Time at Track is Nesbitt Family Time Too
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
April 19, 2017
Conversations in the Nesbitt house always seem to come back to track and field.
The fact that the father, Michael, is the cross country and boys track coach at Bay City Western, and his two children, Brendan and Sydney, are MHSAA Finals qualifiers in both sports is only part of the reason.
“Having my dad as a coach is different because he’s with you like every second of basically every day,” Brendan Nesbitt said. “When you’re at practice when he tells you something, he’s not telling you as your dad, he’s telling you as your coach. Then at home, he’ll switch gears. Even when we come home, we talk a lot about track or cross country, but that’s just because we’re really big track nerds.”
Time at the track is time with family for the Nesbitts.
Brendan is a senior at Western who finished seventh in the Lower Peninsula Division 1 meet a year ago in the 800 meters. Sydney is a sophomore who qualified in the same event her freshman year.
Michael has been coaching at Western for 19 years, and while recently his children have been a big part of that, they’ve never really been that far away.
“It wasn’t just my wife and myself raising the kids,” Michael said. “The athletes would babysit them on some nights, and they were teaching them to run hurdles and things like that.”
Running runs in the family, as both Michael and his wife, Deanna, were collegiate runners. Michael’s father, Jim, was his coach at Saginaw Valley State University.
During Michael’s childhood, while his dad was a high school coach, he spent time carrying athletes’ sweats, or anything else that would put him near the team and his dad.
Two decades later, Brendan – who also will run at Saginaw Valley – was doing the same thing.
“I’m the oldest sibling, so I didn’t have other siblings to look up to, I guess,” Brendan said. “I was always at the team dinners the day before the meets, and I had fun and looked up to them. They treated me like a little brother.”
Sydney, meanwhile, has had a unique experience. Not only did she grow up around the track and cross country teams, she also has had a brother on those teams – and at home – that she has admired and followed.
“During the summers I’ve been training with my dad and the high school team since like sixth grade,” she said. “I knew what Brendan was like, and how hard he trained, and I wanted to be like him.”
Brendan said he’s passed some knowledge onto his sister, for instance, like the importance of getting up each weekend and going for a run even when she’d rather not. But he said her teammates and her talent are doing the bulk of the work.
“Coming out of middle school, we knew she was going to be pretty good. We just didn’t know how good,” he said. “Since I’ve been on the team, she’s been around the high school team more, and she saw me and how I adjusted to high school races. When she came in, our girls team had a bunch of good older girls. My class is big on the girls side, and she knew a lot of them, so they taught her most of the stuff.”
They couldn’t give her what Michael did on the day of the 2016 MHSAA Finals, however. In her first time running at the meet – she had been there several times as a spectator – Sydney was too excited to be overwhelmed after watching her brother come from the middle of the pack in the boys 800 to run a personal best time of 1 minute, 54.85 seconds and earn an all-state medal.
While Sydney didn’t place among the top eight, she ran her own personal best of 2:18.14 to finish 17th in Division 1.
“It was always amazing to be at the state meet – the atmosphere was so cool – and I always wanted to be part of that,” Sydney said. “My brother ran before me and he got seventh in the state, so that was a huge motivating factor.”
It was, of course, a big moment for Brendan, too. He remembers making his final kick after hearing his dad and grandfather giving encouragement and guidance with about 250 meters to go. After he crossed the finish line, he looked back and the first face he saw was his father’s.
“I turned and looked at my dad right away,” Brendan said. “He’s standing at the 50-yard line and he’s holding up the numbers on his hand that he had on the hand timer. Basically, I walked over to him and gave him a hug, then gave my teammates a hug.”
Being the first person to greet a runner at the finish line is both a duty and a perk of being a coach. Being the first to greet your son after an all-state performance? That’s something else altogether.
“I try to internalize most of the dad part when I’m coaching,” Michael said. “I know it’s my son out there, but he’s also a runner for Western high school. He’s a runner for me on the track. But it was a pretty emotional moment when he earned his medal at the state meet. That’s a proud dad moment. That’s when it comes to reality – after the race.”
While he gets them in the fall and spring, Michael isn’t always coaching his children. Technically, he’s not the girls track coach, either. That job belongs to Rich Syring, although Michael is the distance coach, so he does oversee most of Sydney’s workouts.
During basketball season, however, he’s just dad.
“It was nice when they got into middle school and high school, I got to take the dad seat in the stands,” Michael said. “To be coached by someone else, that’s a good experience. You have to know it’s not dad out there, and that somebody else is going to yell at them. I like the basketball, just the idea of them getting exposure in a different sport. I think it helps them become not just a better runner, but a better athlete.”
Just because he’s not the coach, however, doesn’t mean his presence isn’t felt.
“For basketball, he doesn’t coach, but he’s definitely the loudest in the stands,” Sydney said with a laugh. “If something goes wrong, he’ll give me a look. I know what he’s saying just with that look.”
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) From left, Brendan, Michael, Sydney and Deanna Nesbitt at the 2016 Division 1 Finals. (Middle) Brendan Nesbitt, in yellow, works to move up from the middle of the pack during the 800. (Top photo courtesy of the Nesbitt family, middle by Carter Sherline/RunMichigan.com.)
