Gaffney Returns to Basketball Court for Opening Night, Continuing Incredible Recovery
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
December 5, 2025
Joe Gaffney was in a familiar spot Tuesday night when Charlevoix opened the basketball season at home against Ellsworth.
The all-state guard was in the starting line-up.
But as the game was wrapping up, the four-year starter was in an unfamiliar spot.
“He was the loudest one on the bench cheering,” said Charlevoix coach Anthony Troshak. “He was coaching, giving out reminders and that's awesome for a kid that normally, in the last three years, he's out there in crunch time. Instead, he's still like, ‘Hey, I can make an impact,’ and that was a really awesome thing to see.”
The fact Gaffney was in the game at all is arguably a miracle. Gaffney nearly lost his life this spring. He was in a car crash along with the entire Charlevoix boys golf team and coach Doug Drenth.
The team was on its way to spend the night at Crystal Mountain, returning from the first day of a two-day tournament at Arcadia Bluffs. Emergency personnel transported Gaffney, his coach and the entire golf team to Munson Medical Center. Gaffney sustained a ruptured diaphragm and shattered pelvis.
Gaffney had emergency surgery to repair his diaphragm April 27 and underwent a nine-hour surgery the next day. Munson Orthopedic Institute surgeons Michael McDonald and Matthew Schuch placed 76 screws in his pelvis and femur.
“The trauma team and the general surgeons are the ones who repaired his diaphragm, and they're the ones that saved his life – that wasn’t me,” Dr. McDonald pointed out. “Joe’s done a lot of hard work. All credit to him, because it's tough to go through what he went through and come to where he has.”
Gaffney spent nine days in Munson’s Intensive Care Unit and then stayed in Munson’s Mary Free Bed rehab facility until May 9. He was non-weight bearing until July 9.
Many wondered if Gaffney would ever get back on the basketball court. Few thought it would be as early as the opening night win over Ellsworth. Gaffney played just more than two quarters and hit two of three shots from 3-point land. He also contributed two rebounds before sitting out the Rayders’ all-out press in the fourth quarter – but instead led the bench’s support.
“That’s the type of person he is,” Troshak said. “He's one of the most, if not the most determined individuals I've ever come across.”
The crash and initial rehabilitation left Troshak thinking he’d likely have his star guard available only for something like a Senior Night appearance. But incredible community and medical support, and Gaffney’s hard work gradually changed Troshak’s hope.
“In the summer, I thought it might be maybe in January or February, and maybe a couple of minutes here and there,” Troshak said. “I never dreamed it would be game one – that's just how hard he's worked.”
Gaffney never lost sight of getting back on the court. He started physical therapy and occupational therapy in Traverse City three days a week until July and then transitioned closer to home for therapy in Charlevoix.
Gaffney was walking with a cane when he left Aug. 1 with his parents, Aaron and Karrie, for the Barwis Sports Performance Center in Deerfield Beach, Fla. He underwent therapy five days a week in Florida before returning to Charlevoix on Sept. 22.
His parents took turns flying back and forth to Florida every two weeks. They carried with them tremendous community support and prayers. When he left Florida Gaffney was able to jog about 100 yards. Therapy continued in Charlevoix, along with a home exercise program from Barwis.
“I had full confidence I would play again, and I didn't know exactly when,” Gaffney said. “As the season got closer, that date when I thought I could play got earlier and earlier until it was the first game. I really had confidence that this was going to happen very early on.”
Gaffney was aware of the tremendous support the community was providing him and the entire golf team. But his awareness was heightened further when he realized starters would soon be introduced and the national anthem was playing Tuesday night.
“I've heard the hundreds if not thousands of prayers for the whole golf team and everything and all the letters,” Gaffney said. “I could really feel all the prayers and just everything people had done. And, I would say the moment, the game meant a lot more to everybody watching than it did to me.”
The Charlevoix gym was filled with supporters bearing signs for Gaffney. The team – except Gaffney – wore “Team Joe” warm-up T-shirts. Gaffney wore a “Team Doug” warm-up T-shirt in honor of his golf coach Doug Drenth, who spent months recovering in the hospital and also was in the crowd for the first basketball game.
At least one supporter was unable to attend the game. Logistic problems prevented Dr. McDonald from fulfilling his intent to make the trip from Traverse City. The surgeon is amazed, but not surprised Gaffney returned for opening night.
