St. Clair County Celebrates 1st Mr. Basketball Winner, PHN's Jamison
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
March 29, 2023
The Jamison family has spent plenty of time over the years driving long distances as Tyler chased his basketball dreams.
After the Port Huron Northern senior achieved one of the biggest ones, they had to put some more mileage on the family vehicle.
As the newly-crowned Mr. Basketball, Jamison was invited to a special presentation during the Boys Basketball Finals this past Saturday afternoon at the Breslin Center. It was an invitation Tyler and his family didn’t hesitate to accept, and the drive from Port Huron to East Lansing was nothing.
But it did cause a pretty big change to some other travel plans.
Tyler and his family were scheduled to fly to Florida on Friday for spring break. That flight had to be canceled, though, and instead, the family made the drive down later.
“There were some jokes about just leaving me and letting me find my own way down there,” Jamison said.
While they joke, there’s nowhere the Jamisons would have rather been Saturday than at the Breslin. As a true basketball family – Tyler’s dad Brian is also the coach at Northern, and his brother Alex was a standout freshman for the Huskies – they have a great appreciation for the Mr. Basketball Award and its significance.
“I had said a while ago, ‘Hey, if we’re still in the tournament, we’ll be playing Friday,” Brian Jamison said. “I even mentioned that it would be a miracle, but Tyler could win Mr. Basketball. Now we’re eating plane tickets and driving down to Florida. But it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we’re not missing this.”
Jamison was the overwhelming winner of the award, which is named after Hal Schram and given out by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan. He received 3,058 points in the vote to become its 43rd winner. Curtis Williams of Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice (2,004 points), Kaden Brown of Grand Rapids Catholic Central (1,918), Sonny Wilson of Detroit U-D Jesuit (1,883) and Ryan Hurst of North Farmington (1,811) were the other finalists.
“It was just insane,” Tyler Jamison said. “I can’t even really put into words how I felt – it was just a dream come true, a culmination of all the hard work that’s been put in over the years. My mom was in the other room (when his dad called to tell him), and I just hugged her and we were kind of screaming. The dog was getting riled up. It was fun. There were a few tears shed.”
Jamison, who signed with Fairleigh Dickinson in December, finished the season averaging 26.7 points, 11.6 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 3.3 steals per game. He was named the Macomb Area Conference White division MVP after leading Northern to the league title and a 20-4 overall record.
Even with all that, winning the most prestigious individual basketball award in the state didn’t seem like a reality.
“We purposely try to play a tough schedule, and we purposely got into some showcases because we wanted people to see, not only him play, but us play,” Brian Jamison said. “We had beaten Skyline and Hamtramck, and went up to Croswell-Lexington and won up there, and I thought, ‘OK, now he’s done it against some of the better teams.’ Up to that point, when we played those tougher teams, he’s always showed out well, but it’s different when you’re not winning them. But at that point, I thought he had a chance. Really, I was just hoping he would get on the list. To win it was kind of above and beyond what I had hoped for.”
On the court, Tyler’s impact on the program was pretty obvious and immediate.
He’s the program’s all-time leading scorer – a record he set as a junior – with 1,763 career points. He also holds Northern records for career rebounds (825), points in a game (59), rebounds in a game (28), career field goals made (638) and career free throws made (439). As a junior, he was named MAC Blue MVP.
Northern did not lose a league game in either of the past two seasons.
But Northern is likely to see future success because of Tyler’s non-statistical impact.
Leading a young team, including a group of star freshmen – his brother Alex, Cam Harju and Amir Morelan – was a major part of Tyler’s job this season.
Northern’s home games were must-see events this winter, as the Huskies were one of Division 1’s top teams, and Tyler was providing nightly highlights and must-see performances. Even in his final game, a loss against Macomb Dakota in the District Final, Jamison treated the standing-room crowd with a 46-point performance and a halfcourt shot at the third-quarter buzzer in a valiant effort.
“That’s the big thing, you want the students and the school community to support you, and they did an amazing job,” Tyler Jamison said. “We also had people from the community that wanted to support us and watch us play. Port Huron High had a really good season, too, and I think both schools in the city had that public support. That’s huge. It makes you feel like you’re playing for more than yourself.”
Among those crowds were the next generation of Huskies, some of whom were coached by Tyler in youth basketball. As he’s the first Mr. Basketball winner from St. Clair County, those kids now have a hometown example of someone who has reached the highest heights.
