Byron 'Family' Filled with Family Ties
January 15, 2020
By Tim Robinson
Special for Second Half
BYRON — Every team refers to itself as a family in athletics.
But the Byron girls basketball team takes that concept to a new level.
There are two sets of sisters, a set of cousins, and three of the four coaches on the team coach their own daughters.
But, assistant coach Brandy Forgie said, there’s more than that.
“The family aspect doesn’t just come from being blood-related,” she said. “We’re all from Byron, born and raised, all but one of us as coaches, too. We kept our families in Byron, raised our kids here. All of our friends here, we have their kids. We started the basketball when they were little. They played together and grew up together.”
Sarah Marvin, who has averaged a double-double the last two seasons, agrees.
“I think it helps because we all know each other,” she said. “We know what agitates some people and what agitates others. Every day we come ready to work, and because we’re so close, we rely on each other to push each other and keep each other accountable to keep working hard.”
So far, so good.
The Eagles sit atop the Mid-Michigan Activities Conference standings and 8-0 overall with a team that has lofty aspirations.
Coach Theresa Marvin, whose fraternal twin daughters are Becky and Sarah, points out that there’s still a long season ahead.
“It’s just keeping it going through the winter,” she said. “You have to get through illnesses and exams in the middle of the winter and just being tired. It’s a long season. For us, the focus is winning the MMAC outright. We tied for the championship the last two years we were in the (Genesee Area Conference), and we tied for the MMAC title last year. We haven’t won an outright league title in a long time.”
Sarah, who plays guard offensively but also defends the post, played four sports last year as a sophomore. She was a two-way lineman on the JV football team, competed in last year’s inaugural Michigan Wrestling Association girls state tournament (at 215 pounds) and took home two MHSAA Finals championships in track & field, breaking school records set by her older sister Jessica and her mother, who competed in the throwing events at the University of Michigan.
Sarah didn’t play football this past fall, and wrestling might be a non-starter this winter.
“We’re focused on what the basketball team can do this year,” Theresa Marvin said as Sarah nodded in agreement. “We don’t want to take away from that.”
The Marvin twins have been playing together since the third grade and enjoy having each other as teammates — and as sounding boards.
“It’s always nice to have someone, even if we do sometimes get at each other like sisters do,” Sarah Marvin said. “But we can take practice home and talk about things that worked or didn’t work on the court. It’s really good to have her there and people you like to be around at practice.”
The other set of sisters on the team, junior Makayla and freshman Makenna Clement, are in an opposite situation. This is the first high school season they have been teammates.
“It’s pretty fun,” Makayla said. “I honestly forget she’s my sister when we’re on the court. We’re one big family. Everyone’s a sister to me.”
To a point.
“Sometimes I give her little pep talks,” Makayla said. “I do get after her sometimes. I’ll say, ‘Shoot the ball!’ I say that to my other teammates, but I don’t get as personal as I do with her.”
“It’s all good,” Makenna said, laughing, “She’s definitely a good resource. She’ll help me on different post moves and tips on better passing. All that.”
During a recent win over Montrose, Sarah Marvin looked to the bench and barked, “MOM!” to get Theresa’s attention, which came as a shock to Theresa Marvin when she was asked about it after the game.
“Did she? That’s not normal,” she said. “Sarah always says ‘Coach.’ She must have said that to get my attention.”
The other family connections are assistant coach Jim Passig and junior Olivia Passig, and cousins Haley (a senior) and junior Allison Hooley.
Brandy Forgie said that, after years of being a travel head coach, she had to adjust to both coaching her daughter Raegan, a senior, and being an assistant.
“In the beginning, it was hard for me to be there and watch someone coach my daughter,” she said. “But it got a lot easier. Coach Marvin is a fantastic coach and she knows how to deal with Raegan now.
Sort of a good cop/bad cop situation?
“Oh, I’m the good cop,” Brandy said as Raegan snickered.
Overall, Raegan added, it’s been a good experience.
“Not a lot of people get to experience (playing for a parent),” she said. “It can be hard sometimes because there are two different relationships (mother/daughter, coach/player) meshing together. But I really enjoy having her there.”
