Pieces Adding Up for Addison Title Run

May 11, 2018

By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half

ADDISON – Aaron Wesche didn’t waste any time in setting some goals for the Addison boys track & field team.

“I told them at signups that we were going to compete for the Regional title, and our goal was to compete for the top three at the state meet,” Wesche said. “I wanted to put that out there.”

If the last few weeks of the track season end up anything like the first few, the Panthers are right on target. Wesche began building this year’s team in the middle of last season, preparing for what he and his assistants figured was going to be a strong year. Addison is ranked on top of the recent Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association Division 4 team power rankings with individuals up and down the rankings list.

“We’re set up pretty good for MITCA,” he said. “I’m blessed to have a great group of juniors and seniors. We’ve turned into a well-rounded team.”

Addison scored 13 points at the 2017 MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 championship meet, good for 26th place. This year’s team is eyeing a big jump from that spot.

“We’ve looked at the Regional and, with some luck, we could possibly see ourselves scoring points in every event,” Wesche said. “Now, things would have to go our way, but it’s possible.”

Addison has talent throughout its lineup.

The 400 and 800-meter relay teams of Josh Brown, Dakota Knieper, Caleb Gramm and Dominic Young are steady and fast. Noah Hermansen has emerged in the 110 hurdles, and Gavin McAndrews has been a pleasant surprise in the pole vault.

Freshman Marquis Bills has been a big addition to the lineup in the high jump, where he competes with teammate Matt Sylvester. Brown and Knieper are joined in the 1,600 lineup by Jesse Mullin and Zac Steiner. Zach Morse is a strong distance runner. Knieper was all-state last year in the 400, and Young ranks among the top 10 in the division in the 100, according to the MITCA rankings.

In the field events, standout athlete Donovan Underwood is expected to push for a high finish in both the shot put and discus.

Underwood is trying to earn all-state notice in his third sport in this, his senior campaign. He was honorable mention again in football after compiling 91 tackles and 16 for loss as the Panthers tied for the Cascades Conference championship and made the playoffs. In wrestling he finished in the top eight in his weight class, and now he has a shot to improve on last year’s fourth-place showing at the MHSAA Finals in the shot put.

“Our goals are pretty high,” he said. “We can achieve them if we just stay focused on what is ahead of us.”

Underwood is one of four seniors on the 29-member track team, up six from last year’s 23 athletes. He said the group of seniors have been playing sports together since a young age and has always felt by the time they became seniors, the Panthers would be putting out some good sports teams. They haven’t disappointed.

“Ever since we were young, we played football together and have always wanted to make everything we do, including track, as fun as we can,” Underwood said.

In track, he credits Wesche with teaching him the right technique for the throws. Wesche was a throws coach at Siena Heights University in Adrian from 2008-2012.

“Coach Wesche is an amazing coach,” Underwood said. “He helps us a lot.”

Wesche is in his 18th year teaching at Addison and has coached track for a good chunk of those, other than his years at Siena Heights.

“In high school, I did track, but I wasn’t a star or anything,” he said. “I was more of a technique guy. I worked at having the best technique and how to refine that technique.”

At Addison, he’s also been a master at getting kids out for track and putting them in the right spots in the lineup. He introduces freshmen at Addison to track while they are in his classroom and displays some trophies and other track memorabilia in his room to help get the buzz going about the sport.

“The team we have this year, we started to put in place last year,” he said. “We started moving kids around then, finding hurdlers and working on the relays. Some of it was kind of luck. Things have worked out pretty well.”

At one point, he lined up the entire team to find someone to run the hurdles. Hermansen emerged and is now a threat to score points at the Finals.

“This is the most complete team we’ve ever had,” he said.

The Panthers are scheduled to compete at the Hillsdale Invitational this weekend and have an important Cascades Conference dual meet with Hanover- Horton on Tuesday.

“They have won the last several conference championships,” Wesche said. “As coaches, we still have to sit down and figure out where we are going to score points against them. That’s going to be a dog fight.”

After that, Addison has the Regional and the Cascades Conference championship meet and, hopefully for Panthers fans, the MITCA and MHSAA meets left to go.

“The most important four weeks are coming up right now,” he said. We’ve got to start shining. I want us to be known as a blue-collar team. We aren’t a team with a superstar. We come to work every single day and grind it out.”

Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Lenawee and Monroe counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Addison thrower Donovan Underwood unloads a discus toss during a meet this season. (Middle) Dakota Knieper charges down the straightaway during one of his races. (Photos courtesy of the Addison boys track & field program.)

MCC's Glover Fills Key Role as Athletic Trainer for Super Bowl Champions

By Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com

August 6, 2024

David Glover never had the glamour role – and didn’t even play the glamour sport – during his high school days at Muskegon Catholic Central.

Made In Michigan and Michigan Army National Guard logosMCC is known statewide as a football powerhouse that ranks third in state history with 12 MHSAA Finals championships during the playoff era. But basketball was Glover’s sport of choice, and his specialty didn’t show up in the box score.

“I was the defensive stopper,” explained Glover, who graduated from MCC in 1996. “I was always the guy that Coach (Greg) Earnest would put on the other team’s best scorer. I took a lot of pride in that.”

Glover continues to be the ultimate team player, only now his role is the first assistant athletic trainer for the Kansas City Chiefs, who are aiming to three-peat this season as Super Bowl champions.

“As the team and the goals have grown, so have I,” said Glover, who has been on the Chiefs’ training staff for the past 18 years. “The job is the same, which is getting the players onto the field and back onto the field after injuries so that they can perform at their highest level. I have become more comfortable and experienced in that role.”