“I think most probably would not have been able to do that,” McDonald said. “I think he put in the work, and he really had good community support that allowed him to do that. I think it's very, very impressive.”
Aaron Gaffney – who serves as superintendent for Ellsworth Community School – had thoughts on his mind from early conversations with McDonald as he watched his son get emotional before the contest. Seven months ago, Gaffney acknowledged, he didn’t think he’d see his son play basketball again. He also noted he never saw his son cry during those same seven months – until the tip-off neared.
“It was just great to see him back out there,” Aaron Gaffney said. “My wife asked the surgeon if he was ever going to walk again. He said, ‘Yeah, he's going to walk again.’ I asked him if he would ever play golf again, and the surgeon said, ‘Maybe.’ And then I asked him if he would ever run again, and he said, ‘Maybe.’”
The Gaffneys got answers Tuesday night as the Rayders started the season on a winning note. Talan Jacobs led Charlevoix with 12 points. Carter Greenacre added 11. Jason McNamara scored nine, and Peter Yanchulis chipped in seven.
Moments before the game, Gaffney returned a good luck charm his basketball coach had given him at a breakfast meeting as he was headed for Florida. It was bracelet bearing the words “Never Give Up.”
It was a gift Troshak’s brother had given him as he battled to recover from an eye injury he suffered while playing college basketball.
“I told Joe, ‘I want you to give this back to me when you check into a game, because in high school basketball you can’t wear bracelets,’” Troshak recalled.
Gaffney played Tuesday with empathy for the fans in attendance. The accident taught him more about the hard things going on in people's lives.
“The people there I could tell were there to support me, but there were probably people in that gym tonight that knew somebody or know somebody going through something themselves that was just as hard or harder than what I went through,” Gaffney said. “If people in the world can give them half the love or a quarter of the support that I got, I think that would just make this world a better place.”
Now that he is back on the court, the 1,000-point career milestone lies just ahead for Gaffney – he scored 952 heading into this weekend’s Will Lynch Invitational at Benzie Central. He’s happy about that but is more focused on his newer role. He is the only starter back from last year’s 16-8 team.
“That (1,000-point club) would definitely be a nice bonus, but I'm really just focused, trying to do my best to leave all the sophomores we have on the team with a little taste of what Charlevoix basketball is and what it feels like to win and what it feels like to be on the basketball team. I'm not the same player I was a year ago, but I can help mentor and lead these younger guys to be very successful when they become seniors.”
McDonald did watch a live stream of Tuesday night’s game. He’s making plans to attend another game this season.
Perhaps it will be the game Gaffney enters the 1,000-point club.
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. 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) Charlevoix’s Joe Gaffney elevates on a jumpshot Tuesday in his team’s season opener against Ellsworth. (Middle) Gaffney works to get past an Ellsworth defender. (Below) Gaffney is interviewed by a local TV station after his return to the court. (Photos by In Motion Images.)
Century of School Sports: Boys Basketball's Best 1st To Earn MHSAA Finals Titles
By
Ron Pesch
MHSAA historian
March 11, 2025
Administratively, the world changed when the present Michigan High School Athletic Association was formed in the fall of 1924. That October, Battle Creek High School’s Alden W. ‘Tommy’ Thompson was hired on a full-time basis as state director.
“This position, which is a new one in Michigan, has for its purpose the centralizing of authority over all secondary school athletics in the state, including public high schools, and all private and parochial institutions,” noted the Battle Creek Enquirer at the time of his hiring. “It will take the place of the old Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Association, which was composed of the principals of the high schools of the state.”
Coach and director of athletics at Battle Creek since 1919, Thompson moved to Lansing following the close of Battle Creek’s football season and began his new position on November 17. While the job included full management of tournaments, there was little time to alter processes and procedures for the winter season. So, the 1925 basketball tournament – now celebrating its 100th year under guidance from the MHSAA – really did not look much different from the year previous.
Tournaments to name Michigan boys basketball champions date back to 1916. A recent enlargement of Waterman Gymnasium at the University of Michigan prompted the school to host a tournament in 1917. With four available courts, it was felt that the tournament could handle more than 60 teams and still be run in three days.
