Gladwin Soars to 55 Straight League Wins
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
August 28, 2019
Erik Seebeck was a manager for the Gladwin boys soccer team in 2015 when it advanced to the MHSAA Division 3 Semifinals.
That team and its postseason run made quite an impression on the then-eighth grader.
“It was a good experience. I really enjoyed it,” said Seebeck, now a senior sweeper and captain for the Flying Gs. “I learned a lot from being around them and watching how they all responded even when they were down – just never giving up and always giving their all.”
That 2015 team gave Seebeck – and the Gladwin soccer program – something else: the start of what is now a 55-match conference win streak. Gladwin has not lost a Northern Michigan Soccer League game since the conference tournament in 2014.
“We like to set goals at the beginning of the season, and we like to talk about where we want to reach,” Seebeck said. “We want to keep this streak going. We have lots of talent this year, and we’re not having a drop off. We’ve had guys step up and fill the seniors’ positions. We talked over our goals, and we kind of wanted to keep that continuing, to see how far we could make it on that streak.”
Gladwin, a member of the Jack Pine Conference in its other sports, competes in the South division of the NMSL. The league includes schools as far north as Cheboygan and as far west as Big Rapids Crossroads.
Gladwin’s streak includes four straight victories in the league’s conference tournament, which consists of the top two teams from each division at the end of the season.
“We try not to dwell on it too much, but it’s kind of a fun thing for some of the kids,” Gladwin coach Jerome Smalley said. “The graduating class of last year, we had players that played on varsity all four years, and they never lost in the conference. There are some good teams in our conference, and some teams that would really like to end this. But we try not to dwell on it too much.”
This season, Gladwin is off to a 7-0-1 start, which has included 7-0 and 8-0 conference wins against Clare and Big Rapids Crossroads, respectively.
Jonathan Grijalva, a senior forward and captain who is in his third year on the Gladwin varsity team, admitted there’s some pressure that comes along with the streak, but added that it doesn’t define the team.
“Obviously we’d like to keep that going, and there is pride there,” Grijalva said. “But if it ended, I don’t think we’d be horribly upset, because we’re a successful team. And even if we didn’t keep that record going, we just like to have fun, too.”
This year’s team has built another streak all its own, not having allowed a goal through its first eight matches. While the Flying Gs are having no problem putting the ball in the net, having scored 37 goals, Smalley said the strength of the team is its defense and the collective effort the entire team puts into keeping the ball out of the net.
“Our entire team is playing defense,” Seebeck said. “Everybody is getting back, and everybody is helping out on defense. Our four guys in the back (Seebeck, Wilson Bragg, Cal Woodbury and Kurt Landenberger), we’re all communicating great and letting each other know what we have to do. Our midfield is coming back and covering those give and gos. That helps tremendously when all of your team comes back to help on defense.”
The hope now for Gladwin is that this early success on both sides of the field can translate to success not just through the regular season, but into the postseason as well. Because while the Flying Gs have not lost a conference game since 2014, they also haven’t advanced beyond the District tournament since 2015.
In 2016, Gladwin lost 1-0 in the District Semifinal against Tawas. In 2017, it lost 2-1 in the District Semifinal against NMSL North member Ogemaw Heights. And in 2018, Gladwin again lost to Ogemaw Heights, this time in a shootout in the District Final one week after the Flying Gs had claimed the conference crown with a shootout win against Ogemaw.
“The postseason hasn’t been as kind to us as the regular season,” Smalley said.
In order to try and change that, Smalley said he has attempted to beef up the nonconference schedule throughout the years. This past weekend, Gladwin won the Alma Tournament, defeating the hosts, as well as Birch Run, while playing to a scoreless draw against Big Rapids.
“Close games definitely put things into perspective for everybody,” Seebeck said. “We were in the Alma Tournament, and we played Big Rapids and played them to a 0-0 tie, and they had some good players and good passing that kind of opened up to some of our guys what very skilled teams are going to look like when we go into the postseason. It definitely shows you what your limits are.”
There’s a belief among the players that this year’s team can end the recent postseason woes and hopefully catch up to the 2015 team that set them on their current path.
“I’m hoping we can go to state,” said Landenberger, a senior stopper. “I think we can do it; we just have to work together and try our hardest. It’s not going to be easy by any stretch, but I think we can do it.”
