2 Quarterbacks Vault Muskegon to #1
November 1, 2016
By Tom Kendra
Special for Second Half
Stopping the Muskegon High School offense has never been easy.
This year, it’s twice as tough.
The Big Reds, 9-1 and ranked No. 1 in the season-ending Associated Press Division 3 poll, are attacking opponents with a two-headed monster at quarterback – diminutive senior Kalil Pimpleton (5-7, 160) and physically imposing junior La’darius Jefferson (6-2, 210).
“I’m blessed with two great men, two great leaders, at quarterback,” said seventh-year Muskegon head coach Shane Fairfield, whose team won the Ottawa-Kent Conference Black title. “Using both of them makes us a better team. We don’t go into games with a specific plan for when each will play (quarterback). We see what the defense is doing and how our kids are responding and go from there.”
The result of the dual QB attack has been a Muskegon offense which is averaging 54 points and 428 total yards per game heading into Friday night’s Division 3 District championship game against visiting East Grand Rapids (8-2).
Pimpleton, who has run a 4.4 in the 40-yard dash and has verbally committed to Virginia Tech, has started all 10 games for the Big Reds.
He is primarily a running threat, regularly taking snaps out of the pistol formation from senior center Devin Sanders and then finding a seam somewhere along the line to squeeze through. “KP,” as he’s known, has carried 101 times for 1,081 yards and 17 rushing touchdowns. He also has been effective through the air, completing 34 of 66 passes for 639 yards and six more TDs.
“I look at the system we use as a chance for me to use all of my weapons,” said Pimpleton, who also has three punt returns for touchdowns on his resume. “It doesn’t matter if I am at QB or in the slot. My character doesn’t change, and my focus doesn’t change.”
As good as Pimpleton has been, there have been times in recent years where opponents have bottled up Muskegon’s running quarterbacks.
One example was the 2014 Division 3 championship game at Ford Field, where Orchard Lake St. Mary’s shut down the Big Reds in a 7-0 victory. Another was last year’s Division 2 Regional championship game at Lowell, where Pimpleton and the Muskegon attack got stuck in the mud in a 36-7 loss.
If that same scenario begins to unfold this fall, Muskegon offensive coordinator Brent White has a Plan B.
And what a Plan B it is.
Jefferson, who has the look of Cam Newton and the big arm to match, presents a whole new set of challenges for opposing defenses when he enters the game, which is normally around the Big Reds’ third offensive series. Jefferson brings a deep vertical passing threat, mixed with the size and strength to run over linebackers.
“I always tell myself that I can’t be stopped – that’s the mentality I like to play with,” said Jefferson, who also has delivered some big hits this fall during limited playing time at outside linebacker. “I just want to thank my coaches for using a two-QB system. Now we’ve got two hungry guys trying to win a state title.”
The benefits of Muskegon’s dual quarterback offense were apparent in last week’s 63-14 Division 3 Pre-District victory over visiting Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern.
Muskegon’s offense struggled briefly in the early going before Jefferson ignited the Big Reds and their crowd with a 56-yard TD pass to Pimpleton, who had moved out to slot receiver. Near the end of the first quarter, Jefferson scored on a 2-yard run.
In the second quarter, it was back to Pimpleton at QB and he led a scoring drive, ultimately sprinting in from five yards out. And then it was back to Jefferson, who hit standout senior wide receiver Jacorey Sullivan on a 44-yard bomb over the top to complete Muskegon’s first-half scoring.
“The idea is that we have a system and our kids know how to play with either quarterback,” explained Fairfield. “If we do it right, it puts much more pressure on the defense, not knowing what they are going to get.”
Jefferson finished the win over Forest Hills Northern 7 of 8 passing for 175 yards and three touchdowns, along with 11 rushes for 91 yards and two more touchdowns. For the season, Jefferson has completed 42 of 69 passes for 724 yards and 15 touchdowns, against just two interceptions. He has rushed 66 times for 534 yards and 10 TDs.