Theresa Marvin, in her sixth year as girls basketball coach, has coached with Passing and Forgie in the Byron youth program for more than a decade.
Marvin coached her oldest daughter, Jessica, during Jessica’s high school career, and coached Sarah from her freshman year on and Becky also as a sophomore.
“You have to be a coach first, absolutely,” she said. “You have to have guidelines, and we’re really good at it. For example, my girls don’t know anything the team doesn’t know beforehand. I think it puts too much pressure on my girls to be a middleman, and that’s not fair to them.”
After the game, Marvin said, basketball is left at the gym, at least in her case.
“When we get into the car, we won’t even talk about the game,” she said. “Other parents get the opportunity as parents to talk to their kids about the game. I don’t do that. My husband (Tim) will. He’ll play the parent role, but I don’t.”
That doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy watching her daughters play.
“I do enjoy that,” she said. “Sometimes, I wish I could be a parent in the stands and just watch them play, because it’s totally different. But my focus on the bench is (on) decisions I need to make for the team. When they’re out there, it’s not, ‘Oh, those are my daughters.’ I’m in basketball coach mode.”
In many ways, the Byron team’s fast start has been years in the making.
“Jim and Brandy and I spent many years and many weekends when these girls were between the fourth and eighth grades taking them around the state in tournaments,” Theresa Marvin said. “Some played on travel teams, but we kept these units together. It’s automatic for them. It’s about chemistry and the way they work together. As a varsity coach, it’s a dream to have a group of girls who grew up playing together and who all get along.”
There’s a long way to go in the 2019-20 season, but the Eagles hope their family ties, both literal and metaphorical, can lift them to new heights when the postseason begins.
PHOTOS: (Top) Theresa Marvin is in her sixth season coaching the Byron varsity, but has coached most of her players including her twin daughters since they were in the third grade. (Middle) The Eagles defend the lane during a 61-43 win over Goodrich on Dec. 6. (Below) This season's Byron girls basketball team. (Top and below photos courtesy of the Byron girls basketball program; middle photo by Terry Lyons.)
Energy, Competition, Moments & More Continue to Spark Unity Coach Soodsma
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
February 15, 2023
HUDSONVILLE – The pep band is blaring the school fight song, the boisterous crowd of a couple of thousand fans has long grown weary waiting for the opening tip-off, and the antsy players are crowded behind the locker room doors ready to spring like a pack of lions.
It's like the scene from the epic basketball movie "Hoosiers" where coach Norman Dale pauses before entering a rollicking and packed Friday night gymnasium to mutter to himself, "Welcome to Indiana basketball."
Scott Soodsma not only grasps the significance of that scene firsthand, it's why after four decades he still loves coaching.
"The fierce competition, the band, your heart pounding like a dog – it's still like it was 30 years ago," said Soodsma, the Hudsonville Unity Christian coach and dean of West Michigan basketball coaches in his 41st season of a run that’s included two states and three schools.
"How does it get any better than that? I'm always telling the kids to live for the moment. You can't replace all that; I still get the shivers. I've had so many moments like that."
Among those highlight moments are being one of just three Michigan coaches to win both girls and boys MHSAA Finals championships (Paul Cook of Lansing Eastern boys/Lansing Catholic girls and Johnny Jones of Lansing Everett were the others), and the moment he claims is easily No. 1 on his all-time personal list: coaching his daughter Amber as part of the 2006 Class B champ. Unity Christian also won a 2019 boys state title. He also won a third Finals championship with the boys at McBain Northern Michigan Christian.
Soodsma, 63, admits there have been myriad changes in coaching basketball since his first season at North Dakota's James Valley Christian High School in 1983 and coming to Unity Christian in 1993. For starters, players are bigger and stronger and are more schooled in the game through AAU and offseason programs. In addition, the influence of parents – for better or worse – has increased dramatically. As for the on-court game, Soodsma unabashedly admits he at first fought the institution of the 3-point shot. And the emphasis on winning has definitely only increased pressure on many coaches.
