History in the Making - New and Old
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
October 24, 2013
Last week’s MHSAA Lower Peninsula Girls Golf Finals marked the 42nd anniversary of the association’s sponsorship of the sport, and we've been researching some of the first and finest performances from the tournament's history – coincidentally, as a current player added a small touch with a big shot Saturday.
Read on to learn more about that feat and the first team to hoist an MHSAA girls golf championship trophy. And speaking of trophies, we've also got the story behind one of the oldest football traveling prizes still making the rounds in the Upper Peninsula.
An Ace Arrives
Fenton’s Madi Shegos finished her 2013 Finals by making history at Michigan State’s University’s Forest Akers East, a frequent MHSAA Finals site over the last two decades.
The course redesigned its 18th hole from a short par-4 to a par-3 this season. And Shegos became the first to score it a hole-in-one, doing so during the second round of the Division 2 Final.
Retired longtime East Lansing coach George Jones, also a longtime assistant at the Finals and the taker of the photo at right, added: “Madi Shegos did something almost every golfer around the world never gets a chance to do or if given the chance, doesn't do.
“Sure, every par three at Forest Akers and nearly every other par three around the world has had an ace, but on Friday Madi was the very first to accomplish this on the newly-constructed 18th hole on the East Course. No one else will ever be the first. This honor goes to Madi Shegos, a sophomore at Fenton High School.”
Shegos improved six strokes during her second round to shoot a 103 on Saturday as Fenton finished fifth in Division 2 for the second straight season.
First to Reign
Although Lower Peninsula girls golf was played during the spring for its first 35 years, and Upper Peninsula girls golf remains in the spring to this day, the first girls MHSAA championship tournament actually took place during the fall of the 1972-73 school year – with Pickford claiming the first title by winning the Upper Peninsula Final by three strokes over Escanaba on an October day at Lake Bluff Country Club.
Thanks to some quick work by Pickford athletic director Chuck Bennin and one of the four players on that championship team who now teaches at the high school, we'll soon be adding results of that tournament to our growing archives at MHSAA.com.
Here's a quick flashback from that inaugural 9-hole event: The Panthers were led by Patsy Nayback’s 49, which was good for second place individually. Joni Hamilton and sisters Bonnie and Kathleen MacDonald rounded out the lineup and are pictured above. Ishpeming’s Marge Farley shot a 44 to finish as medalist.
Another fun fact from that October day: The Escanaba Daily Press reported that in the boys MHSAA Final, Pickford’s Kevin Hamilton recorded an eagle on the par-5, 472-yard third hole, with his second shot running through a sand trap, up the green and into the cup.
The Lower Peninsula Girls Finals teed off for the first time the following spring, with Bloomfield Hills Lahser defeating East Grand Rapids by a stroke at Grand Ledge’s Troy Hills Golf Course.
Wanted: More Finals Archives
For the majority of MHSAA sports, we’ve published on MHSAA.com results, box scores, etc., for most of our Finals dating to at least the late 1990s. For years prior, we've begun filling in with what we can gather from our formerly-published Books of Champions and MHSAA Bulletins.
But realizing there are complete copies of results out there in scrap books, trophy cases, newspaper archives and the like, we’d love to gather as many as possible to add to the site.
If you’ve got results from an MHSAA Finals in any sport that aren't showing at MHSAA.com or that can augment our current collection, please email me at [email protected].
First of many
Certainly the most prevalent prize awarded for winners of Michigan’s high school football trophy games is some version of a “little brown jug.” And this weekend, the oldest of the jugs will be on the line when Newberry faces Sault Ste. Marie.
They first played for the trophy in 1925, with the original jug replaced by the current version in 1934. Sault Ste. Marie leads the series 58-33-5 including 46-28-5 in games for the Jug.
Below is an excerpt from a brief history of the trophy researched by Ron Pesch:
In the state’s Upper Peninsula, Newberry High School first played Sault Ste. Marie on the gridiron in 1911 and, for the most part, they have squared off annually since 1923. To commemorate the battle between these schools, legend has it that in 1925, a Newberry druggist donated a Jug to serve as a trophy. The prize was to be retained by the winning team until the next meeting would determine ownership. The idea, of course, came from the Michigan-Minnesota rivalry.
In 1934, for reasons unknown, a new jug debuted. Fittingly, that game between the rivals ended in a 7-7 tie.
Over the years, the rivalry has generated many classic contests between the larger school from the Soo and the smaller Newberry district. The series was interrupted in 1940 and 1959, and then went on a five-year hiatus between 1999 and 2003. As school officials recognized the importance of the series to the residents of the area, the rivalry was resumed in 2004 when the Blue Devils joined Newberry in the Straits Area Conference.