“I think interest gets sparked when the little kids come to the gym, like, ‘Hey, I want to do that,’” Brian Jamison said. “They want to play for Northern or (Port Huron) High. And with him winning Mr. Basketball, I think it gives kids a little bit of ‘Hey, why not me?’ I do think it helps motivate younger people. We’ve had great crowds at our games. I think the area is excited about basketball. It really is a great basketball area.”
With all of that excitement surrounding him, Tyler had one more challenge after the season – keeping the secret that he had won. He found out six days before the award was announced.
“It was terrible – especially when it’s something of that magnitude,” he said. “You want to tell everyone. You want to tell your friends and family. It was hard to be like, ‘No, I don’t know.’”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Tyler Jamison, second from left, with his parents and brother, stands with his newly-received Mr. Basketball Award trophy during the ceremony at the Detroit Free Press. (Middle) Jamison throws down a dunk. (Photos courtesy of the Jamison family.)
Beaverton Legend Nearing Wins Record
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
January 18, 2017
Roy Johnston is three wins from tying and four from breaking the all-time wins record for boys basketball in Michigan.
But the longtime Beaverton coach isn’t interested in reflecting, at least not yet. That’s just not his style.
“During the season, you just concentrate on – at least I do – the games you’ve got coming up for the week,” Johnston said. “When you start reflecting on things, you’re not doing justice to what’s on hand.”
Johnston, who took over the Beaverton program in 1974 after short stints in Yale and Howell, has a career record of 725-301. Longtime River Rouge coach Lofton Greene holds the record for wins in the state at 728.
“There’s so much pride in our community,” said Shad Woodruff, Beaverton’s junior varsity boys coach and a former player of Johnston’s. “Beaverton basketball brings our community together. Beaverton basketball and Roy’s program brings our small-town community together. It’s a big feather in our cap, and we’re proud to have Roy and what he means – we understand that not every place has something like that.
“To really validate it with the all-time wins record, and be able to say our school has that – you can’t beat that.”
Building a program
Johnston graduated from Croswell-Lexington High School. He attended Adrian College for a semester, playing on the basketball team, before transferring to Eastern Michigan University. While there, he got his nose wet in coaching by helping in Ypsilanti.
He earned his first coaching win during the 1966-67 season at Yale. He was 13-24 with a District title in his two years at the St. Clair County school before he moved to Howell, going 5-28 in two seasons there.
After meeting with the Beaverton High School principal at a deer hunting cabin, he was on the move again – this time to the place he would make his home.
Johnston – who had been teaching high school classes – took a job as a fifth-grade teacher and JV coach in the fall of 1970. He took over the varsity program in 1974 and started winning immediately, going 16-8, 23-2, 18-3 and 22-2 in his first four seasons with three District titles, three conference titles and a Regional title during that stretch.
“Most of it was just discipline,” Johnston said. “I had to make sure the ballplayers got on the same page and that everybody had one common goal. So it was just a matter of making sure kids were disciplined, played with each other and did what you practiced.”
Eventually, players who entered the program knew what to expect and what was expected of them before they stepped foot on Johnston’s court.
“That takes a long time to create that environment,” Woodruff said. “He’s been there for 45 years, so it doesn’t happen overnight. But it does start to coach itself. When kids walk through the door knowing, ‘I have to bust my tail,’ part of that job is already accomplished for you. That’s what a program is. It’s no different than Alabama football.”
In his 42 seasons at Beaverton, the Beavers have won 20 conference titles, 15 District titles and five Regional titles. The team made a run to the Class C Semifinals in 1984.
More impressive, however, is the consistency. In his 42 seasons at Beaverton, Johnston has had just five losing seasons, and one of those still featured 10 wins.
“It has been stable,” longtime Beaverton public address announcer Scott Govitz said. “He is just a guy that is very disciplined in what he does and his coaching. It’s all about doing things right and repetitiveness. He doesn’t run dozens of offenses. He’s a stickler for defense. He just instills in every player that they’re going to have to work hard.”
Community gatherings
Don’t mistake discipline for not having fun, however. Beaverton basketball games are an event.
