Johnson Family Reunion: Tuesday will Bring Together Officiating Brothers, Coaching Cousins
By
Mike Dunn
Special for MHSAA.com
December 12, 2025
GAYLORD – What a night it will be.
The Big North Conference game this Tuesday between visiting Traverse City Central and host Gaylord has a coaching connection that will be a draw in itself. Central is led by former Gaylord hoops standout Luke Johnson, while Gaylord is coached by Luke’s cousin Justin Johnson – another past Blue Devils hoops standout who graduated in 1995 with school records for single-game, single-season and career 3-pointers.
Luke graduated in 1997 as Gaylord’s all-time leading scorer with 1,571 points and went on to play four years at Central Michigan University. He coached the boys at Elk Rapids for 14 seasons and is now in his second year coaching in Traverse City, where he is also an assistant principal at Traverse City East Middle School. Justin, owner and operator of the local Bulldog Painting business, is in his first year as the Blue Devils’ head coach after serving previously as the JV coach.
The cousins were Gaylord teammates on the storied 1994-95 team that captured the District title with a thrilling come-from-behind victory at the old Petoskey gym. They will be facing each other as head coaches on the hardwood for the first time – and Justin’s son Carter, a junior wing, is in his first year on the Gaylord varsity.
On top of that, the Johnson cousins will be coaching against each other in the gymnasium named after Luke’s grandfather Jim Mongeau. Ironically enough, the Jim Mongeau gymnasium was dedicated on December 16, 1994, the same day 31 years before.
If that was solely the storyline for Tuesday’s game, it would make for a memorable occasion.
But there is more to this story … much more.
Three brothers with whistles
As it turns out, the biggest storyline of this memorable night is the officiating crew.
Not only will Luke and Justin be facing off Tuesday with Justin’s son also competing on the floor, but the three men wearing the striped shirts with whistles around their necks will be Johnson brothers Tommy, Steve, and Dave. Tom is Luke’s dad, and Steve is Justin Johnson’s father.
Between them, there is more than 125 years of hardwood officiating experience: Tom is in his 50th year, Steve is in his 45th, and Dave in his 32nd season.
The brothers have worked together more times than they can count over the decades, though not as much in recent years. Tom has had his own crew of officials for a while. Steve and Dave have teamed with Charlie Lovelace to form their own crew.
Tuesday’s game in Gaylord will be the first time any of the brothers have worked a game coached by Luke or Justin.
And it very well could be the final time the three brothers officiate a game together. In fact, this is quite likely given the present circumstances.
Tom’s battle with cancer
Tom has inoperable pancreatic cancer and is undergoing regular chemotherapy treatments. Just the fact that he is still actively officiating this season is remarkable in one way, given his prognosis, and yet not remarkable at all for anyone who knows Tommy and the inner drive and mental toughness that is so much a part of his make-up – character traits he has exhibited since the glory days in the late 1960s when he was a star student-athlete competing for Gaylord in football, basketball, and baseball.
That inner drive and willingness to persevere continue to serve Tom well, especially during this challenging season of life.
As Steve said, “Tommy definitely has the Johnson gift of stubbornness.”
And Dave agreed: “Tommy is fighting this with everything he has. He’s gonna go down swinging, because that’s just who he is.”
Tom has been very open about his battle with cancer. He was diagnosed Nov. 13, 2023, and at one point his weight was down to 138 pounds.
Tom was at home in his favorite chair in February with wife Jenni tending to him – “My wife’s been a saint through all this and the best nurse I’ve ever had,” he noted – when he made a decision.
“I told my wife if I just sit here in this chair, I’m gonna die and I don’t want to just give in to this,” Tom said.
“I made up my mind right then that I’m gonna take the proactive approach to this. I’m gonna live till I die. People think I’m being funny when I say that, but I’m serious. I’m gonna live till I die. I’m not gonna sit out the rest of my life. It’s all in the hands of the good Lord, and He’s the One who’s gonna let me know when my time comes.”
Tom retired as a physical education teacher at Gaylord in 2007 but has continued to coach as well as officiate volleyball, basketball and baseball. Because of recent developments, Tom was initially going to give up coaching the Gaylord boys golf team last spring but opted to stay on, extending his coaching career that dates back 49 years at Gaylord and includes a long stint as the varsity boys hoops coach from 1987-97 and then 2003-07 in addition to being the freshmen football coach for a stint, the baseball coach, and, for the past 16 years, the boys golf coach.
“The golf kids were great to work with,” Tom recalled. “I had some limitations, and they accepted and adapted and it was actually a fun season.”
‘I want to be out there’
Fast forward to the present school year. It would have been easy for Tom to lay down his whistle, but he’s not ready for that. He officiated about 30 nights during the volleyball season, and that went pretty well. Now he plans to continue officiating basketball as long as he is physically able and knows he can still call a good game.
“I just want to be out there doing one of the things God has designed for me to do,” he said. “I still enjoy it. We set a goal at the start of the school year to get through the volleyball season first and make it to Thanksgiving, and we’ve met that goal. The next goal is Christmas. And we’ll set other goals after that. But in the meantime, I plan to stay as active as I can doing things I love doing.”