Van Valkenburg Returns to Madison to Continue Dad's Pole Vaulting Program
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
April 8, 2026
Larry Van Valkenburg had two passions in retirement – coaching high school track & field and racing motorcycles.
In September, only a few months after completing his 25th season as the pole vault coach at Adrian Madison, Van Valkenburg loaded up his motorcycle and headed to Harpster, Ohio, a tiny, unincorporated city of 160 residents in central Ohio.
“He loved racing motorcycles,” said his son, Trevor Van Valkenburg. “Seems like an odd hobby for someone in their 70s, but he loved it. He hadn’t done it for a couple of years and said he wanted to give it one more shot.”
While at a race in Harpster, Van Valkenburg, 78, was involved in a motorcycle crash, had trouble catching his breath and tragically died.
“He took a very hard fall,” Trevor said.
This spring, after months of deliberations, Trevor decided to end his nine-year run as track coach at nearby Onsted and take over for his father as an assistant at Madison. For all intents and purposes, he’s coming home.
“It really is like coming home,” Trevor said. “I have crazy Madison ties that go way back.”
Trevor was a big reason why his dad began coaching at Madison. He was a high school sophomore in the early 2000s when he switched from baseball to track.
“When Coach (Josh) Powers took over the program in 1999, Madison didn’t have pole vault,” Van Valkenburg said. “Most of the schools in the 1990s had gotten rid of it. As a sophomore, I said if you have pole vault, I’ll run track. That is how my dad got involved.”
Trevor knew his dad had some background in pole vault.
“He was a vaulter in high school,” he said. “He always told us he had the school record. He vaulted in the 1960s where he would land in a pit of saw dust. As a junior, he broke his arm vaulting. He had a scar he would show us from time to time. His proud accomplishment was he came back as a senior and set the school record.”
With Trevor a senior, the Van Valkenburgs were part of Madison’s run to a Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association (MITCA) track & field team state championship.
“He ended up staying 25 years,” Trevor said, speaking of his dad. “He loved it.”
Pole vault is a tough event to learn – and teach.
“In my opinion, it’s probably the most complicated high school sport,” Trevor said. “There are so many variables, how long your pole is, what the wind rating is, the flex rating and you have to set up your steps. You can move the bar so you have to know where to put it. It’s almost impossible to do well without a good coach. There are too many things an outside person needs to watch and give you feedback on.
“I always tell the kids every time you focus on one thing in pole vault about 30 other things go wrong – and that’s fine. It’s a very complicated high school thing to do. If you don’t have a good coach, it’s really hard to be successful.”
Last year, Trevor’s son Noah was on the Trojans middle school track & field team and chose the pole vault as one of his events. His grandfather was able to coach him.
“I am thankful for that,” Trevor said.
Over the years, the elder Van Valkenburg coached numerous league, county and Regional champs. Trevor joined his high school friend, Kyle Cessna, at Onsted, first coaching the pole vault but later coaching distance runners and the Wildcats cross country team. Madison and Onsted were in the same league, the Lenawee County Athletic Association, for the last several years.
“Over the years my dad and I had plenty of good pole vault coaching and team battles,” Trevor said. “We were really competitive at first. Over time, that relaxed a little bit.”
Returning to Madison to coach was an emotional decision for Trevor.
“I’ve coached Onsted for nine seasons,” Van Valkenburg said. “It was kind of always in the back of my head that if my dad was ever done, I’ll go back to Madison. I knew he would hold on as long as he could. It didn’t end up the way we thought it would, but it finally happened and I’m back home.”
Another reason it is home is because his wife, Kathryn, has taught at Madison schools for more than 20 years. His younger son, Dominque, also attends Madison schools.
“When I’m here after school, my whole family is here,” he said. “My wife is in the building. My one son is getting out of elementary at 3:30, my other son is on the middle school track team.”
Larry Van Valkenburg was an ex-Marine who retired as an air traffic controller in 2011. His legacy will remain at Madison, mainly because he teamed with Powers and the rest of the coaching staff to form a powerhouse track & field program that won numerous league championships and made an impact at MHSAA Finals.
“Larry was a great coach,” Powers said. “Trevor is a lot like him. We are really happy he came back to coach.”
Trevor Van Valkenburg is the director of the Lenawee District Library, a system that has six branches and a bookmobile. They circulate more than 150,000 items a year. Each spring, he adjusts his schedule to allow for coaching. He feels at home at Madison – and the track & field athletes can take comfort knowing a Van Valkenburg is still coaching them.
“We’re pretty similar,” Trevor said. “I learned a lot of it from (my dad), so it makes sense we would be similar. We both are pretty laid-back people. We’re not going to scream in kids’ faces. I might be a little more drill-heavy instead of just practicing jumping over the bar. I learned everything I know from him.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a news and sports reporter at the Adrian Daily Telegram and the Monroe News for 30 years, including 10 years as city editor in Monroe. He's written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. He is now publisher and editor of The Blissfield Advance, a weekly newspaper. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Adrian Madison track & field assistant coach Trevor Van Valkenburg stands at the entrance to the school’s track this spring. (Middle) At left, JaLonn Borders stands for a photo with Larry Van Valkenburg and Larry’s grandson Noah after breaking the school’s pole vault record during last season’s Lenawee County Championships. (Top photo by Doug Donnelly. Middle photo courtesy of Trevor Van Valkenburg.)