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.)
Hoops Finds Annual Home During Holidays
December 27, 2019
By Ron Pesch
Special for Second Half
Nothing says the Holidays like a high school basketball tournament.
It started, like many things do, with a drip. Well, make that a dribble.
The Michigan High School Athletic Association has allowed Holiday basketball tournaments for years. When was the first? That’s hard to establish. No one really kept track of such. A 1934 Wakefield News article indicates that a “Christmas Tournament will be held for the (Gogebic) Range teams at Wakefield December 27 and at Ironwood December 28.” Hurley, Bessemer, Ironwood and Wakefield were entered in the “blind” tournament, with opponents drawn just before game time. It was a new idea, at least in the Upper Peninsula.
“Nothing of its kind has ever been attempted in the Peninsula before,” stated the Ironwood Daily Globe. The tournament, won by Hurley, was a financial success. After expenditures, including the purchase of trophies, profit equaled enough that $22.42 was distributed to each school competing in the tournament. Plans were announced to bring back the tournament in a larger format the following year. It did return the following December, with the same teams in the same format but with all games played in Wakefield. This time out, Ironwood topped Hurley 22-21 for the tournament title.
In the Lower Peninsula in 1935, an All-Berrien County Holiday tournament was held Dec. 26, 27 and 28, with Three Oaks winning the Class B-C division title, 15-13 in the final over Berrien Springs. St. Joseph Catholic emerged as the Class D victor with a surprising 27-26 win over the reigning MHSAA state champ from Stevensville. The 14-team competition was played at Niles High School. Attendance was “slim, very slim” for the opening day of the tourney. The event did not return in 1936.
A similar, but much smaller, event was staged in Berrien County in 1941 with the Bridgman Class C Invitational. The tournament featured seven teams with contests spread over three nights. It was a success.
“Some 450 paid admissions were checked in Wednesday night for the championship finals, which Bridgman won from Berrien Springs. … The total paid admission for the three night event was 1,420 fans with a gross gate of approximately $400.”
By the mid-1940s, the idea of playing prep basketball during the Christmas lull had begun to take off across the state.
In December 1946, before a crowd of 1,500 at the Flint IMA Auditorium, Holland, the reigning Class A champion, downed Flint Northern 51-48 behind a pair of late field goals by Ken ‘Fuzz’ Bauman in the first annual Motor City Invitational. In Jackson, Detroit Catholic Central won the Michigan Catholic Invitational, beating Kalamazoo St. Augustine, 42-40. Bridgman again snagged the title at the Sixth Annual Berrien Class C Christmas Holiday Tournament. It was the Bees’ third Christmas championship in four years. The Little Eight Conference Holiday Tournament was played across four school gymnasiums as the calendar transitioned from 1946 to 1947. Bangor downed Covert, 34-29, in the championship contest hosted at Watervliet High School on Saturday, Jan. 4.
“Holiday tournament basketball has really caught on in Michigan,” said Hal Schram in the Detroit Free Press in 1947. “There will be no Christmas-New Year’s rest for at least 60 Michigan high school squads which have jumped at the chance to sharpen their collective shooting eyes for the long season ahead. … At last count, tournaments will be played between Dec 17 and Jan 3 at Flint, Saginaw, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Lincoln Park, Fremont, Negaunee, Marquette, Benton Harbor and Detroit.”
The same eight schools that played at the first Motor City tournament – Jackson, Grand Rapids Central, Holland, Muskegon Heights, Monroe, Midland, Flint Central and Flint Northern – were invited back for the second year. According to Schram, “Not a single participating school of a year ago wanted to be left out.”
Jackson downed Flint Northern in the title game, 39-34.
The Saginaw Invitational, hosted at Arthur Hill High School, boasted six Class A schools as well as Alma and Mount Pleasant, both Class B schools. Mount Pleasant surprised the field, winning the tournament with a 40-25 triumph over Dearborn Fordson in the championship game.
A year later in December, Schram wrote, “The Michigan High School Athletic Association wasn’t caught unaware when the tournament bug started to bite every sector of the state.”
“Never did we expect such a wave of tournament play as we will see during the next three weeks,” said Charles Forsythe, state director for the MHSAA, noting 34 Christmas vacation tournaments were scheduled between December 15 and January 8 during the 1948-49 basketball season. “Perhaps we’re lucky at that. The Oklahoma association has had to sanction 123 tournaments.”
Forsythe and Schram explained the reasons for the wave of popularity. Of particular interest was the fact that, at the time, a school sponsoring both football and basketball could play a total of no more than 24 games, combined, in the two sports. However, MHSAA rules allowed a basketball team the chance to play as many as three games during a Holiday tournament and be charged with only one of its allotted combination of 24 contests. (The MHSAA rules changed prior to 1972-73 to allow basketball teams a maximum of 20 games.)
Coaches could keep their squads sharp during the two-week layoff with games rather than just mandatory practices. And, as a bonus to all because tournaments were financed through gate admissions, invitations to larger tournaments meant teams got to “stay and eat at the best hostelries, go on sightseeing tours when not playing and play non-conference opponents from other sections of the state.“
Add in the chance to play before larger-than-normal crowds, and the formula for a successful tournament was cast.
Beginning with the 1950-51 season, the football-basketball rule was altered to count play in mid-season invitational tournaments as two contests. With the change, according to the Detroit Times, “the number of such meets dropped sharply.”
