Ida Builds Greatest Season 'Brick by Brick'
By
Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
November 5, 2015
By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
IDA – As the greatest football season in Ida High School history rolls into the second week of the MHSAA playoffs, it could be said that winning isn’t even the best thing the Bluestreaks have done this year.
Winning certainly hasn’t been the most important thing they did this season.
With the community strongly backing the program throughout its undefeated season to date, which continues tonight in a Division 5 District Final at home against Dearborn Heights Robichaud, the team has given back – while building a collection of memories they will cherish no matter how long this history-making trip rolls on.
From hosting a fundraiser that hit much closer to home than they anticipated, to welcoming back a beloved member of the program after a health scare – and all while putting together the most successful run in school history – Ida has had a season to remember, even as it works to add more moments before the run is done.
Supporting a new teammate
The regular-season finale was designated as a fundraiser for childhood cancer awareness, and the game against rival Erie-Mason raised more than $4,000 for the St. Baldrick's Foundation, a private institution in California that gives grants to children who are battling cancer.
“I had seen something on Facebook and looked into it and decided that we needed to do something other than just get ready for football games,” Ida coach Tom Walentowski said. “We scheduled our Game 9 as a gold-out game with one of our rivals, Erie-Mason, and we raised money for childhood cancer awareness. The kids got big into that.”
Unknown at the time of the decision to raise funds for childhood cancer awareness, Chloe Arnold, a 5-year-old resident of the Ida community, was battling leukemia.
The close-knit Bluestreaks had room in their hearts to join another team. They joined Team Chloe. And in the regular-season finale, Team Chloe also was able to raise money through sales of merchandise.
One unique item was a helmet that had an Ida decal on one side and an Erie-Mason decal on the other. Players from both teams signed the helmets, which then were donated to Team Chloe for a silent auction that raised $665. A total of $2,315.42 was raised that night for Team Chloe.
“Gold is the color for cancer childhood awareness, and gold is in our school colors and it’s also in Erie-Mason’s school colors, so that’s why we decided that would be the game to do the gold-out,” Walentowski said. “We sold over 500 T-shirts. The kids were really into it.”
The greatest season
Entering the 2011 season, Ida had made the playoffs just three times and finished a regular season undefeated just once – in 1971. The Bluestreaks suddenly have made making the postseason a habit, going 6-3 before losing in the first round in 2011, just missing the postseason at 5-4 in 2012 and then returning to the playoffs each of the past three seasons. Last year, the team finished 8-3, tying the program record for victories with its most since 1991.
That is quite a turnaround for a program that had just three winning seasons from 1999-2010. The reversal of fortunes has been impressive. Prior to 2013, Ida had never scored more than 259 points in a season. The Bluestreaks scored 346 in 2013 and 349 in 2014, and they already have scored 428 this year.
This isn’t just an offensive juggernaut, either. Ida has allowed only 87 points through 10 games.
When asked what has made the difference, Walentowski opened the door to the weight room, where the players were busy doing their lifting on a Monday afternoon, and simply said, “These guys.”
Ida steamrolled its first seven opponents by a combined score of 310-40. Then, in the eighth week, Ida was tested. The Bluestreaks trailed Hillsdale 7-0 at halftime and pulled out a 20-17 victory in double overtime.
“I think when you come out at halftime and you’re down 7-0 and you win the game, obviously that helps your confidence,” Walentowski said. “They never got rattled, they just went about their game.
“When you do that, it just reaffirms to them that you just keep playing your game and things will be fine.”
Ida completed the perfect regular season with a 63-7 victory over Erie-Mason and then won its first playoff game 35-23 over Ann Arbor Father Gabriel Richard. It was just the second home playoff game in school history, and tonight’s game will be the third.
“I love hearing all of our fans roar when we get a first down or a touchdown,” senior quarterback David Kolakowski said.
Needless to say, the Ida community has gotten behind the winning football team in a big way.
“We hear from a lot of coaches from other teams that they have never known a football team that had such a good community like we do,” senior guard/linebacker Mike Zlonkovicz said. “We drove into town on playoff day, and there was the score from every game on the light posts.
“It was really touching to see that. We’re not only representing the entire school but the entire town.”
The Bluestreaks run an odd-front defense and an offense that so heavily relies on the running game that Walentowski said the old saying of “three yards and a cloud of dust” offense applies to this team in phrase only.
“We don’t like three yards, though,” he said. “We prefer to average eight or nine.”
Ida boasts a pair of 1,000-yard running backs in Eric Bugg and Nick Levicki. Bugg broke the single-season rushing record and also has scored the most touchdowns in school history. Levicki is second on the all-time touchdown list.
“Eric is, I guess for lack of a better term, he’s the poster boy of this team,” Walentowski said. “He is really a good young man. He’s a 3.5 student, he’s solid in the classroom, he’s a great citizen, he’s humble, he just works hard. He doesn’t particularly care for all the fanfare.”
