Fresh from Cancer Fight, Disbrow Returns to Coaching Ready to Continue 'Winning the Day'
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
September 16, 2026
Nikki Disbrow grabbed her keys and started to get into the family vehicle to pick up her son from a summer 7-on-7 practice. Her husband, Sand Creek football coach Sid Disbrow, told her he wanted to come, too.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “You can barely walk.”
Sid, who had just returned home from surgery to have a tumor removed while battling colorectal cancer for the second time in three years, wasn’t having it. He got in the vehicle.
When Nikki arrived at the field, Sid opened the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
Sid, unrelenting, got out of the car and began making his way to the field.
“She was kind of my walker,” he said. “I couldn’t walk on my own, but I needed to address the kids. I needed to be out there. I needed to show them that it’s about winning the day, because you never know what might happen.”
Disbrow, 49, has been coach for just about 30 years. It’s part of who he is in the Sand Creek school district and community. He’s been an assistant football coach, youth baseball and softball coach, varsity boys and middle school basketball coach. He’s detailed, organized, loves the competition and thrives on being around kids.
Last year around the eighth or ninth week of the football season, he began noticing the symptoms of the cancer he had chemotherapy and radiation to treat a couple years prior. He finished the season, knowing middle school basketball was getting ready to start.
Within a week of finding out the cancer had indeed returned, he was able to get everything scheduled and begin chemotherapy. He was getting treated at Flower Hospital in Sylvania, Ohio, about 45 minutes from Sand Creek.
“They would give me the last appointment of the day so I could get there after school,” he said. “They were great to work with.”
It wasn’t easy trying to maintain a rigorous coaching schedule while fighting cancer.
“There are no rules in cancer. You don’t get to do as you wish. Chemotherapy is real,” Disbrow said.
He wasn’t deterred. He coached the entire middle school basketball season – which ended around Christmas. Some days, he was exhausted. Still, quitting wasn’t an option.
“I wanted to be out there for my son and all of the other kids that I’ve been coaching all the way through,” he said. “That was important to me. That was my driving force.”
Not long after basketball season ended, he began eight weeks of radiation. It ended just in time for him to coach his son’s baseball team.
After that season ended, something still wasn’t right. Doctors found a tumor, although they weren’t sure if it was shrinking or growing. They gave him an option – surgery to remove it or wait a few months, get tested again. At that point, if it returned, it meant starting chemotherapy and radiation all over again. He checked the calendar.
“I thought about football season,” he said. “My son is on JV this year. That’s not something I want to miss.”
He went in for surgery and had the tumor successfully removed. Doctors found out later it was indeed cancerous and growing.
“I made the right decision,” he said.
He was recovering from that round of surgery when he made it onto the football field to talk to the Aggies players. The football field is more than a place for Disbrow to forget all about cancer and focus on the lives of the young men on the field. It’s a place him and Nikki, a former varsity volleyball coach at Sand Creek herself, got married.
“It’s probably the first time there was a wedding on the football field, and probably the last time,” he said.
On Aug. 3 – one week before two-a-days started for Sand Creek – he found out the cancer was in remission. He was back with the team when practice began.
“I brought my lawn chair with me,” he said. “There were some days where I just didn’t have the strength.”
Through it all, he’s endured, never wavering.
“The credit goes to God,” he said. “I don’t see how people go through something like this without their faith. I owe it all to Him. He’s given me this chance to continue to teach and coach. I don’t take that lightly.”
Sand Creek varsity football coach Derek Hewitt said seeing Disbrow come back to practice after all he went through was inspiring. Disbrow coaches special teams, the quarterbacks and helps Hewitt with the offense. On most Fridays he’s in the coach’s box.
“It’s great to have him back out there,” Hewitt said. “He’s not the scout team quarterback anymore, but he’s there, every day. It’s great for me to have him by my side.”
One thing Disbrow is not planning to do is stop coaching. In fact, he’s going to be even busier. He was recently named the school’s junior varsity boys basketball head coach.
“Coaching really kept me going through all of this,” he said. “The kids have been great through it all.”
The father of four is from Morenci, the neighboring town to the south and heated rival of Sand Creek, which he admits caused some angst when he moved from coaching football at his alma mater to Sand Creek.
He was part of the 1995 Morenci football team that played for a Class C championship in the Pontiac Silverdome, graduating in 1996. He was a sophomore at Adrian College when a Morenci coach asked him to join that coaching staff. A couple years later he began coaching at Sand Creek.
Now, he, his wife and four kids are engrained in the Aggies community.
“I wasn’t one of those people who got into teaching because I wanted to coach,” he said. “I wanted to be a teacher, to be around young people and help them. Coaching was something I loved once I started doing it. It’s who we are now as a family. It’s part of our lives.”
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 (Top) Sand Creek assistant football coach Sid Disbrow mans the headset while on the sideline during a game. (Middle) Disbrow lays in a hospital bed while receiving care in 2023. (Below) Disbrow stands for a photo with wife Nikki last fall. (Top photo by Becky Serin. Hospital and family photos courtesy of the Disbrow family.)
