Football Title Reflects Kingsley's Current Success, Recalls Loved Ones Passed
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
December 1, 2023
Kingsley football fans have become pretty familiar with VIP parking for home games over the last couple of seasons.
They may just start looking for a Kingsley VIP lot at Ford Field. The Stags just captured the MHSAA Division 6 championship trophy with a 38-24 victory over Almont, their second Finals championship and first since 2005.
The road to the Finals started with Kingsley hosting two playoff games, allowing great use of the VIP Parking of Trina’s Touchdown Club. The lot is adjacent to the school’s Rodes Field and provided in loving memory of Katrina “Trina” Kay Schueller, who passed away Oct. 21, 2021, at Munson Medical Center.
Those playoff games filling Trina’s Touchdown Club’s parking lot featured wins over Mason County Central 61-12 and Manistee 37-18, and 51-27 over Gladstone in the Regional Final. Kingsley then traveled down the road and defeated Reed City 37-7 in the Semifinal.
There may not have been designated VIP parking in Cadillac and Ford Field for the Stags’ followers, but there were a lot of VIPs at both stadiums with Schueller on their minds. Pretty much everyone with an affiliation with the highly-successful program or familiarity with the community’s struggles have become VIPs to the Kingsley coaching staff and many others.
Most certainly among the VIPs are head coach Tim Wooer, assistant coach Conner Schueller, his brother Carter Schueller, and his father Mike Schueller.
Conner was set to play the biggest regular-season game of his career the day after his mom passed. It was the regular-season finale against rival Traverse City St. Francis.
Wooer vividly remembers the moments leading up to that matchup, noting how difficult it was for Conner. But his then-fullback and now-assistant coach demonstrated amazing strength and maturity he stills exhibits today.
“He’s in his senior football season, and his mom is in the hospital for four weeks — he’s balancing that playing football and going to school,” Wooer recalled. “And then she passes, and he has the strength to come back to school and deliver the news to our team.
“I am sobbing watching this kid, and I’m just amazed,” Wooer continued. “The next night is Parents Night, and he’s on the field with his dad and brother without his mom.”
Conner still played, making a 4th-down goal line tackle to prevent a St. Francis touchdown. The Gladiators won the game, but Conner won the day, conquering much just to dress for the game.
The Stags went on to playoff wins over Kingsford 28-10 and Clare 32-6. They bowed out with a 33-18 Regional loss to Frankenmuth.
Conner’s junior year of 2020 had been cut short as the Kingsley was forced to forfeit its District Final to Reed City because several players and coaching staff tested positive for COVID-19. The Stags had Ford Field in their minds that season too after playoff wins over 38-13 Standish-Sterling 38-13 and Gladwin 63-16.
Conner, who celebrated his 20th birthday at Saturday’s Final, remembers his playing days and the challenges presented him.
“At the time it was ‘she’s not there,’ especially my senior year she wasn’t there to watch me and finish it out, but I know she’s watching above,” he said. “We were about to go play Reed City my junior year for Regionals, and everyone got sick and it ended our season unfortunately.”
Those challenges were on his mind at Ford Field, and running through his mind when he saw his brother and father in the stands. Carter, now a senior at Kingsley, had been unable to play football due to injuries.
“I thought about my brother – he unfortunately didn’t play this year due to his injuries, and I don’t really blame him for that,” Conner said. “I thought about him as well because it was just me and my dad and my brother now.
“It was very emotional,” Conner continued. “I got a glimpse of him in the strands.”
Carter also was filled with gratitude for the coaching staff for welcoming and mentoring him. He had become keenly aware of the amount of time coaches spend away from family at practices and going through film.
In addition to his family, Conner was thinking about many others in the Kingsley community – and other senior classes like his that didn’t get the chance to celebrate a championship.
He also was thinking about Justin Hansen, a 2003 graduate of Kingsley. Hansen was a captain on the 2002 conference championship team. He went on to become a special-operations Marine sergeant and was killed in action July 24, 2012, while deployed in Afghanistan. Hansen was on patrol as part of an operation in search of a high-value target when his team was hit with small arms fire.