Bugg said the pressure from last season’s success weighed on his mind this season.
“I didn’t know how to live up to it since we did so well last year,” he said. “We’re just trying to beat how we progressed last year, and so far we have.
“We have to get past districts and keep doing what we’re doing.”
Brick by brick
Defensive line coach Gary Deland delivers a motivating speech prior to every game. His topic this week was “brick by brick.” The players listen to him, and that message had extra importance because Deland is experiencing it in his personal life.
Midway through the season, Deland had to undergo emergency triple-bypass heart surgery, but he is back on the sidelines coaching the team and progressively getting better from week to week. In his words, he is improving brick by brick.
“He didn’t know it at the time, but in the first half of our first game against Jefferson, he was having a heart attack,” Walentowski said of Deland. “He got through the game and said his chest was bothering him, but he thought it was indigestion.
“A couple of weeks later it was still kind of bothering him on and off, and he said he should get it checked. We were getting ready to play Blissfield, which was Game 4, and he went to the hospital on Wednesday morning, and they said you’re not leaving, you are having open-heart surgery Thursday morning.”
A week after triple-bypass heart surgery, Deland was back, giving a motivational speech to the players.
“It was a great talk,” Walentowski said. “He has quite a personality, and the kids love him. For us, it was like we hadn’t better screw anything up before Coach D gets back here. I think we all had that attitude.
“The following week, he was back on the sidelines.”
It seemed like nothing was going to keep Deland from returning to his boys.
“It was a blur,” Deland said. “I was less than a few weeks out of surgery, and I was back on the sidelines. My doctor did not approve, but he knew I was going to be on the sidelines and he wasn’t going to be able to stop me.
“I was there; I was with my team. These are a great group of kids. They work hard, and they deserve everything the coaching staff can give them, and that’s why I wanted to be there for them. They have been there for this school and this community all year long.”
Although Deland said he blocks out thinking about his health on the sidelines, the players remain very aware of it.
“The kids have gone out of their way to protect me on the sidelines,” he said. “When a play is coming out of bounds, I have to get out of the way. I cannot get run over. So they do protect me on the sidelines so I don’t get run over by any play out of bounds.
“The doctor doesn’t want me to get too excited, and I try not to. Each week I can feel the momentum of my strength coming back, and I get a little more vocal and a little more animated on the sidelines.
“I have a passion for football, and the kids know it. They know I can blow up at any time, or I can be the grandfather for them.”
And, every week, he is the motivator with his speeches.
“From that very first practice in the summer to the last game as a senior, everything is built brick by brick,” Deland said. “I can draw a correlation between that and my recovery, what I’ve gone through. It’s the same thing. It’s brick by brick.
“You might take two steps forward, and you think you’re getting on to where you want to be as a team, and I might be getting on to how I want to feel, and the next thing you take that giant step backwards. You don’t feel so great, or all of a sudden you were praised by the coach the day before and now you’re screwing up every which way.
“But you’re still going forward, and that is how I paint my recovery, brick by brick, the same as this team. They will progress in the season and the playoffs brick by brick.”
Nobody knows how the season will end, but it already is the greatest football season in school history. The Bluestreaks are giving back to the community with their work for childhood cancer awareness, and they are banding together to win football games.
It is the time of their young lives.
“Being a quarterback was not always my intention,” Kolakowski said. “I was a wide receiver, but in my JV season I had to play quarterback. Then, in the playoff game, I was like, ‘It would be so sweet to be able to run this offense,’ and now I’m getting to live out my dream, which is awesome.”
It is a season that has been building, excuse the expression, brick by brick.
“I think these guys have had a lot of goals,” Walentowski said. “Six of the seniors were with us as sophomores, and there were two freshmen who were with us back then, so those eight kids, they’re still here, and they’ve been building every year.
“They expected to work hard and do well, and that’s what they’re doing. They don’t just like to play football, they like to play football together. There’s a big difference.”
Chip Mundy served as sports editor at the Brooklyn Exponent and Albion Recorder from 1980-86, and then as a reporter and later copy editor at the Jackson Citizen-Patriot from 1986-2011. He also co-authored Michigan Sports Trivia. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Ida running back Nick Levicki attempts to run through tacklers during his team's win over Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard last week. (Middle) Head coach Tom Walentowski, far left, and assistant Gary Deland talk things over with the team looking on. (Below) Fans hung a sign supporting Deland upon his return. (Top and middle photos by Ray Leighton. Bottom photo by Kim Farver.)
Capac Ends 14-Year Postseason Drought, Eager to Begin 8-Player Playoff Run
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
October 29, 2025
Not having the option to qualify for the 8-player postseason wasn’t something the Capac football concerned itself with the past three seasons.