Soodsma, a member of the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan Hall of Fame who ranks ninth on the state's all-time boys wins list with 635, said he's adapted to the times. He wants to win as much as he ever has, still broods for days after losses and still considers himself receptive to the changing Xs and Os aspect of coaching.
But where his booming voice routinely used to resonate loudly into the middle sections of the Unity Christian bleachers, most of those comments now are only audible to fans perched in the first couple rows of the stands. Which is probably a good thing, Soodsma adds sheepishly.
Coaching, he readily contends, is still coaching – and winning still heads the list of priorities. He does add one disclaimer, however, in terms of winning. Whereas it used to be about a young coach building a resume through wins, it's now about what winning can do for today's teenager athlete. An old-school coach? Yeah, probably. But one who has learned much about himself, players and parents after 41 years.
"I've learned to enjoy the kids more; I'm definitely a different kind of person in the ’90s as opposed to now in the 2000s," he said. "I am a stubborn man, and it took a long time (to change). But winning? Oh, yeah. I've never backed down. The winning and losing hasn't changed, and I make no excuses that I still want to win."
Which is then strange, perhaps, that he doesn't list being just one of two coaches to win Finals titles in both girls and boys basketball as the zenith of coaching for 41 seasons. That honor goes to having his daughter, who went on to a stellar career at Dort College, on the state championship club.
"It's not that big of a deal," he said of being on the bench for what likely will never happen again as boys and girls basketball are now in the same season. "To me it's not an accomplishment I would rank (at the top). I'm just being honest. Winning a state title with Amber, and the picture I have of her and me in my office, that's the best."
How well has Soodsma adapted his coaching style over the years? Two people in a position to know offer their own opinions on the topic, including 22-year assistant Bruce Capel and Randy Oosterheert, who with son Rylan are the only father/son combination that Soodsma has coached.
"Scott has always been vocal on the sidelines as a coach. As I sit in the stands and watch as a spectator, same Scott," said Randy Oosterheert who played for Soodsma in 1992-93 and 1993-94 and whose son is a current Unity Christian player. "I will say that my son and I agree, if you do something wrong on the floor, he is the first person to greet you on the sidelines and point out your failure. However, if you do good, he is the first person to greet you on the sidelines and tell you good job.
"The latter is done at a little lower decibel level than the offense, and those with a watchful eye from up in the stands unfortunately (don’t) get to hear the praise, only the punishment. Scott is obviously very competitive, then and now. He expects a lot but gives a lot."
As far as the competitive side, Capel hasn’t seen much of a difference over their two decades together.
"Certainly, coaching is a lot different in how you approach kids from more than 20 years ago," he said. "There's a difference in society and you have to change with it, and he's done that. I don't think it's as much life and death with Scott anymore. But in terms of winning, I haven't seen that go away."
It's a coin flip as for how much longer Soodsma will be directing traffic from the sidelines. He broke into the top 10 among the all-time winningest boys coaches in Michigan history by passing Warren De La Salle's Bernie Holowicki and Ray Lauwers of Morley Stanwood last season. Next on the list is Big Rapids' Kent Ingles (644). When you factor in Soodsma's win total as both boys and girls coach, the 742-and-counting combined wins rank eighth in state history.
He does admit the desire to spend more time with wife Mary, the longtime away scorekeeper for the program, and 11 grandkids scattered from Denver to Seattle to San Diego. Retirement could strike when this season ends in March, or it could still be several Marches away. But when the end comes he anticipates making a contented transition from arguing with officials, coming to an "understanding" with parents and devising new Xs and Os. Soon, he mused, will come time for much-anticipated passions such as hunting, fishing and pickleball.
"For the first time I've contemplated it," he said. "There are a lot of things I'd like to do. I'm not a basketball junkie."
That may be true. But it'll still be tough to surrender those noisy pep bands, bright gymnasium lights and the din of Friday night crowds.
PHOTOS (Top) Hudsonville Unity Christian boys basketball coach Scott Soodsma stands in front of a portion of the school’s trophy case, which he’s helped fill over decades coaching basketball. (Middle) Soodsma and daughter Amber embrace during their team’s 2006 Class B Final victory. (Top photo by Steve Vedder. Middle photo courtesy of the Soodsma family.)