Capac Standout Delivers 3-Letter Fall
November 14, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The Blue Water Area Conference, on the eastern side of the Thumb, created this fall a patch it will award to athletes who letter in three sports during a school year.
Winning a high school letter always has been a notable accomplishment. Earning two is a sign of a well-rounded athlete. And in these days of single-sport specialization, we celebrate those who continue to play three at the varsity level.
Then there’s the rare – if not unique – case of Capac junior Nick Geliske.
Earlier this week, he became the first to win the newly-minted BWAC award – after just one season. He finished his fall as an all-league midfielder for the soccer team, an all-league honorable mention cross country runner and the fulltime kicker for the football squad.
“I wasn’t sure how it would work out when I decided to go into it. I wanted to do all of them, but a year ago I wouldn’t have seen myself doing this,” Geliske said. “I was just hoping to help my teams this year.
"I’ve got bigger expectations for myself next year.”
Three-sport letterwinners are not a rarity in Geliske’s hometown. Despite an enrollment of 100 fewer students than all but one of the other schools in its eight-team conference, Capac has the most who play a sport every season. The Chiefs had 41 three-sport athletes during 2012-13, athletic director Arnie VandeMark said, and 33 athletes who earned letters in three sports played as part of the BWAC – 24 more three-sport athletes than the league school with the next-highest total.
Playing two sports during the same season, while uncommon, also occurs from time to time when an athlete can handle the added load and coaches can work out a flexible schedule. But VandeMark never had seen an athlete do what Geliske accomplished this fall – not to mention the success he had in the process. Geliske just kept finding ways to compete – and contribute to Chiefs teams alongside his friends.
He has been a starter on the soccer team for three seasons and captain these last two, and that’s his primary sport. A midfielder, he led the team with five assists this fall to go with three goals as Capac – in its eighth season as a program – set a wins record in finishing 11-8.
Geliske decided to double in cross country this season at the urging of a few friends on that team. Great move on their part, as Geliske ended up the team’s regular second- fastest finisher. He took sixth at his Regional (in 17:52) and was part of the lineup that made the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final at Michigan International Speedway.
But before practice for either of those sports began, Geliske had another request from his best friend on the football team. Capac needed a kicker. Geliske loves football but never had played at the high school level and never had kicked. No matter – two hours before the first practice he decided to give it a try, showed up and won the job.
“Nick was a huge part of our team qualifying for team states. He set an example for others to follow being a very busy athlete in soccer and football,” Capac boys cross country coach Tim Gross said. “He would show up for practice and set the standard for everyone else to follow. He was not only a great athlete, but a very organized person.”
On schedule
Geliske also holds a 3.85 grade-point average – after earning a 4.0 during the first quarter of this school year – and is involved with Capac’s student council and chapters of the National Honors Society and Business Professionals of America.
Pulling off the above plus participating on three athletic teams takes heavy doses organization and discipline both. Thankfully, the sports schedules just happened to fall into place.
First-year soccer coach Jerry Parisot needed to hold his practices at 6 p.m., leaving the afternoon for Geliske’s other pursuits. Geliske ran with the cross country team from 3-4 p.m. and kicked with the football team until 5 before catching a quick meal and heading to the soccer field.
On cross country meet days, Geliske would run and usually make it back in time for soccer practice. On soccer game days, he’d kick with the football team right after school before switching uniforms.
The biggest challenge came on Friday, Oct 25, when Geliske ran in the cross country team’s Regional at Algonac – an hour trip south of Capac – then had to drive nearly two hours back north for a football game at Sandusky. He made it two minutes before kickoff.
But amid jumping through those hoops, Geliske continued to make academics a priority with study time from 8-10 p.m. most weeknights.
“Usually, for football I’d just talk to my coach and could schedule around because I’m the kicker, and I have awesome coaches. For soccer, my dad is the assistant coach so that worked out pretty well, and the varsity coach coached me at younger levels. And for cross country, he was an awesome guy too. They knew I’d be busy all the time,” Geliske said.
“My mom wasn’t so sure about (three sports), but she said as long as I keep my grades up I can play all of those sports. I gave myself studying time; I didn't want to let my teams or myself down.”
Before the season began, Geliske brought Gross a schedule detailing where he’d be every day over the next three months. Gross credits Geliske's parents for his runner's discipline, and Nick also credits Mom and Dad with instilling that trait – and a lot more.