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) Gladwin's Jonathan Grijalva (14) works to deflect the ball away from an opponent. (Middle) The Flying Gs celebrate their Alma Tournament championship this month. (Top photo by Max McDonald/Gladwin County Record. Middle courtesy of the Gladwin boys soccer program.)
Pilots' Record-Setting Coach Always Eager to Play Role in Helping Students Soar
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
November 13, 2025
As if they were fans standing outside an arena’s exit waiting for a famous rock star or professional athlete to come out, Warren De La Salle Collegiate students congregated outside a gate at Grand Ledge High School with bated breath.
Instead of a rock star or athlete, the students had phones up waiting for Thaier Mukhtar, and let him know just how much he was loved.
“Mr. Mukhtar! Mr. Mukhtar!” the students chanted while mobbing him with praise.
Given what he has meant to the school and Michigan high school soccer for nearly four decades, it’s no wonder why the students waited him out.
Mukhtar had just helped lead De La Salle to its seventh Finals championship with a 2-0 win over Hudsonville Unity Christian, and Mukhtar said he was now in elite company with a famous NFL quarterback.
“Everyone was making fun of me because Tom Brady had one more ring than me,” Mukhtar quipped. “Now he doesn’t.”
The Division 2 title was the second straight for De La Salle and finished off a recent stretch full of milestones.
Two seasons ago, Mukhtar became the all-time winningest boys soccer coach in state history when he surpassed Nick Archer of East Lansing by earning his 661st victory.
This year, Mukhtar reached the 600-win mark coaching for De La Salle. That achievement didn’t come with much fanfare, but that was by design and true to form.
“He didn’t celebrate a lot because it’s more about the team,” Pilots senior James Spicuzzi said. “We got him a signed ball, but that was really it. It’s more about the team for him than it is about himself.”
Mukhtar has tried to make that his emphasis since becoming the head coach of De La Salle in 1983 at the age of 23.
The Pilots won their first championship, in Class A, in 1990, and then consecutive titles in 1992 and 1993.
After sharing the 2000 Division 1 title with Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice and then defeating Brother Rice to win the championship in 2005, De La Salle went on a title drought.
Mukhtar actually left his coaching post at De La Salle in 2011 and coached boys and girls soccer at Fraser from 2012-17 before returning as Pilots coach in 2018.
A social studies teacher at De La Salle for 30 years – a job he still holds – Mukhtar admits his coaching style can rub some the wrong way.
“I’m a demanding coach,” he said. “I’m a perfectionist. I call out every little mistake, and I make sure we work on those mistakes. I don’t care if we win 4-1 or 4-0, but are making mistakes. You’re not going to make those mistakes at the end of the year if you don’t want to send your team home.
“I have people – whether it’s parents or players – look at me like, ‘That guy is crazy. They just won the game.’ It ain’t about winning the damn game. It’s about getting here (to the state final) and not making those mistakes. Not committing the foul. Not being out of position. Not communicating in the back. Different things we harp on over and over again.”
Junior Andrew Corder, who led De La Salle with 38 goals this year, said it’s tough love that players have learned to embrace.
“It’s been kind of hard at times, but he just wants the best for us,” he said. “It’s all worth it.”
Mukhtar said he often thinks about retirement, but then points to something his son told him as a reason to keep running it back.
“Every year it’s a battle with me and my administration and, ‘Am I returning? Am I not returning?’ I say to take it year by year,” Mukhtar said. “My CEO at De La Salle made me guarantee that I give him two years (notice) at least. … I give two and then I always say, ‘Why am I doing this?’ My knee is killing me. But when my son says to me, ‘Dad, the fact that you get nervous and the fact you get excited means that you’re not ready (to retire).’ He said it perfectly, and he’s 100 percent right.”
Which is why Mukhtar is likely to continue coaching for the foreseeable future, and why more student celebrations should be in store.
“I’m still teaching at school when I don’t have to, and I’m still coaching when honestly I’ve done everything I’ve needed to do in my life,” Mukhtar said. “I’m like three wins away from 900 career victories coaching boys and girls. I’m still doing all these things because I feel like I can play a role in their life. It’s not just soccer. I want you to be able to believe in yourself and believe that you can accomplish whatever you work hard for. I teach my students the same thing.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS (Top) De La Salle boys soccer coach Thaier Mukhtar holds up his team’s championship trophy after the Pilots clinched the Division 2 title Nov. 1 at Grand Ledge High School. (Middle) Mukhtar embraces keeper Giovanni Vitale after his team’s 2024 championship win.