Drive Complete: 2019 Finals in Review
December 3, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Teams that reach the MHSAA Football Finals have been running around in helmets and pads for just short of four months, starting when we’re keeping an eye out for high temperatures and finishing as we watch the snow fall.
Second Half covered all 10 championship games last weekend at Ford Field and two weekends ago at the Superior Dome, with quick recaps and links (click on the game scores) to those stories below followed by notations of performances entered into the MHSAA Finals record book and a report on some of the biggest and best stories to emerge from the 2019 Finals. See also below highlights from the weekend from State Champs Sports Network, and keep an eye on Second Half for a schedule of replays of the 8 and 11-Player Finals on FOX Sports Detroit.
Finals in Review
11-Player Division 1: Davison 35, Brighton 25
The two first-time Finals qualifiers helped fill most of Ford Field’s lower bowl Saturday, and Davison emerged with its first championship. The game was highlighted by the play of standout quarterbacks Brendan Sullivan of Davison and Colby Newburg of Brighton, who both were added to the MHSAA record book for their performances (see more below).
11-Player Division 2: Muskegon Mona Shores 35, Detroit Martin Luther King 26
The Sailors earned the first of the weekend’s “upsets,” never trailing against the 2018 Division 3 champion Crusaders. For the second-straight week, back-up quarterback Brady Rose led the way with all-stater Caden Broersma injured. After King came within two points early in the fourth quarter, Rose led another scoring drive to put the game away.
11-Player Division 3: River Rouge 30, Muskegon 7
River Rouge suffered only one loss this season and played a solid group of opponents, so calling this an upset is tough – but likely still accurate as Muskegon had been considered the state’s best regardless of division (especially after defeating Mona Shores 53-0 during the regular season) and had received national recognition. Rouge scored the final 30 points after an early deficit.
11-Player Division 4: Grand Rapids Catholic Central 44, Detroit Country Day 0
When these two met in the 2016 Final, they combined to score 17 points. This rematch saw many more, at least for GRCC as it scored 44 of the 111 total points Country Day gave up this season. Cougars quarterback Joey Silveri, just a sophomore, cemented himself as a player to watch over the next two years as well, and receiver Jace Williams tied a Finals record as GRCC won its third title in four seasons.
11-Player Division 5: Lansing Catholic 31, Almont 17
The Cougars came back from a bit of an ugly first half offensively to claim their first championship since 1985. Lansing Catholic scored the final 24 points of the game, also earning coach Jim Ahern his first Finals title of a career that began 50 years ago. This was the third Cougars team he had brought to Ford Field this decade, while Almont was making its first Finals appearance.
11-Player Division 6: Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central 7, Maple City Glen Lake 0
The Falcons scored their first Finals championship since 2014 in one of the lowest-scoring title games in 45 seasons of MHSAA Football Playoffs. SMCC put the game’s only points on the board on quarterback Wyatt Bergmoser’s six-yard TD run with 7:17 to play in the first half. The Falcons otherwise dominated defensively and controlled the clock to secure the win.
11-Player Division 7: Pewamo-Westphalia 14, Jackson Lumen Christi 0
The arguably most power-packed of the weekend’s Finals saw Pewamo-Westphalia win its third championship in four seasons and end a 35-game winning streak for Lumen Christi, which had won three straight Division 6 titles. Both teams had fewer than 120 yards of total offense, but P-W was able to get into the end zone with three seconds left in the first half and again during the game’s final minutes to finish an unbeaten fall.
11-Player Division 8: Reading 33, Beal City 6
The Rangers opened the weekend with a repeat championship in Division 8, moving to 27-1 over the last two seasons with only a 14-0 Week 1 loss this fall to Pewamo-Westphalia breaking up the perfection. Reading scored the final 19 points and outrushed Beal City 260-42. The Aggies were playing in the Finals for the first time since 2013 and coming off two-straight sub-.500 seasons.
8-Player Division 1: Colon 26, Suttons Bay 14
Colon also won a Division 1 matchup of two teams seeking their first championship, following two-way standout Brandon Crawford to victory at the Superior Dome. The game was tied into the final minute of the third quarter, but the Magi scored the final 12 points to finish off an undefeated season and their closest of 13 wins.
8-Player Division 2: Pickford 48, Portland St. Patrick 15
The Panthers returned to the 8-Player Finals and claimed their first championship after finishing Division 1 runner-up in 2018. Quarterback Jimmy Storey closed his high school career running for three touchdowns and throwing for two more, helping hand the Shamrocks their second runner-up finish in three seasons and only loss of this fall.