In 1920, the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Association took control of prep athletics and the tournament. Among its first actions was to split the finals between Ann Arbor and East Lansing each year. That year, Class A final-round games were played at U of M in Ann Arbor, while Class B games were hosted at Michigan Agricultural College (M.A.C.) – now Michigan State University – in East Lansing. Sites were reversed in 1921. The addition of Class C, segmenting the tournament further, came in 1922, and those games were played in the same city as Class B. (The pattern was followed until 1926, when Thompson and staff added a championship round for Class D to the mix.)
The Mechanics of a Tournament
In January, Director Thompson announced that District tournaments (sometimes referred to as sectional) would be held at six locations across the state, designed to reduce the field of contenders to 24 teams for the final three rounds of the tournament. They would be held at Central Normal in Mount Pleasant (two teams advancing each from Class A, B, and C), Western State Normal in Kalamazoo (two teams each from Class A, B, and C), Michigan State Normal in Ypsilanti (two teams each from Class A, B, and C), the Detroit public schools (two from Class A), Petoskey (one from Class B and two from Class C), and Northern State Normal at Marquette in the Upper Peninsula (one regardless of Class to play in Class B) in mid-March.
The final rounds of the 1925 games were scheduled for March 26–28. Continuing the set-up of rotating sites, winners and runners-up in the Class A Districts received invitations to the playoff at M.A.C. while the Class B and C pairs were invited to the tourney at U of M.
Class A was defined as schools with enrollments of 500 or more students, Class B – 175 to 499, and Class C – 100 to 174. Schools with enrollments of fewer than 100 students comprised Class D and had the option to play in the Class C tournaments. Those hard and fast enrollment numbers meant an imbalance of teams in each class. Simply put, there were fewer schools in Class A and Class B than there were in Class C, and hence, fewer games needed to establish a final field of teams.
This method for setting the field for the final rounds certainly fashioned some stellar matchups. Sampled news from the time – sometimes conflicting in the account – gives a feel for the coverage by sports reporters from the daily and weekly newspapers.
Narrowing the Field
The seventh annual District Basketball Tournament hosted at Central Michigan Normal School – now Central Michigan University – featured a whopping 76 teams! Due to the number of schools of small enrollment competing, officials split opponents across six classifications: A (4), B (11), C (16), D (20), E (16), and F (9), with only A, B, and C eligible for the upcoming M.A.C. and U of M events. Games kicked off on Wednesday evening, March 18, with five Class B games. According to media coverage, this was the largest of any high school District tournament ever held in Michigan, with games played across four floors. A total of 66 contests were played during the two days and three evenings of the tournament.
“The city was almost taxed to capacity by the big crowd of players and rooters,” stated the Isabella County Enterprise in coverage of the games. “The athletic department wishes to thank the citizens who co-operated by renting their rooms at a very reasonable price to our guests.”
“Between 700 and 800 boys were entertained in Mt. Pleasant homes. From all parts of the district came scores of automobiles bringing rooters from the home towns,” recalled the 1925 Central Normal yearbook in its two-page remembrance of the event. “Effervescent high school youth was in its glory. … The large gymnasium was packed with spectators hours before the principal games started, and crowds filled three other floors where elimination contests were in progress. Cheer after cheer echoed through the Normal gymnasium from eight o’clock in the morning until after eleven o’clock at night. The court became a kaleidoscope of colors as new teams arrayed in brilliant hues followed each other in quick succession.”
Class B was declared as the most exciting series of the Central Michigan tourney. Among the entries was Reed City, state champions among the Class C teams in 1924. With enrollment just slightly above the limit, they bumped into Class B but still finished the regular season unbeaten. In the opening round that Wednesday evening, the team “celebrated its advent into faster company by defeating Lapeer, 36-8,” according to special coverage of the tourney in the Saginaw News Courier.
On Thursday evening, the Red and Black found themselves in a front-to-back thriller with Alma. Trailing 10-9, Reed City nailed a field goal just as the timekeeper’s final whistle blew marking the game’s end. The crowd rushed the floor in victory. But simultaneous to the shot, a referee had called a foul. After the two officials consulted with the timekeeper, it was determined the foul occurred before the attempt, so the basket was waved off. The court was cleared, the teams called back, and Reed City was awarded two shots from the line. The celebration was dramatically short-lived. “Due to the extreme nervous tension attending such a situation, neither of the free throws was successful,” detailed a sympathetic writer in the Osceola County Herald.
