Gaylord Pole-Vaulting Pair Rewards Coach's Commitment with Conference Sweep
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
May 15, 2026
The future of the Gaylord pole vaulting may be hanging in the balance.
Success in the field event depends not only on speed and jumping ability — but also coordination, strength and balance.
The Blue Devils and veteran head track & field coach Matt Warren may have to struggle to keep the balance going next year. But it’s not the first time the program is facing the possibility of losing assistant coach Jeremy Savoie.
“It's hard if you don't have somebody who has passion for pole vaulting to coach, and Jeremy is a selfless human being,” Warren said. “He has the passion for helping and molding kids, and it comes through very, very, clearly, with the pole vault program. And when he steps down, it's going to be a big loss for us.”
Savoie’s investment in pole vaulting has led to Gaylord capturing both Big North Conference individual championships for the first time in school history. Senior Lillian Mason, who set the school record earlier this year clearing the bar at 10-9, won the girls conference title on one of the most challenging days of a very challenging spring. Sophomore Calvin Cosby, also a school record-holder, won the boys league title. Cosby, who owns the boys record at 15-3, was third at the conference meet last year when Savoie’s son Nickolas was runner-up.
Savoie started coaching pole vault during the spring of 2000. A former high school vaulter himself, he got involved because of his family – the same family he struggles every day to balance along with work and coaching. He nearly walked away from coaching after last spring’s season when Nickolas, one of the best vaulters in the school’s history, graduated.
After receiving a letter from Mason, and talking things through with her family and his own, Savoie decided to stick around this year.
“I was really done when Nickolas finished. … We had the whole emotional track banquet and low and behold, here we are again,” Savoie said. “Lillian started with me as a freshman. She had to really work at it, and over the last two years, she didn’t take any time off. She works at it year-round, lifts, runs, does the drills and just works her tail off.”
Now, though, Savoie’s youngest daughter plays junior varsity softball for the Blue Devils. He is finding himself caught at times between watching his daughter play softball, including summer ball, and helping other student-athletes in what has become another year-around sport.
In addition to family balance struggles, Savoie also has battled work-life challenges as a technician for a local auto dealership.
“It is a sacrifice on our family because for three months, I lose about 20 hours of work every week and I'm walking away from my own paycheck to help support my family and pay my bills,” Savoie acknowledged. “Fortunately, I still do good enough that it doesn't massively affect the family, but it is still a burden that you have to keep in check.”
And the guilt of missing his youngest and only daughter, Ava, at times in softball is adding to the toll.
“Ava made the high school team this year for JV, and now I have to deal with feeling guilty because I'm at practice and I'm not watching her play her game, or ‘Hey, coaches, I'm going to have leave today at 4 o'clock to go watch Ava,’” Savoie said. “The whole time I'm over there sitting there watching my daughter, cheering for her to do good with the softball team, I'm feeling guilty because I'm not with the kids, pole vaulting.”
The vaulters found themselves facing a significant head wind as Gaylord hosted the conference meet this year.
“Winning these Big North Championships – that's a big deal,” Warren said. “It was a very difficult weather day, so it was ‘who can adapt the most to deal with the conditions?’ That's good coaching there to be able to choose which pole is best in these conditions … how long should the run-up be and all of those things. So I was proud of the adjustments and being able to overcome adversity.”
Gaylord coaches now expect Cosby and Mason to make a run for Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals championships May 30 at Hamilton. The record-holders already have met the qualification standard, so they won’t have to depend on qualifying during today’s Regional at Cadillac.
“I know Calvin wants to be the state champion, and obviously so does Lillian,” Warren said. “We’re in a challenging division for pole vaulters. There will be good competition, but they’re definitely looking both to get all-state honors.”
Another Finals challenger will be Petoskey’s Sarah Bailey, a familiar conference foe and an offseason training partner. Bailey and Mason trained together all winter on Sundays at Boyne City High School. Boyne has the indoor vaulting equipment, and volunteer coaches from all over northern Michigan – including Savoie – are there to help student-athletes regardless of what schools they attend.