Record Report
Star quarterbacks found the spotlight at both the 11 and 8-Player Finals. The Division 1 game saw Brighton’s Colby Newburg (332 yards) and Davison’s Brendan Sullivan (330) both make the all-time 11-Player Finals record list for total offense and passing yards as well with 290 and 249, respectively. Grand Rapids Catholic Central’s Joey Silveri is ranked 10th in Finals total offense after his 375 yards (236 passing, 139 rushing) in Division 4, and Pickford’s Jimmy Storey ranks sixth on the 8-Player Finals list with 298 totals yards after passing for 152 and running for 146.
Silveri also made the 11-player passing touchdowns list with four, and Jace Williams was the main beneficiary. He tied the 11-Player Finals record with three touchdown catches and was the first to catch that many since 2013.
Colon’s Brandon Crawford made the 8-player records twice for rushing – his 205 yards were the third-most in 8-Player Finals history, and his 94-yard touchdown run was the longest rushing play. Colon as a team ranked fifth with 340 yards rushing.
Muskegon Mona Shores kicker Keegan DeKuiper and Davison kicker Trennor Rhodes both were added to the 11-player list for most extra points in a Final, both connecting on all five of their respective attempts.
Brighton, while in defeat, made the 11-Player Finals list with 23 first downs against Davison. Detroit Martin Luther King and Muskegon Mona Shores in Division 2 joined Hartford and Onsted from the 1993 Class CC Final as the only opponents to go an entire championship game without punting.
Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central became one of eight teams to win a championship by scoring seven points or fewer.
Both Grand Rapids Catholic Central and Reading tied for second on the first downs allowed list giving up only four apiece.
Lansing Catholic’s Zack Stone and Zach Gillespie both snagged two interceptions, joining 31 others tied for third for most interceptions in one championship game.
There previously was not a category for most extra-point attempts blocked, but it was impossible to not add one after Detroit Country Day blocked five tries by Grand Rapids Catholic Central.
Stories Behind the Scores
First-time champions: They reigned again, with Davison, Muskegon Mona Shores, River Rouge, Colon and Pickford matching last season’s total of five first-time winners. That makes 10 first-time champions over the last two seasons, compared with a combined three in 2016 and 2017.
Defense wins championships: After no Finals shutouts in 2018 and just one apiece in 2017 and 2016, this season’s Finals saw Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central, Grand Rapids Catholic Central and Pewamo-Westphalia all hold their opponents scoreless. Total, the 10 runner-up teams scored an average of 11 points. River Rouge saw its season defensive points allowed average fall to 7.6, GRCC’s fell to 8.8, P-W’s to 4.5 and Reading’s to 7.4 points per game. Colon finished the season giving up just 5.5 points per game – perhaps even more notable given the wide-open offensive attack characteristic of 8-player.
Unsung no more: A pair of previously or at least little-known quarterbacks before last week’s 11-Player Finals will certainly be well-known entering next fall. As noted above, Mona Shores junior Brady Rose was forced into action early in his team’s one-point Semifinal win over Walled Lake Western, and he finished an incredible two weeks running for 90 yards and three touchdowns, completing 8-of-11 passes for 122 yards and a score and making a team-high 10 tackles with an interception against King. River Rouge junior Mareyohn Hrabowski burst onto the statewide scene in the weekend’s final game with 175 yards and three touchdowns on the ground and 45 yards passing against Muskegon.
Ahern’s work rewarded: As noted above, Lansing Catholic coach Jim Ahern finished with a Finals championship for the first time, a well-deserved achievement for an architect of multiple programs that have had elite success. Ahern ranks 13th in MHSAA history with a 301-152-6 record at three in-state schools beginning in 1969 (and not counting his seasons coaching in Florida during the end of the last decade). In addition to bringing the Cougars to Ford Field three times over the last nine years, Ahern led Ithaca’s program from 1972-2003. Among his standouts there was current Yellowjackets coach Terry Hessbrook, who is the first to credit Ahern with building the foundation that has led to Ithaca’s five Division 6 titles and two runner-up finishes over the last decade. Ahern pioneered the spread offense in this state, writing a book nearly 20 years ago teaching the scheme that is now used all over the country.
Fun with numbers: Friday’s four-game attendance was just 17,971 fans – the lowest of the decade for one day at Ford Field. But Saturday’s four-game attendance of 30,466 was the highest since 2010 for one day. Together, the 48,437 fans for the weekend fell in line with the five-year average for the 11-Player Finals.
Second Half’s weekly “Drive for Detroit” previews are powered by MI Student Aid, a part of the Office of Postsecondary Financial Planning located within the Michigan Department of Treasury. MI Student Aid encourages students to pursue postsecondary education by providing access to student financial resources and information. MI Student Aid administers the state’s 529 college savings programs (MET/MESP), as well as scholarship and grant programs that help make college Accessible, Affordable and Attainable for you. Connect with MI Student Aid at www.michigan.gov/mistudentaid and find more information on Facebook and Twitter @mistudentaid.
PHOTOS: (Top) Davison and Brighton fans helped fill the lower bowl of Ford Field on Saturday. (Middle) Pickford celebrates its championship at the Superior Dome two weekends ago. (Top photo by Paige Winne; middle photo by Cara Kamps.)