Tom plans to officiate the full basketball season, as God enables him. The one date he is especially looking forward to, though, is Tuesday, Dec. 16.
“It’ll be a great night,” Tom said. “I’ve reffed numerous games at ‘The Mong’ since it opened in 1995, but this will be a very special night not just for me but for all the Johnson family.
“I only hope in the midst of it I can communicate in some way how much I have appreciated the Gaylord community over the years and how much I’ve loved being a part of this community along with my family, and especially being part of Gaylord schools for so many years.”
Tom has quite a unique history with Gaylord basketball as a player and a coach. Tom played in the final high school game in the old community center during his junior year and played in the first game at the old gym that now serves as the middle school gym. He also coached the final high school game at the old gym during the 1994-95 season and coached the first game played at the newly-dedicated Jim Mongeau Gymnasium in January of 1995 against St. Ignace.
He also coached the amazing District championship game against favored Petoskey in its old gym packed to the rafters that March of 1995, a game that many still talk about to this day. The Blue Devils, with Justin knocking down the long ones and Luke distributing and driving through the lane, narrowly edged the excellent Petoskey team that featured Trevor Huffman and John Flynn.
Brennan Fitzek hit what proved to be the game-winning shot in the waning seconds, and Gaylord made a final stop on defense to secure the hard-earned trophy.
"We had some epic battles with Petoskey in those days," Tom said. "Petoskey had some great teams with Huffman and Flynn and a great coach in Dennis Starkey, who is still a friend to this day. It was tremendous competition."
‘I was just mowing’
It was Dave Johnson, the youngest of the brothers, who first had the idea of officiating the Dec. 16 game together.
“I was just mowing my grass one day soon after Justin was hired as the varsity coach and thinking ahead about the night when Luke comes from T.C. Central to play Gaylord,” Dave recalled. “Here you have the two coaches who are cousins from Gaylord facing each other in the gym named after their grandfather and Justin’s son playing for Gaylord on top of that. Wouldn’t it be cool if we three brothers could officiate the game that night?”
Dave dismounted the mower then and there and made phone calls to Steve and Tommy to see what they thought about the possibility. Then they contacted Luke and Justin and, before very long, everything was set in motion.
“The stars all aligned,” Dave said with a chuckle. “Justin and Luke were both on board with it, and they got the approval of their ADs. Everything that needed to happen for this to come together happened. It’s gonna be a great night and a historic night.”
When the family got together for a meal in September to celebrate Tom’s birthday, all the details about the Dec. 16 game were discussed. By the time the meal was over, everything was ironed out and everyone was in agreement.
“There’s so much nostalgia and history wrapped up in this one night,” Dave noted. “You have Tommy, the son-in-law of Jim Mongeau, in his 50th year officiating. To me, this night is really a tribute to Tommy and Jen and their lives revolving around Gaylord athletics.”
It will be a milestone night in another way.
“This will probably be the final time we three brothers have the chance to officiate a game together,” Dave said. “Steve is working through a knee injury right now, and my health is not what it used to be either. But if this is our final game as an officiating crew, we couldn’t have picked a better one.”
Steve’s knee has been giving him fits lately and, for the first time in 45 seasons, has caused him to miss some games because of an injury. He is hoping to recover well enough to return to the floor in January and resume a normal schedule.
There is only one game Steve will officiate in the whole month of December, and it’s the one game he wouldn’t miss for anything.
“I know it’ll be one of the best nights of my life,” Steve said. “How great it’ll be for Dave and I to get to work with Tommy again and to see all the people there. It’ll be a night for reflecting on so many memories and making some new ones.”
Looking forward
“I’m thrilled with how this has all come together,” Luke said. “This night will not only be a great tribute to my dad but to a family that’s been involved in Gaylord athletics for 50-plus years.
“If you include my grandfather, then you’re going back 70 years or more with Gaylord. I know my dad impacted a lot of lives as a teacher and a coach over the years, and my grandfather had the same kind of legacy before him.”
Luke is naturally excited for the game itself but more excited for the moment, especially given his dad’s health challenges.
“Obviously, the circumstances with my dad create a different perspective for the night,” he added. “My hope is we can just soak in the history and enjoy the moment and not let it rush by. We likely won’t have another night like this one.”
PHOTOS (Top) Brothers, from left, Steve, Dave and Tom Johnson – here at Gaylord High School – will referee the varsity boys basketball game Tuesday between Gaylord and Traverse City Central. (2) Cousins Luke Johnson, left, and Justin Johnson are the varsity coaches for Traverse City Central and Gaylord, respectively. (3) The Johnson brothers, here during their younger days, have a combined 127 yards of officiating to their credit. (4) Tom Johnson is in his 50th season officiating, a run filled with many memories including refereeing his grandson’s game at Elk Rapids (lower left). (5) This collage, from top left, includes longtime coach Jim Mongeau speaking with a Gaylord player during the 1960s, Tom Johnson coaching a player during the 1990s, and Luke now coaching. (Photos courtesy of, in part, RD Sports Photo and Photography by Joanie Moore, with others collected by the Weekly Choice and Charlevoix County News.)
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.)