“There is a group of northern Michigan coaches that have decided to make pole vaulting a passion of theirs, not just Gaylord High School,” Warren said of the Sunday offseason training. “These kids buy into that stuff where they see coaches caring, giving of their time. There's a lot of good coaches that participate.”
Perhaps seeing one of his vaulters win a Finals title will keep Savoie around. The success and growth of junior newcomer Reese Summerland may help too. Summerland runs sprints and does the high jump as well for the Blue Devils.
“I didn't really come into this looking for really much out of it other than getting to spend time with my boys,” Savoie admitted, while noting he first coached when his son Anthony wanted to try vaulting as a freshman and Gaylord did not have coaches for it. “Reese is a junior this year, then Calvin's a sophomore, I still have some skin in the game. As long as the school's still willing to work with me to let me watch my daughter play softball, I have no reason to make the choice between the two.”
Savoie will leave the Blue Devils in good hands, should he not continue coaching.
“Jeremy is very committed but we're just going to have to carry on, and I’ve learned a lot from Jeremy,” Warren said, adding he expects the other coaches in the area to continue the offseason work. “That’s his program – that’s his baby. I believe this is going to be his last year, but you never know when you have someone the caliber of Calvin. I can’t speak more highly about Jeremy and what he’s accomplished in the last six years. Now we got other kids just trying the vault and, it's success that breeds success.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Gaylord’s Lillian Mason, left, and Calvin Cosby were the Big North Conference pole-vaulting champions this season. (Middle) Cosby clears the bar. (Below) Mason carries the baton during a relay. (Top photo courtesy of the Gaylord athletic department. Action photos by Dylan Jespersen/Gaylord Herald Times.)
MCC's Glover Fills Key Role as Athletic Trainer for Super Bowl Champions
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
August 6, 2024
David Glover never had the glamour role – and didn’t even play the glamour sport – during his high school days at Muskegon Catholic Central.
MCC is known statewide as a football powerhouse that ranks third in state history with 12 MHSAA Finals championships during the playoff era. But basketball was Glover’s sport of choice, and his specialty didn’t show up in the box score.
“I was the defensive stopper,” explained Glover, who graduated from MCC in 1996. “I was always the guy that Coach (Greg) Earnest would put on the other team’s best scorer. I took a lot of pride in that.”
Glover continues to be the ultimate team player, only now his role is the first assistant athletic trainer for the Kansas City Chiefs, who are aiming to three-peat this season as Super Bowl champions.
“As the team and the goals have grown, so have I,” said Glover, who has been on the Chiefs’ training staff for the past 18 years. “The job is the same, which is getting the players onto the field and back onto the field after injuries so that they can perform at their highest level. I have become more comfortable and experienced in that role.”
Glover broke into the NFL as an athletic training intern with the New York Jets in 2004. He came to Kansas City in 2006 when Jets head coach Herman Edwards took the KC job, bringing Glover and several other members of the training staff with him.
Glover quickly fell in love with the Chiefs’ famous family-first culture, along with the area’s world-famous barbecues. He also met his future wife, Jera.
He is known as a tireless worker and student of his craft, which has allowed him to steadily move up to his current position as first assistant athletic trainer on the Chiefs’ five-member training staff, second only to Rick Burkholder, the vice president of sports medicine and performance.
Glover’s skills also have caught the attention of his colleagues across the NFL, who awarded him the 2022 Tim Davey AFC Assistant Athletic Trainer of the Year Award – given annually to someone who represents an unyielding commitment, dedication and integrity in the profession of athletic training.
Glover said a big reason for his success in his profession can be traced back to high school.
“Playing sports at MCC, especially for a smaller school, gave me such a sense of camaraderie, teamwork and a family outside of my normal family,” said Glover, the son of David and Lyndah Glover. “Those teammates energized me to be my best.
“There’s no doubt that some of the lessons that I learned playing sports in high school help me out in my job.”
Glover also ran track for the Crusaders – competing in the long jump, 200 meters, 400 meters and various relays – and said he enjoyed himself, even though he ran track initially as a way to stay in shape for basketball.
