Beecher Becoming a Football School Too
November 14, 2012
By Bill Khan
Special to Second Half
FLINT — Basketball is a source of pride at Flint Beecher, with a tradition of excellence that includes four boys and two girls MHSAA championships.
Courtney Hawkins is as proud as anyone, having played on the 1984-85 and 1986-87 championship teams.
But hoops mania is also a source of frustration for Hawkins, the school's football coach and athletic director.
Where basketball is king, other athletic programs can sometimes suffer, as more and more kids are persuaded into specializing in one sport and playing in travel leagues outside of their high school season.
If you want to get Hawkins up on his soap box, ask him about the effect AAU basketball has had on the overall athletic program at Beecher.
Mr. Hawkins, the floor is yours ...
"It kills me to watch some kids who, you know just from the stuff they can do athletically, would be a heck of a football player or could contend for the state championship in the 100 meters or high jump," Hawkins said. "It's absolutely sickening. There are only so many basketball scholarships. They still haven't figured it out. Every year when basketball season is over, there are a number of kids who won't get scholarships, because there are so few. Every single year, there's a handful of boys -- every year -- who come to me and say, 'Coach Hawkins, I wish I would've played football and track.' It's happened seven years in a row and it will happen this year.
"AAU basketball is great. It makes everything seem so good. They get to travel across the country. AAU basketball is big business. It's not the best for every kid, especially when they tell these kids they're going to be the next LeBron James and the next year I see them at the store."
Hawkins needs only to offer up himself as an example of how an athlete can have success beyond high school while still playing multiple sports as a prep. He was an all-stater in football, basketball, and track and field before focusing on football at Michigan State University. Hawkins went on to play nine seasons as a wide receiver in the NFL. He was a key member of MHSAA championship teams in basketball and track.
Beecher's reputation as a basketball school may finally be changing, albeit slowly.
Hawkins has only two members of last year's Class C championship basketball team on his football roster, but hopes that the team's first-ever run to the MHSAA Semifinals opens some eyes among hoopsters around school.
Beecher (8-4) will face Detroit Loyola (12-0) at 1 p.m. Saturday in a Division 7 Semifinal at Fenton High School. The Buccaneers get a Second Half High 5 this week after overcoming a 3-4 start to make the playoffs as an additional qualifier at 5-4 before winning three postseason games for the first time.
Beecher hopes to become only the fourth team with four losses to win an MHSAA championship. The Buccaneers can look to nearby Flint Powers Catholic, last year's Division 5 champion, for proof that it can be done.
"I didn't want to tell the team that, because they don't like other teams, but I looked at Powers coming in 5-4 and thought, 'Why can't we do the same thing?'" said senior Kermit Craig, a defensive end and tight end.
Beecher is in the playoffs for the sixth straight year, but this was the most unlikely team to advance this far. Beecher's other playoff teams won at least six games, including a 9-0 squad in 2009 that was bounced in the first round.
"Yeah, I'm surprised, but one thing we do is work hard every day," said senior Eric Cooper, a wide receiver and free safety. "I just came to practice every day motivating all the guys to work hard, keep their heads up, and we're going to get a blessing. That's what we got."
The Buccaneers squeaked out a 21-20 victory over Mt. Morris on Oct. 12 to begin their current five-game winning streak. Their crowning achievement so far was knocking off defending Division 7 champion Saginaw Nouvel in the Regional Final, 19-15. Now they're one victory away from a trip to Ford Field.
"I guess with the youth and the fact we snuck in at 5-4, it's surprising that we went this far," Hawkins said. "But with that being said, the way that they've worked and the way they've stayed committed, it's been one of my best groups from that standpoint. I've had some groups that had more success early in the season. This team has great senior leadership. We have some young kids who are just phenomenal in terms of following the senior leaders. They're very coachable, very good kids. This is my first year of having some kids who don't want to play basketball. My starting quarterback, (freshman) Marcus Wright, said, 'Coach, I'm a football player.' We don't get many of those here at Beecher."
There was a time when playoff appearances, let alone trips to the Semifinals, seemed more unlikely than what this 5-4 team has achieved in this postseason.
Hawkins returned to his alma mater in 2006 to take over a program that had 11 straight losing seasons. After a 2-7 inaugural season that saw considerable improvement, Beecher has gone 45-20 while playing as the smallest school in the Genesee Area Conference's Red Division.
"We had to change the attitude," Hawkins said. "There were a lot of people who were, 'We play basketball at Beecher.' That was the approach. Then there was the losing attitude throughout the whole football program. The first year, we were 2-7. We were in a lot of games, but you could see the losing attitude from being beat down all those years. We as a coaching staff stayed on them."