PHOTOS: (Background) The members of the 1972 Pickford girls golf team, as they appeared in the January 1973 MHSAA Bulletin. (Foreground and below) Fenton’s Madi Shegos stands with the flag after drilling the first hole-in-one at the redesigned No. 18 at Forest Akers East during last weekend’s Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final.
NFHS Voice: Participants Show Resilience
September 28, 2020
By Karissa Niehoff
NFHS Executive Director
The resiliency of players, coaches and leaders in high school activity programs the past seven months has been amazing. As attempts continue to offer all sports and performing arts this year, these individuals are making the most of tough times and demonstrating great resolve to change.
No doubt, high school juniors and seniors involved in high school sports and performing arts would have preferred a less turbulent end to their high school days, but many have been willing to go to great lengths to have an opportunity to participate.
In Michigan, when football was initially moved to the spring, student-athletes had two choices: be upset that their sport was postponed or seize the moment and look for new opportunities. Royce Daugherty of Watervliet High School chose the latter.
A 6-foot-3, 300-pound two-way starter last year as a freshman on the Watervliet football team, Daugherty opted to join the cross country team! He said he decided to run cross country because it would help him get tougher mentally and physically.
Daugherty’s decision was perhaps predictable given that he played four sports – football, wrestling, basketball and baseball – as a freshman. Although the switch was short-lived with Michigan reinstating football a couple of weeks ago, Daugherty’s resilience is remarkable and a good predictor of future success.
In Colorado, with football on hold this fall, members of the Limon High School two-time defending Class 1A state football championship team petitioned the school administration to resurrect the golf program.
“Sports are our lifeline,” said Andy Love, the school’s baseball coach who agreed to coach the golf team, in an article posted on CHSAANow. “Our community follows our sports so strongly. It gives our kids this great atmosphere and environment whether it’s the football field, the basketball court or whatever. Our community rallies around our kids.”
Turning a problem into an opportunity, the Limon High School football players and staff demonstrated the never-give-up spirit of high school activities.
In Kansas, with the heading of “the show must go on,” the Goodland High School athletic director and superintendent stepped in to coach the football team a few weeks ago because the head coach and assistant coach were quarantined during the week. The result? Goodland, a Class 3A school, defeated Liberal High School, a Class 5A school!
Coaches have demonstrated resiliency as well by finding new ways to conduct competition and keep students engaged. In Minnesota, at a swimming meet between Chaska High School and Bloomington Kennedy High School, Chaska swimmers occupied lanes 1 to 4, while Kennedy swimmers were in lanes 5 to 8 for social distancing purposes.
In the same state, the South Suburban Conference decided to conduct virtual swim meets this fall. Each team competes in 11 races in their own pool, and the coaches compare times to determine scoring. Two methods in the same state, both done to keep students engaged but to minimize risks of the virus.
On the performing arts side, teachers and leaders have benefited from an aerosol study conducted by the NFHS and more than 125 other organizations to determine best practices. In some cases, band and other music programs were moved to the spring, but leaders continued to engage with students in many innovative ways.
Larry Friend, assistant principal of Caesar Rodney High School in Camden, Delaware, in a Dover Post article, told his students, “This is not the time to put the instruments aside. This is not the time to stop singing. This is not the time to run away from your passion. This is an opportunity to run toward your passion and to find what it is that motivates you to reconnect.”
Band directors in Michigan – like those in many other states – are finding new ways to keep music going during the pandemic – from outdoor band camps to all-virtual rehearsals.
“We have some really incredible band directors doing some really neat things locally,” said Josh Bartz, director of bands at Portage Northern High School in an interview with WWMT-TV in Kalamazoo.
In the same interview, Chris Ludwa, assistant professor of music at Kalamazoo College, said, “I think you will always find ways to make art. Oftentimes, when in society there is deep need, deep pain, struggle, oppression – that’s the time when art flourishes.”
These are but a few of the great stories that have occurred across the country as players, coaches, administrators, officials, parents and fans are making the most of tough times. While these student participants may not become stellar athletes at the next level or excel at higher levels in the arts, their resiliency through these tough times will play a major role in their future success.
High school activity programs – building resilient people for the future of our nation.
Dr. Karissa L. Niehoff is starting her third year as executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the first female to head the national leadership organization for high school athletics and performing arts activities and the sixth full-time executive director of the NFHS, which celebrated its 100th year of service during the 2018-19 school year. She previously was executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools-Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference for seven years.