Enrollment was too high at the school to be included in the MHSAA playoff field, and while the 2024 team most certainly would have made it, co-coach Troy Schneider said that since there was nothing that could be done about it, the players weren’t really concerned with it.
But this year, with the opportunity finally there, it lit a fire under the Chiefs.
“It was very motivating for us,” Capac senior quarterback Brody Tesnow said. “All summer, we had decent numbers show up to workouts. Our senior group was really pushing everyone. Our coaches have been on us all year, telling us this is our year that we can do this. I mean, really, we had a decent season last year, and I just feel like that pushed me more to come back this year and be even better.”
Capac is back in the playoffs for the first time since 2011, and at 7-2 is coming off its best regular season since 2001.
That year, the Chiefs advanced to the Division 5 Semifinals. This year’s run will start Friday night with a matchup at Brown City in 8-Player Division 1. A win would be the program’s first in the postseason since 2009.
“I’d love that,” Tesnow said. “That would be a great feeling for us, all the seniors. I remember that win over Deckerville (in Week 8), that was a surreal feeling. I could only imagine what a playoff win would feel like, especially after 14 years of not being in the playoffs.”
It’s been a long road for Capac, which has now had its first back-to-back winning seasons since running off four straight from 2008-11.
Enrollment at the school was near its height back then, peaking at 613 in 2008 before starting a steady decline. It first dipped below 400 in 2015, and by 2020 it was under 300.
That, naturally, led to a decline in football participation as well, and the team was unable to complete the 2020 season, a year where nearly everyone was granted access to the postseason because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After a 1-8 run in 2021, with a total school enrollment of 211, Capac made the decision to switch from 11-player to 8-player. In each of its first three seasons under the new format, Capac was over the 215-student limit for competing in the postseason. This year, the school is at 203.
“I didn’t have any decision in that, but our numbers had dropped steadily for a number of years in the school,” said Schneider, who had coached at Capac in 2000s, and took over as varsity coach with Bill Nestle in 2024. “When we came out of the (Blue Water Area Conference), we were a small school, and we were getting pretty well destroyed. Once we moved into the other conference (Greater Thumb), we were with Ubly and Harbor Beach, and I wasn’t coaching at the time, but those are some really good teams, too. There were quite a few people who did not want to make a move to 8-man, but the writing was on the wall with the numbers at the school and the numbers in the football program. It’s been a good move for us. Obviously, a lot of schools have gone to that in the last five years.”
When the program moved to 8-player in 2022, the current senior class was entering high school. Schneider and Nestle had been coaching that group in middle school, and it had shown quite a bit of promise.
There are currently 15 seniors on the varsity team, and while there are only 18 players total on the roster, the junior varsity and middle school programs are thriving, which has people in the high school program optimistic about a future that was pretty uncertain not long ago.
“We’ve got some potential coming up – things are looking pretty good,” Schneider said. “The junior group is small, so they’re going to have small numbers next year as seniors, but the three juniors we have are starters. The next three to four years, it should stay steady and we should be solid.”
But there’s still plenty of work to be done this year, and Capac is confident heading into the postseason despite the fact it lost to Brown City 61-22 in Week 3.
Much of that confidence comes from that Week 8 win against 2024 8-Player Division 1 champion Deckerville. The 28-20 triumph ended Deckerville’s 20-game win streak, as it had not lost since the 2023 Semifinals. It was the first regular-season loss for the Eagles since Sept. 29, 2023.
“Starting the season we went kind of slow, but beating Deckerville told us that we were on that top tier,” senior defensive end and tight end Wiley Roose said. “I mean, after that game, it was crazy. To me, it was definitely the highlight of my sports career in high school. The whole team really came around.”
Beating Deckerville is an accomplishment in its own right, but the fact the Eagles had this season defeated Brown City and Kingston – which delivered Capac’s two losses – was another boost of confidence for the Chiefs, who are ready to show how far they’ve come this fall.
“We watched some film from the game (against Brown City) earlier in the season, and we were just comparing what we were then to how we are now,” Tesnow said. “It’s a huge difference. I’m pumped. We’re proving everyone wrong, and I love that feeling of being the underdog and surprising people.”
Tesnow and his teammates are hoping to continue doing that, but what they’ve done already to get the Capac program back on the right track is a massive accomplishment in itself.
“Coach Nestle and I care about all our players, but seeing these kids develop for five years, go through school, go through some of the losing seasons early in middle school then slowly build and get better – I can think of a number of kids and how they improved with being more aggressive, being tougher and taking the next step,” Schneider said. “It’s really nice to see the kids develop through the program. It’s been sweet. It’s that much better because it’s a great group of kids. They’re wonderful.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Capac huddles up during the closing minutes of its Week 8 win over Deckerville. (Middle) Sam Schneider (22) carries the ball and follows his Chiefs blockers as they attempt to create an opening against the Eagles. (Photos courtesy of the Capac football program.)