The fact that Hawkins would return to the community after an NFL career gives him considerable credibility with his players.
"That means a lot," Craig said. "Most people look up to him as a father. He came to build the program and led us to where we are now. I learned a lot from him. As a young man, I look up to him. If I have problems, I go to coach Hawkins and talk to him about it. He's more a man than a football coach. He leads you to the right way."
PHOTO: (Top) Beecher linebacker Tyrik Wicks (20) wraps up Saginaw Nouvel's Ryan Sullivan (4) as sophomore Mike Herd (15) also pursues during last weekend's Regional Final. (Middle) Flint Beecher coach Courtney Hawkins, who also played at Michigan State and in the NFL. (Click to see more from the Regional Final at HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Pack is Back: Longtime Coach Returns
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
September 18, 2020
MANCHESTER – Ben Pack never stopped being a coach. He just didn’t have a team for the past 18 years.
Pack stepped away as a football coach at Jackson High School in 2002, and other than a brief interim job in 2012, has not been on the sidelines since. But tonight, Pack is Back.
“When I got into coaching in the 1970s it was about the kids,” Pack said. “That’s the same reason I’m coming back.”
Pack was named head coach at Manchester in March. His season begins tonight when the Flying Dutchmen host Addison in a Cascades Conference opener.
It’s been a strange journey over the past few months. After he was hired, he had hoped to get into the Manchester halls and start looking to build the numbers for the Manchester football program, which has been down to around 35-40 players the last couple of seasons.
“When the Manchester job opened up, I applied and was hired in March,” Pack said. “Covid hit a week later. It’s been somewhat of a tailspin since. It’s nothing liked I had planned for.”
Not even the best planners could have predicted what 2020 has been like for high school football. But, when the season was brought back a few weeks ago, Pack and his colleagues from across the state went right to work. It’s a tough time to build a program.
“One of the Achilles we’ve been facing is low participation,” he said. “Trying to get the numbers up when school is not in session is very difficult. The players didn’t know me, I didn’t know them. I didn’t have any of their phone numbers or e-mail addresses. It was a struggle.
“I think if I would have been in the building, we could have resurrected those numbers to 45-50.”
Instead, Manchester is 37 kids strong playing high school football.
“The kids have done a fabulous job,” Pack said. “We’ve had a few hiccups, but we are young. About 30 of our kids have never stepped onto a varsity field. There are some good kids, but they don’t have any experience. I still expect them to do well. We coach them to do well. We’ve gone all in, and they’ve responded.”
Manchester is no stranger to the postseason or success. The Flying Dutchmen made the playoffs every year but once from 2003 to 2015. Last year they went 4-5. Pack is working in a new offense and modified defense as he embarks on his first season leading the program.
“Trying to get everything put into the game plan in eight or nine days is brutal,” he said. “But I love teaching kids the game of football. I love that part.”
Manchester is in Washtenaw County, about 20 miles from Pack’s hometown of Jackson. Pack was a three-sport athlete for Jackson High School before going on to Jackson Community College and, later, Central Michigan University.
He was coaching as soon as he became an adult, first as a volunteer. He was the head coach at Parma Western from 1983-1986, then coached 16 years at Jackson, from 1987 to 2002, leading the school to its first playoff appearances. He came back briefly in 2012 on an interim basis to coach Jackson. He was hired at the last minute, and the team went 0-9.
“The assistant superintendent tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘You have the experience. We need you to coach football,’” Pack said. “I did it, but everybody knew it was just for the year. We got through it.”
Pack has a career high school record of 75-119. He also was an assistant coach at Albion College for a short time. His most recent job as an assistant coach was at Parma Western after he retired from the classroom.
“I thought it was a good chance to get back into it,” he said. “I told my wife it was going to confirm if I really wanted to coach again. When you are a coach these days, it’s an all-in commitment. With the time commitment it takes, you really have to want to coach.”
Pack said he gave up coaching because of the opportunity to become an administrator, not because he didn’t have a passion for football.
"It was the right thing to do for my family,” he said. “I had to be a dad. I told my wife when I did it that as soon as I retired, I was going to get back into it.”
Pack said he missed it every day. His comeback begins tonight, but don’t expect a quick exit. He’s waited years to get back on the sidelines and is having a blast doing it.
“When I was out of coaching, I was still a coach,” he said. “I worked at it every single day in hopes that I would position myself to get back into it. I studied film. I was a habitual attender of college practices. I kept working on my playbook and schemes. I never stopped any of that. I worked on those things all of the time.”
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 Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTO: Manchester coach Ben Pack watches over his players as they stretch during practice this fall. (Photo by Doug Donnelly.)