Norinh Fueled for Final HS Title Chase
May 24, 2018
By Dean Holzwarth
Special for Second Half
ZEELAND – Suenomi Norinh was disappointed when she didn’t qualify for the MHSAA Track & Field Finals as a freshman.
It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to the Zeeland East standout.
Norinh used it as motivation, and it helped create an inner desire to excel through the remainder of her high school career.
“It definitely opened my eyes to see that I needed to work a little harder at it,” Norinh said. “I think it shaped me into the person I am today.”
And that person is now an accomplished and versatile track star who has won back-to-back Lower Peninsula Division 2 titles in the high jump and is headed to the University of Missouri.
Zeeland East coach Josh Vork said Norinh’s absence from the 2015 Finals was a major turning point in her development.
“She had a really rough day at Regionals that year, and I could tell that really motivated her,” he said. “She wasn’t going to let that happen again, so her sophomore year she came in ready to attack every single practice and not take any days easy.
“Now that she has grown and matured and gotten stronger, she continues to push and push and wants to see the most she can get out of herself.”
Norinh, 18, will compete in her final high school meet next Saturday on her home track at Zeeland.
She’ll take part in four events: high jump, long jump and the 100 and 300-meter hurdles.
Norinh hopes to again repeat in the high jump while avenging a pair of narrow losses from a year ago.
“It will be special to be running at home for the last time, and the high jump event means a lot to me,” Norinh said. “I’m going to do everything I can to defend that, but if it’s not meant to be then it’s not meant to be and that’s OK, too. But I really want that one.”
Norinh took second in the long jump last season, as well as in the 100 hurdles. The latter is an event she’s been eyeing since last year’s painstakingly close finish.
She was runner-up in the 100 by the narrowest of margins to South Christian’s Mariel Bruxvoort – Bruxvoort edged Norinh by two thousandths of a second. Norinh also took sixth in the 300 as Bruxvoort, now a senior, won that race as well.
“She’s been looking forward to going against Mariel again this year, and all year she asked me if there were any meets the same as South Christian,” Vork said. “She really wants to go against Mariel, and it will be a good match-up.”
“She beat me by one thousandth of a second, and that pushes me because one thousandth of a second is nothing,” Norinh said. “It’s crazy, and it’s like a hair crossing the finish line before someone else. She pushes me to be even better, and that’s a good thing. We talk all the time, and we’re friendly rivals.
“I kept asking coach if she was going to be at one of our meets because I was excited for some competition. I don’t get that very often.”
Norinh won four Regional championships last weekend in preparation for the Finals as the Chix edged Holland Christian for the overall team title.
Vork said she possesses all the physical abilities, and the work ethic, to cap her career in style.
“She’s incredibly physically gifted, and you don’t get to this point without having great physical tools, but she is, and has always been, the hardest worker on our team,” he said. “Nobody pushes themselves more than Suenomi does, and no one wants to be great more than Suenomi does – and that shows every day at practice.
“There have been days where she asks for more to do at practice because she doesn’t feel like she got a good enough workout, and I think that’s the kind of mentality that creates the champion that she is.”
Norinh’s martial arts background, as well as support from her parents, helped stir her competitiveness.
“I’ve done sports all my life, and my parents always drive us to work as hard as we can and give our all in everything,” Norinh said. “Martial arts taught me a lot, and I’m super competitive. No one likes to lose, and if I lose, I’m not going to give it to you easily.”
Norinh will be the catalyst in Zeeland East’s bid to win the team Division 2 championship as well. The Chix finished runner-up to Lansing Waverly by a single point last season.
“If things go our way, we have a good chance at it,” Vork said. “It’s a tough field, but I expect us to be in the mix.”
Dean Holzwarth covered primarily high school sports for the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years and more recently served as sports editor of the Ionia Sentinel and as a sports photojournalist for WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Zeeland East’s Suenomi Norinh clears the bar on the way to repeating as Division 2 high jump champion last spring. (Middle) Norinh sprints toward the finish during the 300 hurdles championship race in 2017. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)
'Lapeer Through and Through,' Schmidt Surpasses Half-Century in Coaching
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
April 2, 2025
Manny Schmidt still wants to be at track practice.
After 50-plus years coaching in Lapeer, the man they call Coach Manny has not lost his love for helping student-athletes – and at this rate, he might go another 50.
“I told my wife years ago that the first day I don’t feel like going to practice, that I’d rather be somewhere else, that’s the day I’m done,” Schmidt said. “And it hasn’t happened yet. Obviously, you have bad days and things like that. But track, and right now practice, it just keeps me going.”