On Saturday, Wooer was wearing a red T-shirt with the letters “USA” on the front and the name “Hansen” on the back. It also featured the number 54, Hansen’s in high school.
Wooer, who turned 54 in July, wore the shirt in Hansen’s memory knowing Hansen would be on the veteran coach’s mind and symbolizing Hansen’s presence with the team at Ford Field.
Wooer wants to make sure Hanson is never forgotten and reminds the soldier’s family the entire community remains behind them.
“I believe it is part of our job as a community to show our love to this family and help in any way possible to help them get through this process,” Wooers said. “After the funeral, we all went about life.
“We certainly still think about Justin and feel the pain,” he continued. “But nothing like a family does.”
Hansen’s tragic passing led to the creation of the annual Patriot Game in Traverse City in 2012 while Wooer was coaching Traverse City West. The game features crosstown rivals West and Traverse City Central every year and strives to honor veterans, first responders, active duty military, and area heroes who died while serving their country.
Saturday’s win over Almont left Wooer emotionally exhausted after all the preparations to do it right for the senior class, the school, the Kingsley community, the Schueller family and Hansen. Collectively, they’ve really become more like a family to the Stags coaching staff and many, many others.
“In terms of emotions, there is no doubt Justin was on my mind throughout the game,” Wooer said. “Trina and Conner have been – those are two huge pieces.
“And, a lot of my thoughts are with the seniors,” he continued. “You want to win the game, but also it is your last time with them.”
Wooer has learned a lot from his former players and coaches over the years. He’s become close friends with many of them, going back to his early days of coaching as a student-teacher at Elk Rapids. He also coached at Farewell and Traverse City West, the latter from 2008-2017 after a first tenure at Kingsley. He returned to Kingsley in 2018.
Schueller is among several former players and coaches who have been on Wooer’s coaching staffs over the years. Several continue today.
“I could give you lots of other stories about kids I have had,” Wooer said. “There comes this transition where they turn into such amazing men, you catch yourself every once in a while saying, ‘I want to be like him.’
“You get this huge smile on your face because you’re so proud of them, just like a mother or father would,” Wooer continued. “A coach always looks at his players like they’re part of his family.”
In addition to Conner, current assistants with long-term relationships with Wooer are Tom Kaleita, Kyle Smith, Ryan Zenner, Dan Goethals, Josh Merchant, Jordan Bradford, Steve Klinge, Connor Schueller, Mike Arlt, Larry Mikowski, Bobby Howell, Rob Whims and Jason Morrow.
This year’s seniors were Jon Pearson, Eli Graves, Skylar Workman, Gavyn Merchant, Max Goethals, Evan Trafford, Bode Bielas, Grant Kolbusz, James Person, Caleb Bott, Trenton Peacock, Noah Scribner and Gavin Dear. They and the coaching staff will be the center of attention as the community celebrates the football team at 7 p.m. this evening in the high school gymnasium.
The seniors probably won’t need VIP parking tonight. But if it would help, Conner would surely make arrangements to utilize Trina’s Touchdown Club. He’d have to add a shuttle though as Rodes Field is about a mile away from the school.
“It feels amazing — I don’t think it really hit any one yet, but I am sure it will,” Conner said. “After we won, it is truly something – it is something else I can’t explain.
“The seniors finally won it the way they were supposed to,” he continued. “It was a good class of seniors.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Kingsley students support their classmates during Saturday’s Division 6 Final at Ford Field. (2) Stags assistant coach Conner Schueller watches from the sideline during an Almont run back. (3) Kingsley coach Tim Wooer, in red, prepares to present the championship trophy to his team including Schueller, far right. (4) Trina’s Touchdown Club welcomes members to the VIP lot adjacent to the Kingsley stadium. (Ford Field photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos; touchdown club photo courtesy of the Kingsley football program.)
Undefeated Contenders Make Claims as 1925 High School Football Champion
By
Ron Pesch
MHSAA historian
November 14, 2025
It was another football season without an official postseason, just as they all were prior to 1975 in Michigan.
Well – that’s not exactly true – but we will detail that story on another day.
