Repeat-Minded North Central Rolling with Playoffs Approaching
By
John Vrancic
Special for MHSAA.com
October 22, 2021
POWERS — Eighteen and counting.
That’s the number at which North Central’s football winning streak stands after taking a forfeit victory from Gogebic last weekend.
The reigning 8-player Division 2 champion, however, has bigger fish to fry.
“The winning streak is something you don’t focus on,” said junior quarterback Luke Gorzinski, who pulled his hamstring in a 71-6 rout of Ontonagon on Oct. 8 but has returned. “First we have Forest Park, then we have the playoffs. It feels great to be back on the field. It feels like I’m part of the team again.”
The Jets naturally hope to retain their title, but know they must first turn their attention to tonight’s regular-season finale at Crystal Falls Forest Park.
North Central (8-0) finished 10-0 last season after defeating Portland St. Patrick 70-48 in Division 2 Final on Jan. 16.
“We try to look at it as if we hadn’t won a state championship yet,” said senior lineman Lane Nehring. “We don’t want to get too comfortable. We still have Forest Park. We’re not close in distance, but we have a rivalry going. Both of us have good teams.”
What has been the key to North Central’s success on the field?
“I think it’s our D line play,” said Nehring. “We work together and communicate. Ontonagon’s hook-and-ladder play caught us off guard. They scored on that play, which was bit of a wake-up call for us. Everybody looks at you to be a contender. We definitely have pressure on us to win another one.”
Off the field, coach Leo Gorzinski believes offseason work also has been key to the Jets’ success.
“The kids are invested,” he said. “They bought into the system and know what’s expected of them here at North Central. The interest in our program is there. The kids stay up, which makes it a little easier to keep them focused.
“We have a few people dinged up. We’re very fortunate to have a lot of depth. We have a couple people down who are key players.”
North Central is averaging 63 points per game, and its defense has allowed just 13 points this season. The Jets held Stephenson to minus-seven yards of total offense in a season-opening 46-0 win.
“You feel on top of the world right away,” said Luke Gorzinski. “You also have to be ready to play right away. It’s a good way to open the season, but any team can beat any other team on any given day or night. Stephenson has a good team. You can’t take any team for granted.”
No team is exempt from adversity, and the Jets will verify that.
They lost senior Alex Naser for the season Oct. 8 due to a hairline fracture below his right kneecap.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better year,” he said. “I’m going to stay on the sidelines and help as much as I can. I’ll be giving the guys a few pointers. It’s a little disappointing to not be able to play, but it’s all part of football.”
The Jets are taking this as a reminder of the importance of depth.
“Other guys have been involved in our offense,” said Coach Gorzinski. “They know what they need to do. We may not be as explosive as we were before, but we should still have an efficient offense.”
John Vrancic has covered high school sports in the Upper Peninsula since joining the Escanaba Daily Press staff in 1985. He is known most prominently across the peninsula for his extensive coverage of cross country and track & field that frequently appears in newspapers from the Wisconsin border to Lake Huron. He received the James Trethewey Award for Distinguished Service in 2015 from the Upper Peninsula Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association.
PHOTOS (Top) Luke Gorzinski (11) eludes a Portland St. Patrick defender during last season’s Division 2 championship win at Legacy Center in Brighton. (Middle) Wyatt Raab (28), another star of last season’s Final, is again a standout for the Jets.
MHSAA Vault: Shooks a Legend as Freshman Coach
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
September 4, 2026
The following originally appeared in the Lansing State Journal on Oct. 28, 2004, and was reprinted by the MHSAA that winter.
Wayne Shooks retired from coaching entirely in 2008 and died Tuesday at the age of 84.
Wayne Shooks tried the varsity football thing once. Some time during the late 1980s, longtime DeWitt coach Gail Thornton asked Shooks to be his offensive coordinator.
“I didn't sleep a night. My wife, after three weeks, said, ‘You're going back to freshmen,’” Shooks remembered.
And those three weeks were in the month of June.
But Shooks' wife must have been on to something. Because few, if any, freshman football coaches have accomplished what Shooks finished with one last win last fall.
He ended his 16th and final season as freshman coach with a 135-2-1 record.
Amazing.
“You can't lose a game for him, or you'll feel bad,” DeWitt senior Mat Brynick recalled from his days as a freshman. “Coach never says it, but it's what everyone expects.
“He taught us how to win.”
Guys like Shooks, 62, usually go unappreciated.
They get the kids fresh to high school, fresh to high school sports, and still learning things like not spiking the ball after a touchdown.
But few freshman football coaches are as legendary as Shooks is in DeWitt. They are so unappreciated that it's impossible to find out if anyone has accomplished what he's done.
Shook is not big on numbers. Never has been during his 41 years teaching in the district, or more than 20 coaching everything from football to basketball to wrestling to tennis. Oh, and track since 1980.
He also coached 8th-grade football for a few years, junior varsity for one season and was a varsity assistant. But he'll be remembered for what he did with the freshmen.
The losses came in 1993 to Mason during a terrible wind storm, and in 2002 to Greenville. That same year, the Panthers tied Haslett, meaning it was the only year during his tenure that DeWitt wasn't sure if it finished first in its league, since league titles aren't handed out at the freshmen level.
“The kids felt bad. They did their best,” Shooks remembered.
But the losses, however few, were more of a relief for Shooks than a letdown.
Don't take that to mean Shooks doesn't like to win.
Sure, he embraced the role of teacher as much as any freshman coach. But as DeWitt varsity coach Rob Zimmerman said, “If he was a 5th-grade coach, he'd be the most competitive 5th-grade coach you've ever seen.”
“I never pointed (our record) out, it was not our goal,” Shooks said. “Our goal was to win the next week. Although the kids knew it. They just assumed we were going to go 9-0, I guess.”
Guess so.
Shooks had more easily-attainable goals:
- Have fun
- Learn fundamentals
- Emphasize the logical stuff, like the importance of bringing equipment to school every day
“He does a really good job teaching expectations about being young men and being great students,” Zimmerman said. “It's gigantic.”
And it kept kids coming back to junior varsity and varsity. You could hear the fun coming out in Brynick's voice.
He was remembering his freshman football experience, remembering his time with perhaps Michigan's most successful coach at that level.
“I remember a few games, we'd find one play that works, and we ran it to death, pounding it and pounding it,” Brynick recalled. “He loves running the same play over and over. If you can do that, march 80 yards down the field, you're doing something right. No one could stop us.”
That was not all Brynick remembered, or didn't.
Shooks almost never yelled. If he did, it meant a kid messed something up over and over and over again.
He has a doctorate in zoology. Education is obviously a big deal. He loves to win, but he loves to teach. And he's hesitant to go looking for any attention for what he's done.
All made him a perfect freshmen football coach.
“Sometimes I don't think people understand about coaches. You think college level, they are coaches first, that's their job, but not at the high school level,” Shooks said.
“It's not what I've done, it's what they've done. I've always believed the focus should be on the kids. My job is a teacher. I coach because I love to coach.”
PHOTO DeWitt freshman coach Wayne Shooks, fourth from right, stands for a photo with this final football team in 2004. (Photos courtesy of the DeWitt football program.)