South Lyon Soccer Standout Dives Back In for Big Pool Finish
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
March 10, 2022
Never mind that swimming isn't Josh Mason's best sport. Forget the fact that he left the sport after his freshman year to concentrate on his first love – soccer.
Well, Mason is back in the pool and he's making waves.
This weekend Mason and his South Lyon teammates will head to the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 Swimming & Diving Finals at the Holland Aquatic Center.
The prelims begin at noon Friday with the championship races starting at noon Saturday.
Mason, a 6-foot-5, 190-pound senior all-state center-back on the soccer team, qualified in the 50- and 100-yard freestyles, but he and coach John Burch have decided to forego his entry into the 100 in an attempt to enhance South Lyon's chances in the team competition. In addition to the 50, Mason will compete in all three relays – the 200 medley and two freestyle relays (200 and 400).
Opting out of the 100 suits Mason just fine. His best event is the 50, and he said “the last 25 (yards) of the 100 is a struggle for me. It takes everything I have to get through it.”
Whether it's in the pool, on the pitch or in the classroom, Mason never gives anything less than 100 percent. His drive to excel, he quickly admits, comes from his parents, Caroline and Chuck Mason.
Both competed in athletics; Caroline was a collegiate track athlete, and Chuck played soccer in high school.
“I started swimming when I was 3 or 4,” Mason said. “It was just one of those things where my parents wanted me to learn how to swim. I just really enjoyed it, and I kept coming back.”
His start in soccer also came before the age of 5 and Mason found a balance by competing in both, though soccer gradually became priority one.
“With my dad having played soccer, he's enjoyed being around and being a part of it,” Mason said.
“I always loved soccer. I have a love-hate relationship with swimming. It gets you into shape. (Swim) practices are hard. I use it for conditioning. It translates well to soccer.”
Mason competed in swimming because it was fun at an early age. When he entered high school, he realized he was pretty good at it – and so, that being the case, why not try out for the swim team?
Burch was there to welcome him with open arms.
“Josh? He's just an elite athlete,” Burch said. “He wants to succeed. He wants to excel. He's worked hard to get where he's at.”
Like Burch, South Lyon soccer coach Brian Elliott, who just completed his 10th season as the boys head coach, knew he had an outstanding player when Mason entered high school.
“He was a man among boys, even when he was a freshman,” Elliott said. “We knew he was something special. He was a three-year captain. That doesn't happen. He's our first for the boys program. He was one of our tallest players even when he was a freshman. He was thin then, but he's filled out since. As a center-back, the best ones are tall. And he has the agility of someone who's 5-8 or 5-9. Josh is somehow this physical phenom. The last two years he was able to physically dominate.
“He's a once-in-a-lifetime student-athlete for a coach.”
But as a swimmer his freshman year, was Mason in over his head competing for one of the top, if not best, swim programs in the Lakes Valley Conference? He was eager to find out.
Was he inexperienced? Absolutely. Did he show promise? No question.
There was one snag. His commitment to soccer.
“His mother and I had a conversation before the season,” Burch said. “She told me that he wouldn't be able to compete at the Finals because there was a big soccer tournament., When it came time for the Finals), I thought, I could really use Josh. I'm sure he wished he could have competed at the states. But soccer was his sport. I understand that.”
As Mason's involvement with soccer increased, his time for other outside activities shrunk. This led to his decision not to compete in swimming his sophomore and junior years. But a promise was made, behind closed doors.
Burch said Mason's teammates continued to recruit him to return. Mason had one stipulation – once his soccer season was over, and his verbal commitment was made to a university, he would be free to rejoin the swim team. In October, Mason committed to Michigan State – opening the door for his return.
“I always thought he'd come back,” Burch said.
It took Mason a few weeks to get back into shape in the pool, and when he did, he took off. At the conference meet he won both of his individual events and was part of two winning relay teams (200 and 400 freestyles) as South Lyon took home the title.
“I knew what kind of kid he is,” Burch said. “I had him in class in the eighth grade. When he came back this year, I didn't know what I'd get. I didn't know what to expect. Heck, he'd been away for two years. Maybe he'd go through the motions. But he's not that type. If he's going to do something, you know he's going to do it well. I knew I was getting a good kid, someone who will add to the team.
“Sure, he's accomplished a lot. At the same time, when he was a freshman, if you would have said he would accomplish all of this, I would say, yes.”
Regardless of how races finish this weekend, there's a happy ending. Mason, a remarkable student as well sporting a 4.1 GPA, has his scholarship. The South Lyon swim team welcomed a teammate back. And Burch is sending another competitive team to the MHSAA Finals.
Tom Markowski primarily covered high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. He also is a former correspondent and web content director for State Champs! Sports Network. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS (Top) South Lyon’s Josh Mason shows his medal after winning the 50 freestyle at the Lakes Valley Conference championship meet. (Middle) Mason sends a shot toward the net during a game last fall. (Below) Mason launches at the start of the 100 freestyle league final. (Photos courtesy of the Mason family.)
Byiringiro's Journey Now Includes Arrival Among State's Diving Champions
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
March 20, 2025
KENTWOOD – Fidele Byiringiro remembers lounging in a middle school lunchroom shooting the breeze with friends and discussing the range of topics that interest most teenage boys.