Cracking the code
Geliske was so competitive as a kid, sometimes he’d get a little out of control and his parents would have to calm him down. That intensity hasn't faded much – “Even during pick-up games and stuff, people get mad that I’m so competitive,” he said. “I don’t like losing ... (but) I have to tone it down a little bit.”
“He's 200 percent competitive,” Parisot said. “It’s not really about winning or losing. It's more about trying as hard as you can.”
That streak was ingrained by his father Barry Geliske, who along with coaching soccer and serving on the school board works on the chain gang for home football games and is “the most competitive and passionate guy about sports,” Nick said.
His athletic side? Geliske believes that comes from his mom Sandra. And then, matter-of-factly, he reveals a family line that backs his theory pretty well.
Among second cousins is former Marquette University basketball standout Travis Diener, who beginning in 2005 played for three NBA teams and now plays professionally in Italy. Sandra Geliske’s maiden name is Thome – as in Jim Thome, another cousin, and a likely future Hall of Famer who hit 612 home runs during a Major League Baseball career stretching two decades.
There’s another cousin, former NFL tight end Dave Casper, who made five Pro Bowls for the Oakland Raiders during the late 1970s. A great uncle named Ronald Jackson played seven seasons of pro baseball with the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox from 1954-60.
Geliske will begin basketball practice Monday and plans to play baseball and run track this spring before coming back for all six sports as a senior. VandeMark has had an athlete finish high school with 13 letters – but Geliske hopes to graduate with 15.
That leads to another significant question – how will Geliske display them?
Like at most schools, some Capac athletes wear traditional letter jackets. They receive an actual letter for their first, then a series of pins and medals for each additional year on a varsity team.
Geliske’s mom wants instead to frame the awards. If that’s the decision, Geliske is looking for something sizable – and he’s got to fit that BWAC patch now as well.
It's been a fall full of other accolades too. He made the all-league soccer team and earned an all-league cross country award, and was part of an academic all-state team in the latter as well. But he’s got much higher expectations for fall 2014 since he’ll be settled into his balancing act. And no way does that include picking a favorite.
“I can’t imagine it for myself. I’ve been playing these sports my whole life,” Geliske said. “Sometimes someone might be really good in that (one) sport and stay with it, but I say doing more sports is better. It keeps you active. I just love competing, and that’s the big thing about it.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Capac’s Nick Geliske lettered as part of the school’s cross country, boys soccer and football teams this fall. (Middle) Geliske throws a ball in during a soccer game and turns a corner during a race this season. (Below) Geliske poses with his Blue Water Area Conference three-letter patch after becoming the first to earn the award. (Photos courtesy of Capac athletic department and Geliske family.)
MHSA(Q&)A: Soccer Coaches President Zach Jonker
September 21, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Zach Jonker has had his hands – or, perhaps, feet – on just about every facet of soccer in this state over the last 20 years.
He played on a Class B Semifinalist at Petoskey before graduating in 1995, then earned four letters and served as a captain at Hope College. He came back home to teach social studies and became coach of both boys and girls varsities that are regularly among the northern Lower Peninsula's elite, but also are highly-regarded statewide. And this fall, he began the first of a two-year term as president of the Michigan High School Soccer Coaches Association.
So he can speak first-hand on the benefits of playing high school soccer in Michigan, which is good news to get out perhaps now more than ever. Michigan high school soccer is facing a predicament unlike any it has tackled before – the creation by U.S. Soccer of its Development Academy, a set of travel teams all over the country that train nearly year-round and are meant to eventually fuel the men's national team. That opportunity has drawn a number of top Michigan players out of high school soccer.
Jonker and his coaching brethren are monitoring that situation closely, while continuing to lead their teams into the second half of this fall boys season. His Northmen are 6-7-1 overall this fall, but have faced three of the top-five ranked teams in Division 1 and another from Division 2.
Despite your location near the tip of the Lower Peninsula, you still manage to schedule strong competition. How do you make it work?
We’re in a really nice spot. Traverse City hosts a tournament during the regular season with Traverse City Central, Traverse City West and Petoskey, and then they invite three schools from downstate that have generally been (Warren) DeLaSalle, Clarkston and Ann Arbor Skyline. The following weekend, we host a similar format with Rochester Hills Stoney Creek and Bloomfield Hills Lahser. We get six really good games at the start of the season with two tournaments. It’s early in the season and teams love coming up, making a weekend out of it, hitting the beach and doing some bonding. And the fields at Traverse City and Petoskey are both beautiful, which helps teams commit, plus the three of us are very competitive.