The highlight of his MCC basketball career came his senior year, when the underdog Crusaders captured a Class C District championship.
Growing up in Muskegon and close to Lake Michigan, Glover thought he would become a marine biologist someday – that is, until he suffered an injury during his senior basketball season.
Glover went up for a block and actually pinned the opponent’s shot against the backboard. However, the shooter inadvertently took his legs out on the play, causing him to crash violently to the court and lose feeling in his right leg for about 10 seconds.
The injury to his hip flexor put him on crutches for two weeks and off the court total for about a month, which he said “felt like the end of the world” at the time.
But the injury led him into rehab with Brian Hanks, a 1988 MCC graduate who was back working at his alma mater as an athletic trainer through Mercy Hospital.
Glover and Hanks turned out to be a perfect match. Glover was naturally curious about the entire process and wanted to know the “why” of his rebab program. Hanks recognized Glover’s interest in how the human body works and encouraged him to consider studying athletic training in college.
“God works in mysterious ways,” said Glover. “I was devastated when I got injured, but that experience opened my eyes to a whole new career. I wanted to learn everything I could about the human body and how it works.
“Looking back, the injury was a blessing in disguise. I wouldn’t change anything at all.”
Glover followed in Hanks’ footsteps and attended Central Michigan University, spending countless hours in the training room working with athletes in every sport – from football to track to gymnastics – graduating with a degree in health fitness and exercise science.
He said a huge inspiration in his career was CMU professor Dr. Rene Shingles, who in 2018 became the first African-American woman to be inducted into the National Athletic Trainers Association Hall of Fame. Shingles encouraged Glover to continue his studies at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, where he earned his master’s of science in athletic training.
He got his break into the NFL with his internship with the Jets, and his work ethic has kept him there for the past 20 years.
“If there are high school kids out there reading this, I guess I would tell them that there are a lot of different avenues to get to the NFL or the NBA,” Glover said. “I’m a perfect example. I didn’t even play high school football, but through athletic training I have been part of three Super Bowls.”
The Chiefs, who won their first Super Bowl way back in 1970, would have to wait 50 years (until 2020) to win their next one. But Kansas City now has won three Super Bowls in five years, adding titles in 2023 and 2024.
“To have these kind of experiences, and to be able to share so much of it with my family, is really a dream come true,” said Glover, 45, who said his ultimate goal is to become the head athletic trainer for an NFL team.
“I am always open to see what opportunities God has for me and what doors he opens.”
More immediately, with the start of training camp last month, Glover is back to his seven-day-a-week schedule, sharing the organization’s goal of making it to the Super Bowl for the third consecutive season.
Glover has worked with all of the Chiefs star players at some point, including star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who he calls “a great, humble man.”
But perhaps the player he has worked with most is standout tight end Travis Kelce.
Kelce, who has become a huge name outside of football as the boyfriend of pop sensation Taylor Swift, injured his knee during his rookie preseason in 2013, sidelining him for the entire year. Glover was assigned to Kelce for his rehab.
With Glover’s daily help, Kelce was able to get back on the field the following year and emerged as a star, earning him the 2014 NFL Ed Block Courage Award as a model of inspiration, sportsmanship and courage.
After winning the award, Kelce invited Glover (he calls him “DG”) and his wife to attend the award ceremony with him in Baltimore.
“That was a huge honor for me, and I was blown away,” said Glover. “I look at it that I was just doing my job. He entrusted and believed in me throughout the process, and it worked out great.”
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PHOTOS (Top) At left, David Glover as a senor during the 1995-96 school year at Muskegon Catholic Central, and at right Glover shows the AFC Championship trophy after Kansas City's 17-10 win at Baltimore on Jan. 28. (Middle) Glover, left, hugs teammate Doug Dozier after a victory over rival Muskegon Mona Shores in 1995-1996 basketball season opener. MCC finished 17-7 and a District champion. (Below) Glover poses with this year's Super Bowl Championship trophy alongside fellow Chiefs athletic trainer Julie Frymyer. (Trophy photos courtesy of David Glover; 1996 photos courtesy of the MCC yearbook.)