Only nine Holiday tournaments, involving 50-plus teams, were recorded by the MHSAA during the 1951-52 season: the 5th annual Flint Parochial Invitational, the Alpena Catholic Invitational (involving 16 teams), the 5th Annual Greater Lansing Invitational, the Albion College Invitational, the Twin-Five Conference Christmas Tournament (a 10-team replacement for the disbanded Little Eight Conference’s tournament), the Otisville Invitational, the Columbiaville Invitational and the 1st Annual Portland St. Patrick Christmas Invitational.
But by the 1960s, Holiday Tournaments were again regaining popularity, with more now focused on teams from a specific community or section of the state, especially among smaller schools.
The St. Patrick tournament was still going strong in 1966 – its 15th year – with an eight-team, four-day design. Williamston downed a Cinderella squad from Carson City, 64-44, before 1,100 fans at Portland to earn the championship. Other Mid-Michigan holiday tournaments played out in Chelsea and Swartz Creek at the same time.
The Flint Parochial League Tournament was a mainstay of the Holiday season until the breakup of the league in the early 1970s.
“Basketball tournaments have become popular around the state and nation in recent years,” wrote Wendy Foltz, longtime Battle Creek Enquirer sports editor, before the kickoff of the inaugural Battle Creek Central Holiday Cage Tournament in 1968. In a twist that harkened back to earlier days, the eight-team event represented nearly every section of lower Michigan. “Battle Creek never has been a rabid basketball town like some around the state,” added a hesitant Foltz, noting a hope that the event could at least break even.
Hosted at the Cereal City’s historic Fieldhouse, built in 1928, that first tournament was won by host Battle Creek Central, which downed Traverse City 71-53 before a crowd of 2,000. Phil Todd led the Bearcats with 29 points, including 21 in the first half, while 6-foot-8 Tom Kozelko paced TC with 24. Muskegon Heights won the consolation game, holding off a late Ypsilanti Willow Run rally, 78-77. Other schools competing were Battle Creek Lakeview, Grand Blanc, Romulus and recently-opened Jackson Lumen Christi.
Chuck Turner, Central’s head coach, and junior varsity coach Jack Schils had contacted 60 schools during the summer of 1967 to organize the 12-game schedule.
“The response was terrific,” said Schils, who added, “Many schools could not accept because of schedule commitments but want to enter a year hence.”
The Battle Creek tournament was back in 1969, again hosting teams from near and far. Schils noted that cost ran high when teams were brought in from long distances: “However, this type of tournament is highly desirable so we hope fans will support it.”
But the event was discontinued following the 1970-71 season when the “eight team format became too unwieldy,” according to the Enquirer “… and both crowd and the quality of play declined.”
Pared down to a four-team format, it returned in a big way in December 1975. The tournament saw standing-room-only crowds of more than 3,000 for games between Battle Creek Central, Detroit Northeastern, Class A quarterfinalist Lansing Everett and reigning Class A champion Highland Park.
Detroit Northeastern downed Lansing Everett, 63-58 for the Cereal City championship trophy. Everett junior Earvin Johnson scored 22 points and, with teammate Reggie Chastine, was named to the all-tournament team along with Northwestern’s Wilbert McCormick, the tourney MVP, and his teammate Greg Lawrence. Highland Park’s William Trent and Battle Creek Central’s Leon Guydon also were named to the team.
By the 1980s, it seemed that the Christmas break nearly mimicked March in Michigan.
“I think a Christmas tournament really helps your program,” said Turner in 1980 to the Enquirer. He had taken over the head coaching position at Battle Creek in the fall of 1967 after a successful stint at Willow Run. “I don’t understand basketball teams having a preseason, playing three or four games, then taking two weeks off. When you get back, it’s like starting over.”
Besides Turner’s squad, the 1980 field included Detroit Western, Detroit Murray Wright and eventual winner Kalamazoo Central. The event would ultimately be re-christened the Battle Creek Central Chuck Turner Holiday Classic.
“The late Chuck Turner started bringing big games to the city over the holidays when he first started at the school in the 1960s,” wrote Bill Broderick in the Enquirer in 2018.
“Chuck started this because he wanted to give people the chance to come back home for the holidays and see everyone play. It’s been like a family reunion over the years,” Fred Jones told Broderick. Jones was a longtime assistant to Turner. “That we can keep it going in his name is great and hopefully we can keep if going for another 50 years.”
The girls are now part of the action. All five Battle Creek city schools – Central, Pennfield, Harper Creek, Lakeview, and St. Philip – were part of the event in 2018.
This year the Chuck Turner Central Field House Holiday Classic will again span two days – December 27 and 28 – and will again see all five city schools play on the historic floor.
Other Holiday tournaments scheduled this year include:
Petoskey Invitational – December 13-14
Raider Shootout – December 21
18th Annual Muskegon Area Sports Hall of Fame Classic – December 27
Earl McKee Classic – December 27-28
North Farmington Holiday Extravaganza – December 27
Motor City Roundball Classic – December 27
Cornerstone Invitational – December 27
Washtenaw Hoops Showcase – December 28
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) The Battle Creek Central and Pennfield girls face off during the 50th Chuck Turner Classic. (Middle) Shaheen Shaheen scores two points for Flint Northern, which fell to Jackson 39-34 during the 1947 Motor City championship game. (Below left) Lansing Everett’s Earvin Johnson makes a move toward the basket against Detroit Northeastern during the 1975 Battle Creek event. (Below right) Box scores from the 1975 tournament include Johnson’s 22 points in the 63-58 loss. Photos courtesy of the Battle Creek Enquirer, Lansing State Journal and Ron Pesch archives.)