We’re coming down next weekend to play East Lansing, and we always schedule a couple of those. Last year, Mason came up here. It’s definitely a commitment in terms of travel during the course of the year, but from a Petoskey standpoint, I don’t care about our nonleague record. We’re using those games to get better for our league and better for the (MHSAA) tournament. The only tough thing is putting that in perspective for the kids.
What is something happening in high school soccer that the coaches association is proudest about right now?
We’re always looking at it from the other side, what we want to make better. But one of our main goals as an association is to properly recognize players. And I think the process we have in place for giving all-district, all-regional and all-state recognition and ultimately the selection of the Dream Team, I think that’s a very good model that enables us as an association to truly recognize players who put the work in and had a successful season. We also redesigned our web site this past season, and we’ve done a lot of the all-state process online, which a lot of coaches really liked because it cut down travel time for meetings.
Is anything new on the horizon?
A lot of coaches are really interested in seeing what the long-term impact of the (U.S.) Academy ruling is. Everyone’s initial take is we’re seeing increased parity round the state as the result of 120 kids electing not to play high school soccer this year. Obviously, all of those players are good players playing at a high level, and people are interested in seeing at the end of the season if kids are going to have missed playing in front of their communities, and if kids are going to migrate back to high school soccer. There’s talk of U.S. Soccer adding a U-14 academy. They’re trying to expand.
What has been the reaction so far to the U.S. Academy?
For certain players, the academy makes sense. They’re in a professional training environment 10 months out of the year. But those guys not on the professional track would be equally served by playing high school soccer and playing club like we always have. (U.S. Soccer) is doing a lot of this to benefit the top one percent of players. It’s the main frustration from the coaches.
Everyone kind of understands why U.S. Soccer is headed down that path, and it impacted each (high school) team differently. Some programs lost upwards of 8-10 kids as a result. Some didn’t lose any.
In terms of geographic parity, we’re already seeing that. Two years ago, west side teams won all four championships. Last year, Detroit teams won all four. Now we’re going to see more parity within districts, within conferences. And I think we’ll see scores closer than in the past.
What role should high school soccer play compared to club, the academy, etc.?
I equate it as playing for your national team. When you put your school colors on, go out with your friends that you’ve played with since kindergarten, it’s really special. They can’t even begin to match the rivalries we have with high school soccer, the amount of passion that exists within our game and the number of fans that show up at these games. At an academy game, you might have a handful of parents on the sideline, that’s it, and a few college coaches watching. But you can’t match the high school experience and the passion that exists. Kids are going to miss that, and we’ll get kids back because of that.
Do your players see an MHSAA championship differently because so many elite players aren’t participating in high school?
It doesn’t even register with these guys. The (MHSAA) championships are going to be awarded in November, and for whoever wins this year, it will be just as meaningful for these guys as the guys who won last year.
Does soccer get a bump from U.S. national team success like swimming or gymnastics might during Olympic years?
Any time it’s a World Cup year, men’s or women’s, the players get really excited about the experience. It gets them enthused to get out and train. I don’t think kids watch enough soccer in this country, and that’s one of the big issues we have. Ultimately, what’s holding us back at the national team level is kids are not growing up in a culture of soccer on television like in other countries against which we compete. In a World Cup year, kids get excited, and they watch more soccer, and the play is better on the field.
How much has high school soccer changed since you played?
There are just so many more layers of sophistication, tactically. We had good athletes playing at that point, and we have good athletes playing now. But as a country, we’ve evolved from a coaching standpoint. The kids are getting better technical training at a younger age, and are much better tactically. There are many more teams now emphasizing more possession-based (play). What else has helped the evolution is getting off playing on football fields. During the (19)80s and 90s, a lot of games were played on them, and it made it hard to possess the ball when the turf was chewed up. Soccer-specific fields have helped the game evolve.
What will Michigan high school soccer look like five years from now?
I like the path we’re headed down. The number one thing going forward is seeing what happens with the evolution of the academy program – do kids come back, or does the academy program grow? Regardless, the kids playing high school soccer are going to have a great experience, and there are a lot of really good coaches in high school soccer, a lot of really great referees and administrators. That makes the game special. I see us continuing to have the best going forward.
PHOTO: Petoskey senior Noah Honaker goes high while surrounded by defenders to head a ball during a game this season. (Photo courtesy of Dean Viles.)