The “Southwestern Michigan Sectional Tournament” held at Western Normal – today’s Western Michigan University – featured 60 schools: nine in Class A, 16 in Class B, and 35 in Class C. Grand Haven, the defending Class B champion, and St. Joesph, runner-up to the 1924 title, were again expected to emerge as representatives in 1925. To the surprise of many, Sturgis topped St. Joseph in the semifinals, 19-11, then downed Grand Haven, 21-16, in the final round of the ‘B’ games. Front page news in the Grand Haven Tribune noted disappointment. “The Havenites took the floor in foot-weary condition and couldn’t get started until the final half when they outscored Sturgis. … The entire Grand Haven team was tired from their three hard preceding games and the effects of (a) hard season of basketball were easily seen.” Still, as runner-up, the team would have a chance for redemption in Ann Arbor.
Jackson, the defending Class A champion, again emerged from a field of eight Class A schools in the District tournament at Michigan State Normal College in Ypsilanti.
At Northern Normal, Lake Linden – located about 30 miles from the northern-most point of Michigan – beat Negaunee, 33-26, for the right to play in the downstate tourney.
At Detroit, the city league championship tournament established Southeastern with clear claim to the metropolitan crown, but Detroit Northwestern and Detroit Southwestern tied for second place in the final league standings. Time would not allow a playoff between the two teams to determine a logical second representative.
Owen. A. Emmons, supervisor of athletics of Detroit high schools, initially pitched the idea of sending the three Detroit schools to the M.A.C. tournament. Thompson rejected the idea stating each District could send no more than two teams. Emmons countered with sending the schools that tied for second to East Lansing and giving Southeastern an automatic berth to the era’s prestigious annual National Cage tournament hosted by the University of Chicago, entering its eighth year that April. Thompson volleyed back that “only a state championship team which had won its title on the playing floor was eligible to represent Michigan at Chicago.”
Forced by Thompson to decide, Emmons chose Southwestern as the second representative based on a better overall showing in the regular season, and a point differential displayed in the league championship series.
With that determined, the field was set for the championships.
The bigger task for the MHSAA and their director still lay ahead.
“There has been some fault found by the schools in the manner of conducting the district tournaments in basketball,” noted the Detroit Free Press. “It is claimed that 60 or 75 teams cannot (properly) decide a district champion in the space of two or three days. Teams that are up in the running for the honors must play two and sometimes three games a day, and the district tourney gradually develops into an endurance contest with the title depending more upon brawn than upon skill and cleverness of play.”
Thompson recognized this and stated he was working on a new plan with the state’s athletic council, with a goal of determining a new approach following the 1925 tournament.
The 1925 Championships
According to the Lansing State Journal, “permanent trophies will be awarded the winner and the runner-up, while individual medals will be given members of the two teams.” Drawings for first-round matchups took place during the afternoon of Thursday, March 26, once coaches arrived. A consolation tournament was scheduled for Class B and Class C teams defeated in the opening round. There would be no such tournament for Class A.
Jackson and Kalamazoo again went head-to-head in the first-round quarterfinals at M.A.C. Kalamazoo had entered the postseason with a dismal 4-9 regular-season record. Among its losses was an 18-11 defeat by Jackson in January during which Kalamazoo led 9-5 at the half, shutting down Jackson star Jessie Drain, who was 0-9 shooting before the break. But Jackson tied the game in the third quarter, 10-10, then cracked the visitors’ defense in the fourth for a convincing win.
Minus their captain, Bruce Masselink, Kalamazoo put up a major fight in the rematch. “Jackson had anything but a walkaway when if defeated Kalamazoo Central 29 to 21 in an overtime game,” stated the Jackson News. “Time and again Kalamazoo had opportunities to put the game on ice in the last quarter, but missed easy shots and kept Jackson in the race for the state championship …”
Jackson held a 13-7 lead at the half, but watched it rapidly evaporate. The deficit cut to 17-13 at the end of three quarters, Kalamazoo tied the game, 19-19, with a minute to play. A shot by Kalamazoo with 30 seconds remaining would have likely won the contest, but it missed the mark, forcing the five-minute extra frame. The Orange and Black “in the overtime period showed some of the fastest basketball displayed during the entire first round … working the ball down the floor for five easy baskets …”
The State Journal estimated that “about 700 saw the four” Class A Quarterfinal games at M.A.C.
In Class B at Waterman Gymnasium, Grand Haven and Sturgis were rematched in the Quarterfinals. C.O. Reed covered the game from the “historic floor” in a special report to the Tribune.