The two quarterbacks are by far Muskegon’s top two rushers in an offense that lines up with four receivers on most downs. The lone starter in the backfield is senior Division I linebacker prospect Andrew Ward (6-1, 210), who is a devastating lead blocker. In recent weeks, the Big Reds have started to hurt opponents with jet sweeps featuring speedy juniors Da’vion McCall, Clinton Jefferson and Lonnie Clark Jr.
Fairfield, whose team has ripped off eight straight wins after a Week 2 loss to pass-happy Lincolnshire (Ill.) Stevenson, has guided Muskegon to MHSAA Finals three times in his first six years as head coach. The Big Reds have failed to take that final step on each of those occasions, falling to Birmingham Brother Rice in 2012 and 2013 and Orchard Lake St. Mary’s in 2014.
Given that recent heartbreak, the Big Reds have made it clear since Day 1 that the only acceptable outcome this season is an MHSAA title. The next challenge is a dandy matchup in Friday’s District championship game between two of the top tradition-rich programs in Michigan high school football history.
Muskegon is the state’s winningest with 816 wins and 17 state titles, including five in the MHSAA playoff era. East Grand Rapids, meanwhile, has won 11 championships since the playoffs began in 1975, including five in a row from 2006 to 2010. The Pioneers have won seven straight this fall after stumbling to a 1-2 start.
The two powers have played only two times in history, with Muskegon winning both times.
“We need to come out and play our game,” said Pimpleton. “We believe in our coaches and that they will put us in the best spots to win. That’s really all that matters. We can’t lose sight that no matter who is out there, that is our one goal.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Muskegon quarterback La'darius Jefferson picks up yards on the ground this season against Byron Center. (Middle) Kalil Pimpleton, here following through on a pass, also is a threat to run. (Jefferson photo courtesy of Muskegon football program, Pimpleton photo by Tim Reilly.)
Adrian Football's 'Storyteller' Koehn Begins 52nd Season on Radio Waves
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
September 3, 2025
John Koehn used to collect Sports Illustrated covers – with good reason.
Koehn, 74, has been a sports broadcaster at WLEN, a 3,000-watt station at 103.9 on the FM dial in Lenawee County for more than 50 years. If you are at a football or basketball game where Koehn is broadcasting, chances are you will see a “WLEN” banner hanging nearby.
That banner has been in some unique settings.
“We used to collect Sports Illustrated covers because every once in a while, someone would take a photo and I’d be in the background with the WLEN banner doing the game,” Koehn said. “Over the years we had six or seven Sports Illustrated covers that popped up like that. We went all over back then.”
Koehn broadcast University of Michigan football and basketball games for two decades for WLEN, bringing the action home to listeners in Lenawee County long before the days of streaming services or Internet radio. He did live play-by-play at The Spectrum in Philadelphia when Michigan battled Indiana University in the NCAA men’s basketball championship game in 1976.
“That’s always been my favorite Michigan team ever,” Koehn said.
His favorite thing to broadcast – and the one that has stuck the longest – is Adrian High School football. Koehn did his first Maples football game in 1974 and has done almost every Adrian game since, live on the air. Last week he kicked off his 52nd year doing Maples football when Adrian defeated Dundee 21-0 at Maple Stadium.
“I’ve only missed a handful of games,” he said. “I had a wedding once, and I think another time or two I was sick. I thought I was going to do this maybe three or four years. Here I am. On and on it went.”
Joel Przygodski is the Adrian head football coach. Before that he was an assistant for several seasons and got to know Koehn. Now, they do a weekly pregame coaches show together.
“John has been an important part of the Adrian football community,” Przygodski said. “Friends and families of the program have had the pleasure of hearing his voice call our games for a long time. I enjoy our weekly conversations during the season, and we always seem to talk about players and teams from the past.”
Koehn’s voice is familiar to sports fans in Adrian and Lenawee County. In addition to broadcasting Maples football, he also does at least one county high school basketball game a week and still broadcasts live a handful of baseball and softball games every spring.