Stuff about the toughest class in school. A favorite teacher. Who had a couple extra bucks they could blow. Maybe a serious conversation of who the cutest girl at Valleywood Middle School happened to be.
But when a few of Byiringiro's buddies began extolling the virtues of being on the school’s swimming & diving team, they might as well have been talking about what it’s like to live on Mars.
Born in a Rwandan refugee camp in the Republic of the Congo, Byiringiro said water was thought of more as a critical life-saver than something associated with sports. Still, talk of diving’s somersaults, twists and flips intrigued Byiringiro, who at the time had designs on becoming a professional soccer player.
"I heard about it at a lunch table, and I said, 'I can do that,'" he said.
So Byiringiro, whose parents escaped the horrors of the Rwandan genocide which by several estimates claimed nearly 1 million lives in 1994, decided to follow up on this diving idea. He joined the Kentwood Middle School swim team as an eighth grader and quickly became hooked on the sport.
"I just liked flipping," Byiringiro recalled of why he opted to dive. "I'd do it in my free time after practices. I just kept doing flips."
And how's this for a flip: Five years later, Byiringiro has gone from complete novice to just the second boys diving Finals champion during the 50-plus year history of East Kentwood High School, and the first since 1997.
As he climbed the Holland Aquatic Center podium at Saturday’s MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 meet to receive his first-place medal, Byiringiro capped a story few athletes in any sport can match.
His parents and siblings had fled Rwanda to the refugee camp, where his mother worked as a nurse and his father repairing water distribution facilities. Byiringiro was born in the camp, and with the help of Christian organizations, eventually immigrated with the family to Philadelphia in 2015. The family wound up in Grand Rapids, and Byiringiro entered school in the Kentwood system and was encouraged by friends to join the swim team.
Since he had never been around lakes or pools in Rwanda, adapting to water wasn't exactly a stroll in the park. But guided by his fascination with turning flips, he eventually became good enough to place in a couple middle school events.
At first, Byiringiro by his own admission wasn't very good. But he stuck with it, eventually getting hooked up with Falcons diving coach Eric Gale as a freshman. While Gale could plainly see Byiringiro was raw, he also believed that with a little teaching, dedication and experience-building – both mentally and physically – there might be something there.
"Things like a half-somersault and maybe adding a twist," Gale said of his first impressions of Byiringiro.
So Byiringiro began to get serious about the sport and slowly improved. He scored at the conference meet as a freshman, qualified for the MHSAA Finals but didn't place as a sophomore, and last year took eighth in Division 1 while placing fourth in the conference.
Nice credentials to be sure, but nothing yet to indicate visions of a state title.
Even the start of his senior year wasn't enough for Byiringiro to become a household name among state divers. It wasn't until he swept the conference meet and finished first at his Regional qualifier at the end of the season that the first tepid thoughts of a Finals title emerged. Byiringiro said the difference between his first 3½ varsity seasons and the final couple of weeks before the LPD1 championship meet can be summed up in a single word.
"It was mental," he said. "Coach has told us never go into a meet focused on winning. Go in and just do what you're capable of. At the conference meet I learned how to believe in myself and what confidence can do for you. It begins with confidence."
So true, Gale said.
"I saw at least a year earlier that the talent was there and that he wanted to get better," said Gale, East Kentwood's diving coach for 37 years and still the school's record holder in the 6 and 11-dive events.
"I would see greatness every day, and I just kept harping to him to be more consistent."
Right up until the Finals meet, there were doubts Byiringiro would pull off his rags-to-riches story. But a late conversation with legendary Falcons swim coach Jock Ambrose boosted his confidence level. He said Ambrose talked about being surrounded by greatness, and while athletes are constantly plagued with the "what if" question, Ambrose stressed "why not?"
"He said there was no reason not to do my best," Byiringiro said. "It kind of woke me up."
Based on season finishes, Byiringiro was the 34th of 36 divers to participate in Friday's prelims. He had an outstanding prelim with 321 points which seeded him first going into the final rounds. With three dives to go Saturday, the title was Byiringiro's to lose.
He proceeded to nail a front one-and-a-half twist, an inward one-and-a-half and finished off his day with an inward two-and-a-half. He won the meet with a 448.80.
"I knew I wasn't favored to win," he said, "but I knew anything could happen."
Like many athletes who compete individually at a high level, Byiringiro said he was flooded with emotion as he stood on the Holland podium. He flashed for a second on how far he'd come from a Rwandan refugee camp, an unlikely original attraction to diving, putting in hours of hard work and ultimately walking away with the top prize in high school diving.
His reaction was predictable.
"I was probably more relieved than happy, but I definitely was happy. Things all went blurry," he said. "It took a couple days to sink in."
There could be a couple chapters left in Byiringiro's story. He wants to dive in college and schools such as Oakland University, Grand Valley State University, Davenport University and Kalamazoo College have recruited him.
Gale said any of those schools would be getting a diver who works diligently to improve his craft. That attitude, Gale said, should lead to additional success at the next level.
"He got a late start to diving, so he really hasn't bloomed yet," Gale said. "Each year he's gotten better, and we're just now seeing what he can do. With good coaching, he could really blossom."
PHOTOS (Top) East Kentwood’s Fidele Byiringiro stands for a photo recently at his school’s pool. (Middle) Byiringiro dives during last weekend’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals at Holland Aquatic Center. (Click for more Finals photos from High School Sports Scene.)