“Battling fiercely and with an even chance to win until the final whistle blew, Grand Haven High School lost to Sturgis 19-16. “Both played in whirl-wind fashion (and) were exchanging score for score with rapidity and the guarding was terrific.” Tied 16-16, a free throw by captain Laurence ‘PeeWee’ Clemmons and a hook shot field goal by Don Grove allowed Sturgis to advance.
Jackson St. Mary’s had grabbed a Regional title in Class C with a “bitterly contested” triumph over Farmington, which had been a semifinalist in 1924. In that game, the Blue Devils were led by “flashy little forward” Lawrence ‘Lorry’ Heuman. Trailing 9-7 late in the game, St. Mary’s broke up a Farmington stall, allowing Heuman to nail “a sensational side shot from near the center of the court” for an 11-9 victory. Heuman finished with 10 points.
The teams met again in the Quarterfinals, this time with late heroics by St. Mary’s Donald Tobin, who, sent to the foul line with less than 20 seconds to play, sank a free throw to break a deadlock, giving the Blue Devils a dramatic 15-14 win.
In yet another rematch, this time in the Class C Semifinals hosted Friday at Ann Arbor, Three Oaks and Bridgman – county rivals and final-round opponents at the Southwestern Regional – squared off. A quarterfinalist at the 1924 Finals, Bridgman had topped Three Oaks, 14-10, at Western. “Coach F.C. Reed’s (Bridgman) youngsters did not exhibit a brand of basketball that would set the world afire but was good enough to win five rounds of games during the last two days,” stated the Kalamazoo Gazette. Three Oaks flipped the script at U-M, defeating Bridgman 22-20 to advance to the title game with Jackson St. Mary's.
For the first time, a play-by-play account of Friday’s Class A Semifinal round games at East Lansing was broadcast by a radio station – Michigan Agricultural College’s recently-created AM station, WKAR. There, Detroit Southeastern trounced Grand Rapids Union 31-20, while Jackson dumped Detroit Southwestern 25-18. This set-up a rematch for the Class A title, won the year prior by Jackson, 17-11.
The Finals
That rematch, also broadcast on WKAR, sadly was a letdown as Southeastern crushed Jackson, 44-22. Jackson outplayed the Detroit squad in the opening quarter, leading 11-7, before its game collapsed. From that point on, Southeastern’s defense forced Jackson to shots near mid-court, and grabbed a 20-11 lead at the half, then a 28-15 edge after three quarters. “So effective was the Southeastern five man defense,” stated the State Journal, “that it appeared to the spectators as though a fence had been stretched across the floor.” Detroit’s Harold Hendricks and Norman Daniels led all scorers with 17 and 15 points, respectively, while captain Nolen Putnam added eight. Hendricks and Putnam were praised for their defense. Drain and Walter Hodgboom each connected on four field goals for Jackson.
The win brought the Class A title back to the metropolitan district for the first time in five years, when Northwestern defeated Northern, 17-13, in an all-Detroit showdown in 1920. With the win, Southeastern earned the trip to Chicago for a spot in the National Cage tournament.
In Class B at Waterman, Sturgis and Lake Linden, both 20-plus point margin winners in the Semifinals, skirmished. In a tight ballgame into halftime, with the U.P. representatives leading 15-14 at the break, coach Andy Carrigan’s Sturgis squad proved “too fast for the Lake Linden quintet and slowly but consistently piled up” a 36-25 triumph. Clemmons led Sturgis with 10 points followed by the Grove brothers, Roger and Don, with nine points apiece. Senior center Wayne Nestor led Lake Linden with 12 points.
The Sturgis squad returned home to huge acclaim, with University of Michigan basketball coach Edwin J. Mather speaking to the team at their postseason banquet. Mather picked a Class B and Class C all-tournament team following the games.
Interestingly, after graduation Roger Grove earned All-America honors in football and basketball at Michigan State, then played five seasons in the NFL for Green Bay. Nestor went on to letter in baseball and basketball at Western Normal, then taught and coached at, ironically, Detroit Southeastern. In 2020, the estate of Lester and his wife June left a $2.5 million endowment to Lake Linden-Hubbell Public Schools, with investment returns funding annual scholarships for graduating seniors.