“(Games are) a community gathering, especially on Fridays,” Govitz said. “You can see as many as 10 kids clamoring to be water boy, hear the pep band with a director that’s been around 30 years and after each game, the floor fills with community members having conversations while dozens of kids race to one end to shoot baskets before the call comes to put the balls away. It’s just a real tradition.”
Beaverton’s student section, the Bleacher Creatures, won the MHSAA’s Battle of the Fans contest in 2014.
The team gets into it, as well, as pregame introductions include the Beaver Shuffle and the Beaver Slide (see video below). The final player introduced makes a run through the student section and slides from about halfcourt into his teammates waiting near the bench.
Even Johnston has his own very visible tradition, wearing a red blazer for every game.
The fun offers a bit of a window into who the coach really is.
“Roy is a disciplinarian, and he’s demanding,” Woodruff said. “But I’ve said this for years, if you think you know Roy Johnston by sitting across the gym and watching him coach, you might have a different perception. If that’s all you know Roy from, you don’t know Roy.
“He loves his kids. He expects a lot of us, but he loves his kids and he loves his community.”
Beaverton may not be Johnston’s hometown, but it certainly has become his home.
“I think that we have been very fortunate in Beaverton,” Johnston said. “We have had great teachers, we’ve had great administrators, and for the most part, we have had very good board members. I look at other places that go through a lot of turmoil, and we’ve been very fortunate.”
Johnston’s family has also been part of the tradition, including his wife Judy, who has served as his statistician. Two of his sons, and his three grandsons who grew up the district, have played for him. His daughter Jennifer (Northern Michigan) and son Jeff (Michigan Tech) each went on to play college basketball.
“I’ve had three grandsons live in the district, and I’ve had all three of them,” Johnston said. “Not too many guys have had that pleasure that I’ve had. It’s always been special, all along. I’m very lucky and very fortunate to have had the opportunity to coach those three.”
Spanning generations
The youngest of the grandsons, Carter, is at the center of this year’s squad which is 7-1 and sure to push Grandpa over the all-time wins mark.
It’s this latest group, which has included grandsons Carter, Spencer and Grant, that has accelerated Johnston’s chase for the record.
Since the 2012-13 season, Beaverton is 94-10, giving Johnston his winningest stretch near the end of his storied career.
“He has had multiple generations that he’s coached, and he does a lot of the same things with the kids,” Beaverton athletic director Ryan Roberts said. “He’s really good with the kids, getting them involved. I have an 8-year-old boy who sits at the end of the bench, along with about a half dozen others.
“All of the kids and most of the people in the town here have the utmost respect for him, know what he’s doing and how he is.”
For Johnston, reaching out to multiple generations of high school athletes isn’t as complicated as some make it seem.
“They are different, but high school kids and kids at that age are going through the same things we all went through at that age,” Johnston said. “Yeah, they’ve got cell phones that we never had, but they’re still going through the transition of being a little kid and becoming an adult. It’s something that we’ve all gone through.
“If you were out of coaching and came back, I think you would see a difference. Whereas I haven’t been, so you kind of grow with it. Kids are kids, always have been.”
Whenever the record is broken, several generations of Beaverton players and fans will be on hand to watch it. The Beavers play their next three games on the road before settling in for four straight home games Feb. 1 through Feb. 10.
Johnston is trying not to focus on it, but even he admits breaking the record will be special.
“You have to be concerned about your players and how to get them ready for the next game,” Johnston said. “My JV coach is the one who worries about most of this stuff, more than I do. It’s just another step.
“It’s more than that, let’s face it. But it’s another step.”
Others have no problem admitting that it’s much more than that. Woodruff became emotional thinking about the moment and all that Johnston has meant to him throughout the years.
Govitz said the community is already starting to fill with anticipation of the milestone victory.
“We’re a small community, and in small communities you have to rally around whatever successes you have,” Govitz said. “In this community, there’s a huge love for our school system, and this is something that really shines a positive light on our school system. It’s a point of pride.
“I’m already seeing more people in the stands. There’s a buzz in the community. There’s a buzz in the other communities that surround us. There’s a lot of communities that can point to state championships on their signs. This is one of those markers for us that will be around a long time.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Beaverton coach Roy Johnston, at right in 1984 and left more recently. The gymnasium at his schools bears his name. (Middle) Johnston, far left, celebrates an undefeated regular season with his 2014-15 team. (Photos courtesy of Stephanie Johnston.)