In the Great Lakes State, the 1925 prep season – now 100 years ago - provides a beautiful illustration of the fun, fascination, and frustration in proclaiming gridiron championships in Michigan before the arrival of the MHSAA playoffs.
“The Roaring Twenties” – built in the age of prosperity that followed the end of World War I – were an age of excess, an era of more, and a time where anything seemed possible.
The Twenties are also known as the Golden Age of College Football, and excitement for the sport certainly trickled down to the high school level. The need or desire to open or break ground on impressively bigger and better stadiums hit schools around the nation. The 1925 season marked the opening of the University of Pittsburgh’s Pitt Stadium, with potential seating for 70,000. In Michigan, just upriver on Saginaw Bay in Bay City, the town’s Central High School unveiled a facility with a capacity of 7,100. That season marked the end of college careers for University of Illinois’ legend Harold “Red” Grange, Dartmouth’s Andy Oberlander, and Stanford’s Ernie Nevers. It was also the first varsity season at University of Michigan for Muskegon High School’s Bennie Oosterbaan, who became the school’s first three-time football All-American.
With a lack of lighted fields in Michigan, prep contests were mostly played on Saturdays, and the kickoff to seasons began around mid-September. Scheduled games generally ended in late November, with a few schools around the state closing their slate with a traditional Thanksgiving Day game.
Call it what you will – bragging rights, statewide acclaim, untethered validation, or an unsatisfied heart – but the regular season did not end the fascination and desire to name a state champion. While the state’s governing body did not sponsor championships, that did not stop cities, schools, the media, and the fan base from attempts to assign bragging rights to teams with unbeaten records. That was pretty much the case since the start of the prep game, dating back to 1888.
The era was often filled with “post season” challenges for games between teams to crystalize a claim on a championship. In general, they seldom came to fruition.
The MHSAA
The recently-created Michigan High School Athletic Association established three classes based on hard student enrollment numbers, with Class A – comprised of the state’s largest schools, each with a minimum of 500 students – Class B with between 175 and 499 enrolled, and Class C for schools with fewer than 175 pupils. Back then, the classifications were not segmented with an equal number of schools in each Class, as they are in today’s Division format. Rather, there were many more schools that fell into Class B and Class C than Class A. (Additional subdividing, adding Class D, and Class E, would come later).
Spurred on by fans and sportswriters, schools who wanted a share of the spotlight saw those classifications conveniently offering a means to segment claims on a state title. Acknowledging that they could seldom compete successfully against the larger schools in football, there was nothing to stop unbeaten teams from declaring themselves Class B or Class C gridiron champions.
The Fall of '25
Following the results of mid-November games across the state, just two prep teams in Michigan’s emerged as possible claimants to the title in Class A. Both Flint Central and Grand Rapids Union were unbeaten and untied. Flint would play Bay City Central at home on Saturday, Nov. 21, then square off for a Thanksgiving game with Ann Arbor in the university city.
Union would complete its regular season in a showdown with crosstown rival Grand Rapids South on Nov. 21. Unbeaten in 1924, South had shared that season’s mythical state title with Flint Central.
Just days before kickoff however, a third school emerged, making lots of noise.
Port Huron Times-Herald reporter Ray Bouslog penned an article that appeared in the Tuesday, Nov. 17 edition.
“Comparing Port Huron with the other two undefeated teams, the locals appear to have just as good a record as their rivals,” he noted. Comparing scores of games among the three schools against common opponents, and opponent’s common opponents – a common practice among fans and sportswriters then and now – he felt the local school was among the state’s best regardless of class.
Two days later, in the same paper, Port Huron’s athletic director and head coach Melvin J. Myers, acknowledging they had two more games on their schedule, was quoted by Bouslog:
“Having gone through the schedule unbeaten, untied, and unscored on, we consider that we have as much a claim (on the state title) as either Grand Rapids Union or Flint Central. But unlike the situation in former years, when the teams were unable to agree on terms of the post season battle, we are willing to play either of these schools at home or away.”
It was a bold statement. Port Huron was classified as a Class B school by the MHSAA. Five of its eight wins had come against Class B or Class C competition. While its goal line had not been crossed, Port Huron had scored 151 points – an average of just under 19 per contest.
