class C teams that finished the regular season 17-3 – and twice to Frankfort (18-2). The Bears beat Manton, a Class C semifinalist last March, earlier in the season and handed Class C Glen Lake (18-2) its only losses.
“It’s made us better,” Moss said of the schedule.
The Bears are battle-tested – and not just in basketball. This same group played a pivotal role as Buckley reached the Division 4 Semifinals in soccer last fall.
Dennis Chase worked 32 years as a sportswriter at the Traverse City Record-Eagle, including as sports editor from 2000-14. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Hillman’s Brandon Banks looks for an opening during a game this season. (Middle top) Hillman’s Kristin Kenyon puts up a shot over AuGres-Sims defenders. (Middle below) Frankfort coach Reggie Manville instructs his team during a game this season. (Below) Buckley’s 1,000 point scorers: Austin Harris, Joey Weber and Denver Cade. (Hillman photos courtesy of the Alpena News, Frankfort photo courtesy of Nicole Lamerson, Buckley photo courtesy of Ron Stremlow.)