“Spring sports are tougher,” he said. “Games get canceled, and it becomes difficult to make them up. The weather outside is unpredictable.”
Koehn grew up in Adrian and played football for the Maples in 1967 and 1968. His father, also John Koehn, held various jobs in the county, including teaching a class at Adrian College.
“He was working on his MBA and teaching at Adrian College,” Koehn said. “For his senior business thesis class, he assigned his students a semester project to research the feasibility of starting an FM radio station in Adrian. He gave them all good grades and used the information to start the station.”
His father was granted the license for 103.9 FM in 1965.
“I was in high school, but I was here when it all started,” Koehn said. “I was pushing a broom and that kind of stuff.”
Adrian had an AM radio station at the time, but the FM station was new.
“The first few years we just gave away FM radios and FM car converters so that people could get the signal,” Koehn said.
One of the first things his father did was form a small network of five stations to broadcast University of Michigan football and basketball games.
“When we started, Michigan allowed any station to broadcast as long as they paid the fees,” Koehn said. “There were at least seven stations. Our station started doing Michigan in 1965 when they went on the air. They were able to do that until the mid-1980s before they went to (WJR) network.”
Koehn, who graduated from Notre Dame, never intended to get into broadcasting. He was at an Adrian basketball game when it happened.
“My first game was a basketball game,” he said. “I just went to help out. I was there, doing stats, and the second half started and the general manager who was doing the game said, ‘Here,’ and handed me the microphone. I got handed a soapbox.”
His dad also launched an FM station in Monroe, 98.3, and gave famed WJR host Paul W. Smith his first radio job.
“My dad knew all about big radio,” Koehn said. “He always said the only way we are going to survive is to make it local, local, local.”
For Adrian, University of Michigan football and basketball was local. He put a lot of miles on his car.
“Back in the day, Michigan basketball played games on Thursdays and Saturdays,” he said. “I remember one weekend, on a Thursday morning, I drove to Madison, Wisconsin, to do a Michigan basketball game. I drove home after the game, got home probably 6 a.m., got some sleep, did a high school game Friday night, and Saturday afternoon I went up to Ann Arbor to do Michigan-Indiana and did a high school game Saturday night. I didn’t have much in the way of pipes by then.”
He also was part of the MHSAA broadcasting network for years.
“I was probably doing 80 basketball games a season back then and driving everywhere,” he said.
During his broadcasts, Koehn keeps his own running stats and often refers back to them throughout his coverage. At halftime, he gives halftime stats, such as leading rushers in football, and tracks things like penalties and first downs.
Koehn said he is an Adrian fan for every game – except when the Maples are playing another local team.
“I’m a fan,” he said. “The only time I’m not is when Adrian is playing another county school. You have to be nonpartisan with that.”
The radio stations have remained in the family. WLEN and 96.5 The Cave, an all-sports format station in Adrian, are owned by his late father’s trust. The other two stations in Adrian, 95.3 FM and WABJ – an AM radio station that was around when WLEN was created – are owned by John’s sister Julie. All four stations are housed in one building in downtown Adrian.
Koehn, who is married, has two children, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His bucket list is to broadcast a hockey game.
While he waits to do that, Koehn remains hooked on broadcasting Adrian football.
“You get to be a little crazy,” he said. “You get into doing the games. We are telling stories and creating memories for people. I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘Oh, I remember that one game. I was listening. That was one heck of a game.’ It’s all linked to some other memory outside of the football game. Basically, I’m a storyteller – a partisan storyteller.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a news and sports reporter at the Adrian Daily Telegram and the Monroe News for 30 years, including 10 years as city editor in Monroe. He's written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. He is now publisher and editor of The Blissfield Advance, a weekly newspaper. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS John Koehn begins his 52nd season as the voice of Adrian High School football, broadcasting last week from Maple Stadium. (Photos by Deloris Clark-Cheaney.)