Port Huron also had scheduled a Turkey Day game with Richmond, a Class C opponent. Myers considered the contest “only a workout for the team,” with victory by a large margin expected. But Saturday’s contest was on the road against a University of Detroit High School squad – no pushover. Port Huron, of course, would fall out of the race with a defeat in either contest.
On Friday, the Flint Daily Journal, in an Extra edition, acknowledged the Myers’ challenge: “(T)he recognized leader in Class B having no blemish on her record ... Port Huron is willing to step out of her class (and) has hurled challenges at both Flint and Union, provided they are untied and unbeaten.”
Since Union did not have a scheduled Thanksgiving Day contest, Myers stated he was willing to reschedule the Richmond game and meet Union, in Grand Rapids, on the holiday. The move would set up a “playoff” for an undisputed championship.
Union coach John Truesdale responded in the Grand Rapids Press, stating “This is no time to talk such stuff. The proper time for serious entertainment of such ideas is after the South game is played. If we win Saturday we talk. If we lose, and that is not impossible, then we will be in a position to consider such things.”
Union brushed off Coach Myers’ desire for a game on Thanksgiving. Truesdale indicated he was willing to listen to proposals from either Flint or Port Huron – not Thanksgiving Day – but on Saturday, Nov. 28, and no later.
Flint coach Charles Bassett was blunt with his response to the talk: “It is absolutely out of the question for Flint to even think of playing Union or any other team on Nov 28. We have a regularly scheduled game with Ann Arbor only two days before that time. It would be physically impossible for the boys to play two games in three days.”
Emphasizing that his two remaining games had been scheduled over a year ago, he stated, “Union knows our schedule and so does every other school in Michigan. I have no intention whatever of trying to change it. … If Union or Port Huron desire to play at some later date, after my boys have had a suitable rest, I shall be glad to listen to their proposals.”
Stage is Nearly Set
All three schools won their game on Saturday, Nov. 21. Rocky Parsaca nailed three out of four drop-kicks as Union topped South, 9-0, while Port Huron slipped past U of D High, 6-0, on a fourth-quarter TD by senior fullback Cecil Turner. Flint crushed Bay City Central, 32-0, to set the stage.
With that win, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Bassett told the Journal, “If Central is successful against Ann Arbor tomorrow, we stand ready and willing to play either Port Huron or Grand Rapids Union for the undisputed state championship. This should settle all doubts as to our sincerity in believing we have the best team in the state. We are willing to test it on any neutral field.”
By then, however, negotiations for a three-way series involving Union had broken down and the news had reached the paper. In the same edition, it was noted that Union had packed up for the fall. Without a game on Thanksgiving or the Saturday following, Truesdale stated Union could not carry its squad for two full weeks without a game. On Monday, Nov. 24, the Press had announced that Union had closed out its football season and was now focused on basketball.
With that bit of news, the Flint paper stated, “It is probable that Flint and Port Huron will arrange a game for Saturday, Dec 5.”
Thanksgiving
Played on Ann Arbor’s high school field, located just three blocks from University of Michigan’s Ferry Field, Flint had its hands full, downing the hosts, 6-3, on a second-quarter touchdown by senior captain Lloyd Brazil, before 5,000 fans. A future star, and later head coach at the University of Detroit, Brazil intercepted an Ann Arbor pass during the closing minutes, capping a scoreless second half and sealing the win.
As expected, Port Huron trounced Richmond, 55-0.
Talk about a game with Flint to be played at Michigan State College at the new State stadium hit the papers. But discussions failed, and by the weekend, Port Huron and Flint Central also closed out their seasons.
With that, multiple schools laid claim to the crown proving, once again, football championships from the era are valid, but “mythical.”
Check back next week for a second installment on the 1925 football “championship” race.
PHOTOS (Top) From left, Port Huron standout Cecil Turner, Grand Rapids Union football coach John Truesdale, Flint Central players huddling and Central’s Lloyd Brazil. (Middle) The 1925 Flint Central team. (Below) The 1925 Port Huron team. (Photos gathered by Ron Pesch.)