Schmidt, who is the head boys track & field coach at Lapeer, began coaching track as an assistant in 1974, and has remained there – and Lapeer East, then back at Lapeer when the schools merged back together – ever since. On Friday, April 11, he will be honored at an event at Lightning Rounds in Lapeer for his years of service to Lapeer athletes. The event begins at 7:30 p.m., following the Lapeer Lightning Co-Ed Relays.
“Manny has been a staple of Lapeer Athletics through many different renditions over the years,” Lapeer athletic director Shad Spilski said. “His willingness to help student-athletes grow and achieve their goals is all he wants out of his athletes. Manny spends, and has spent, countless hours over several decades providing athletes multiple opportunities to hone their skills. He not only coaches, but he is one of Lapeer athletes’ biggest fans and supporters. You will always find him at other sporting events cheering on athletes and his coaching colleagues. He truly is Lapeer through and through.”
Schmidt came to Lapeer to teach English in December of 1972 after graduating from Western Michigan University. He had attended high school at St. Joseph Catholic, and was unfamiliar with Lapeer.
But it didn’t take long for him to fall in love with the school community after receiving the assignment.
“Almost immediately,” he said. “I started in December; the teacher had left and I got the job in December. Three days later, they had a staff Christmas party that I got invited to, and all of my close friends over the years, many of them, I guess, I met at that party.”
Coaching was always something Schmidt wanted to do. He played basketball and ran track in high school, and had a basketball coach who made a big impact on his life. He wanted to do the same for others.
In the spring of 1974, during his first full year of teaching English at Lapeer, he got that chance as the assistant track coach. He has since coached cross country – working to start the Lapeer East girls program in the 1990s – junior varsity football and middle school basketball. He also served as a basketball official for more than 30 years.
“I just liked being part of it,” he said.
Throughout his five decades coaching track, Schmidt has worked with athletes in every event. While middle and long distance are what he’s long enjoyed coaching, he’s currently working with the Lapeer throwers and high jumpers, as head cross country coaches Russ Reitz and Bill Spruytte are also coaching track.
“In our program, we have four of us (Schmidt, Reitz, Spruytte and Anthony Merlo), and we all have equal voice, we all coach together,” Schmidt said. “On any given day, and that’s the nice thing, I could be with anything. I could be with the hurdlers.”
This past year, Schmidt returned to the Lapeer cross country staff as an assistant, saying he was honored that the current coaches respected him enough to call him back.
But for them, it was an honor to have him.
“Working with Manny is like having access to decades of knowledge,” said fellow cross country assistant Christine Cerny. “It is such a privilege to be able to draw from that and learn from that myself. It’s so awesome to be able to coach alongside him after he has coached my kids.”
During his time, Schmidt has coached multiple generations of Lapeer families, including his own. His children Corrinne and Jennifer both ran for him, as did his grandchildren Morgan, Mason and Colton.
And by his side the entire time has been his wife, Val, who worked as a scorekeeper during meets.
“When I started coaching, she would be the person at all our home cross country meets and all our home track meets who sat there and kept track by hand,” Schmidt said. “Probably the happiest person with this new technology is my wife – now she doesn’t have to do it. When we have invites, she’ll do medals and stuff like that.”
Technological changes have been abundant for high school athletes over the past five decades, not just in competition but outside of it. Schmidt recalls returning to Lapeer from away meets and having athletes line up at the school’s two payphones to call their parents.
“Now, when we get back, everyone has called home and their rides are there waiting,” Schmidt said.
Throughout his time, Schmidt has done plenty of winning and coached several athletes who have moved on to compete at the college level. But the relationships he’s created are what he values most.
“Nobody’s luckier than I am with where I taught and where I coached, and who I’ve coached with over the years,” Schmidt said. “You have to look forward to going to work, and I hate to use the word ‘work’ with coaching. It is, I guess. But there’s just so much good with it.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Clockwise from the top left: (1) Manny Schmidt (standing, second from left) coaches the Lapeer White Junior High girls basketball team. (2) Schmidt, top middle, takes a photo with Lapeer’s boys track & field team last spring. (3) Schmidt, left, has coached three of his grandchildren including Morgan Turk. (4) Schmidt, far left, takes a photo with the 2011 Lapeer East cross country teams. (5) Schmidt, standing far right, coaches Michelle Brundage during the 1991 Meet of Champions. (Middle) Schmidt looks on during an event. (Photos provided by the Lapeer athletic department.)