“Without a doubt, the most thrilling encounter of the afternoon was the final game of Class C,” noted U-M’s newspaper, The Michigan Daily. Once again, St. Mary’s forward, Heuman, was the star of the game. “A see-saw battle throughout, with less than two minutes to play,” according to the Jackson News, “Three Oaks was up 20-19, when “standing alone in mid-floor (Heuman) shot the ball through the net, without even touching the rim” to give St. Mary’s the lead. A pair of free throws by Saroldi gave Three Oaks back the advantage 22-21, with 50 seconds to play.
“Keen passwork brought the ball to the basket,” wrote a “staff correspondent” from the Citizen Patriot, one of two papers in Jackson recapping the game for readers. “(Fred) Smith, pivot man, cut across court at the opposite side,” stated the News. Heuman shot a pass to Smith “standing unnoticed about six feet to the left of the loop,” said the Citizen-Patriot report. “Smith jumped, caught the sphere,” according to the News, “and heaved it through the hoop to complete one of the greatest plays of the entire tournament.”
“Excellent stalling … was enacted by the Blue Devils for the final eight seconds of the game,” continued the Citizen-Patriot.
“The gun sounded and St. Mary stood crowned the Class ‘C’ champions of Michigan. … For the first time in the history of interscholastic athletics in Michigan, a parochial team won a championship sanctioned by the state high school league,” concluded the News.
Heuman led all scoring with 11 points, while Robbie Decker paced Three Oaks with eight, followed by Joe Savoldi and Richard Potts, each with seven. Smith added six points for St. Mary's.
Earlier that school year, St. Mary’s laid claim to a Michigan parochial football title. Struggling financially, parish members and alumni used the success of the athletic teams to rally support.
In total, Heuman scored 30 of the team’s 58 points during the trip to Ann Arbor. The 5-foot-5 all-around athlete was a back on the football team, then attended Michigan State Normal for two years before signing a minor league baseball contract. An arm injury sent him back to Jackson to coach and play baseball in the city’s recreational Twilight Leagues. Switching to the infield, he was remembered as one of Jackson’s all-time finest.
Previous "Century of School Sports" Spotlights
March 5: Everything We Do Begins with Participation - Read
Feb. 25: Slogans & Logos Remain Unforgettable Parts of MHSAA History - Read
Feb. 19: MHSAA Tickets Continue to Provide Fan-Friendly Value - Read
Feb. 11: We Recognize Those Who Make Our Games Go - Read
Feb. 4: WISL Conference Continues to Inspire Aspiring Leaders - Read
Jan. 28: Michigan's National Impact Begins at NFHS' Start - Read
Jan. 21: Awards Celebrate Well-Rounded Educational Experience - Read
Jan. 14: Predecessors Laid Foundation for MHSAA's Formation - Read
Jan. 9: MHSAA Blazes Trail Into Cyberspace - Read
Dec. 31: State's Storytellers Share Winter Memories - Read
Dec. 17: MHSAA Over Time - Read
Dec. 10: On This Day, December 13, We Will Celebrate - Read
Dec. 3: MHSAA Work Guided by Representative Council - Read
Nov. 26: Finals Provide Future Pros Early Ford Field Glory - Read
Nov. 19: Connection at Heart of Coaches Advancement Program - Read
Nov. 12: Good Sports are Winners Then, Now & Always - Read
Nov. 5: MHSAA's Home Sweet Home - Read
Oct. 29: MHSAA Summits Draw Thousands to Promote Sportsmanship - Read
Oct. 23: Cross Country Finals Among MHSAA's Longest Running - Read
Oct. 15: State's Storytellers Share Fall Memories - Read
Oct. 8: Guided by 4 S's of Educational Athletics - Read
Oct. 1: Michigan Sends 10 to National Hall of Fame - Read
Sept. 25: MHSAA Record Books Filled with 1000s of Achievements - Read
Sept. 18: Why Does the MHSAA Have These Rules? - Read
Sept. 10: Special Medals, Patches to Commemorate Special Year - Read
Sept. 4: Fall to Finish with 50th Football Championships - Read
Aug. 28: Let the Celebration Begin - Read
PHOTOS (Top) At top, the 1925 Sturgis boys basketball team. Bottom left: Detroit Southeastern. Bottom right: Jackson St. Mary's. (Middle) A newspaper clipping announces 1925 championship games will be broadcast. (Below) This set of portraits celebrates the 1925 Southeastern team and its accomplishments. (Photos courtesy of Detroit Southeastern High School and MHSAA archives.)