Glover broke into the NFL as an athletic training intern with the New York Jets in 2004. He came to Kansas City in 2006 when Jets head coach Herman Edwards took the KC job, bringing Glover and several other members of the training staff with him.

Glover quickly fell in love with the Chiefs’ famous family-first culture, along with the area’s world-famous barbecues. He also met his future wife, Jera.

He is known as a tireless worker and student of his craft, which has allowed him to steadily move up to his current position as first assistant athletic trainer on the Chiefs’ five-member training staff, second only to Rick Burkholder, the vice president of sports medicine and performance.

Glover’s skills also have caught the attention of his colleagues across the NFL, who awarded him the 2022 Tim Davey AFC Assistant Athletic Trainer of the Year Award – given annually to someone who represents an unyielding commitment, dedication and integrity in the profession of athletic training.

Glover said a big reason for his success in his profession can be traced back to high school.

Glover, left, hugs teammate Doug Dozier after a victory over rival Muskegon Mona Shores in 1995-1996 basketball season opener. MCC finished 17-7 and a District champion. “Playing sports at MCC, especially for a smaller school, gave me such a sense of camaraderie, teamwork and a family outside of my normal family,” said Glover, the son of David and Lyndah Glover. “Those teammates energized me to be my best.

“There’s no doubt that some of the lessons that I learned playing sports in high school help me out in my job.”

Glover also ran track for the Crusaders – competing in the long jump, 200 meters, 400 meters and various relays – and said he enjoyed himself, even though he ran track initially as a way to stay in shape for basketball.

The highlight of his MCC basketball career came his senior year, when the underdog Crusaders captured a Class C District championship.

Growing up in Muskegon and close to Lake Michigan, Glover thought he would become a marine biologist someday – that is, until he suffered an injury during his senior basketball season.

Glover went up for a block and actually pinned the opponent’s shot against the backboard. However, the shooter inadvertently took his legs out on the play, causing him to crash violently to the court and lose feeling in his right leg for about 10 seconds.

The injury to his hip flexor put him on crutches for two weeks and off the court total for about a month, which he said “felt like the end of the world” at the time.

But the injury led him into rehab with Brian Hanks, a 1988 MCC graduate who was back working at his alma mater as an athletic trainer through Mercy Hospital.

Glover and Hanks turned out to be a perfect match. Glover was naturally curious about the entire process and wanted to know the “why” of his rebab program. Hanks recognized Glover’s interest in how the human body works and encouraged him to consider studying athletic training in college.

“God works in mysterious ways,” said Glover. “I was devastated when I got injured, but that experience opened my eyes to a whole new career. I wanted to learn everything I could about the human body and how it works.

“Looking back, the injury was a blessing in disguise. I wouldn’t change anything at all.”

Glover followed in Hanks’ footsteps and attended Central Michigan University, spending countless hours in the training room working with athletes in every sport – from football to track to gymnastics – graduating with a degree in health fitness and exercise science.

He said a huge inspiration in his career was CMU professor Dr. Rene Shingles, who in 2018 became the first African-American woman to be inducted into the National Athletic Trainers Association Hall of Fame. Shingles encouraged Glover to continue his studies at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, where he earned his master’s of science in athletic training.

He got his break into the NFL with his internship with the Jets, and his work ethic has kept him there for the past 20 years.

Glover poses with this year's Super Bowl Championship trophy alongside fellow Chiefs athletic trainer Julie Frymyer.“If there are high school kids out there reading this, I guess I would tell them that there are a lot of different avenues to get to the NFL or the NBA,” Glover said. “I’m a perfect example. I didn’t even play high school football, but through athletic training I have been part of three Super Bowls.”

The Chiefs, who won their first Super Bowl way back in 1970, would have to wait 50 years (until 2020) to win their next one. But Kansas City now has won three Super Bowls in five years, adding titles in 2023 and 2024.

“To have these kind of experiences, and to be able to share so much of it with my family, is really a dream come true,” said Glover, 45, who said his ultimate goal is to become the head athletic trainer for an NFL team.

“I am always open to see what opportunities God has for me and what doors he opens.”

More immediately, with the start of training camp last month, Glover is back to his seven-day-a-week schedule, sharing the organization’s goal of making it to the Super Bowl for the third consecutive season.

Glover has worked with all of the Chiefs star players at some point, including star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who he calls “a great, humble man.”

But perhaps the player he has worked with most is standout tight end Travis Kelce.

Kelce, who has become a huge name outside of football as the boyfriend of pop sensation Taylor Swift, injured his knee during his rookie preseason in 2013, sidelining him for the entire year. Glover was assigned to Kelce for his rehab.

With Glover’s daily help, Kelce was able to get back on the field the following year and emerged as a star, earning him the 2014 NFL Ed Block Courage Award as a model of inspiration, sportsmanship and courage.

After winning the award, Kelce invited Glover (he calls him “DG”) and his wife to attend the award ceremony with him in Baltimore.

“That was a huge honor for me, and I was blown away,” said Glover. “I look at it that I was just doing my job. He entrusted and believed in me throughout the process, and it worked out great.”

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PHOTOS (Top) At left, David Glover as a senor during the 1995-96 school year at Muskegon Catholic Central, and at right Glover shows the AFC Championship trophy after Kansas City's 17-10 win at Baltimore on Jan. 28. (Middle) Glover, left, hugs teammate Doug Dozier after a victory over rival Muskegon Mona Shores in 1995-1996 basketball season opener. MCC finished 17-7 and a District champion. (Below) Glover poses with this year's Super Bowl Championship trophy alongside fellow Chiefs athletic trainer Julie Frymyer. (Trophy photos courtesy of David Glover; 1996 photos courtesy of the MCC yearbook.)