EGR's Newton Returns to Rink Amid Speedy Recovery from Double Lung Transplant
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
January 22, 2025
EAST GRAND RAPIDS – The last thing Chris Newton wanted to do was miss any time away from the hockey rink this season.
But when the East Grand Rapids hockey coach received a 3 a.m. phone call last month, he knew it was inevitable.
Newton also knew he would be receiving the possibility for a longer life and an opportunity to continue his lifelong passion.
Newton, who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at 4 months old, received news that a set of donor lungs was available, and he began the process of undergoing a second double lung transplant.
“I get a call and it was a 616 number so I knew exactly what it was, but I was totally shocked,” Newton, 35, said. “I definitely didn’t go back to sleep after that, and my mom was there visiting and everyone was surprised that it happened so quickly. If they find a good set, you can’t pass on it.”
Newton, a former Farmington High School goalie and assistant coach, had his first double lung transplant eight years ago.
“It was always in the cards that I would need one,” said Newton, a senior on the 2007-08 team that reached the Division 2 Semifinals and later an assistant coach for his dad, the late Bill Newton, with the 2013-14 Falcons squad that won the Division 3 title.
“I have a weird CF gene, and I don't qualify for the really good medicine they make that has made a difference in a lot of people's lives. A transplant was my only option as my health was decreasing pretty rapidly. And then, after eight years, you get rejection and they call it CLAD (chronic lung allograft dysfunction). The body starts rejecting lungs even though they had been good for like six years.”
Newton was diagnosed with CLAD two years ago, and it started slowly progressing.
He re-listed for another transplant in November, and 14 days later received the good news. It was two days after he collected his 100th career coaching victory.
“In comparison, the first time it was a 3½ month wait,” Newton said. “I had surgery on Dec. 10 at Corewell Health, and I came back to practice on Jan. 6. I missed two weeks of hockey with the three-week break we had, so it worked out.
“I feel great, and it's crazy to be back so quickly, but I feel good. The other sickness I have is coaching. I’m almost addicted to it when it's hockey season, and it’s really the only thing I think about. It’s what I do during these months, and it’s how I’m wired. When it happened, it was like this is perfect timing. I’m barely going to miss anything.”
The EGR hockey community has supported Newton throughout his transplant and recovery, and his players were motivated to give their best effort with their coach on the mend.
“Obviously it's been a long road for him, and it’s not the first time he has had this double lung transplant,” EGR senior center James Albers said. “It’s been pretty incredible, and all the guy wants to do is just coach hockey. He puts in all the fight, so I think the guys rally around him and want to do it for him, get big wins.
“We didn’t talk about it, but we wanted to play our best hockey for him because all he wants to do is show up at the rink for us. I have people at school ask me all the time how he’s doing, and it’s awesome to tell them that he looks incredible and is back on the ice after only a month.”
Senior Owen Stropkai has been on the varsity since his freshman year and has become close with his beloved coach.
“It’s great to have him back, and the positivity that he brings is awesome,” Stropkai said. “Every day it's a new level, and our team pushes for him. What he's been going through is horrible, but we think of him every day and grind together for him. He’s a great guy.”
Grant Newton, EGR’s associate head coach and no relation, took over the program in Chris Newton’s absence.
“We have a really good relationship, and we are close off the ice,” Chris Newton said. “I coached him at Farmington when we won a state championship, and he has helped me get the program to where it is.
“I went to him this summer, and we had a plan in place. I made sure he was comfortable taking over for me, and he did a great job.”
Chris Newton, whose family includes wife Jessie and sons Liam (6) and Carter (3), has transformed EGR into a perennial powerhouse the past few years.
The Pioneers have made back-to-back appearances in the Division 3 Final. They lost to Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood 3-2 in triple overtime last year and suffered a 3-2 loss to Flint Powers Catholic in 2023.
EGR reeled off seven straight wins to open this season and is currently 12-3-1 and tied for first in the Ottawa-Kent Conference Rue despite heavy graduation losses last spring.
“The one thing that is great about this team is we haven’t stopped what we've been doing the last two years when we’ve had success,” Chris Newton said. “We’re sticking to details and making it more about the program than individuals.
“Our motto this year is being uncommon. I wanted that way back in the summer before this even happened. The motto has stuck to me, that I'm uncommon, but I wanted our kids to compete and be uncommon daily, and they’ve done that. It’s been a great group to be around and a group I wanted to get back to as quickly as I could.”
Chris Newton was blessed to have a superb transplant team help him navigate the process.
“The people there were great, and my surgeon was absolutely incredible,” he said. “They are good and talented people, and the nursing staff made it way easier than I expected.
“Obviously, no guarantees or anything, and everything is going well right now,” he added. “I’m still being seen a lot and being tested, but no number can be put on it. Eight years was a good run with the first set, but you just don’t know. I don’t have a crystal ball as to what will happen.”
Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for five years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS (Top) East Grand Rapids hockey coach Chris Newton instructs his team during a practice. (Middle) Newton directs his players on the bench during a game. (Below) Newton takes a photo with members of this season’s EGR team. (Photos by Grant Newton.)
Longtime Coach Vlcek has Manchester On Pace to Contend in D4 Title Race
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
December 19, 2023
Steve Vlcek is 34 years into his varsity coaching career at Manchester and might have his best team yet.
The season still has a long way to go, of course, but Vlcek is confident that what is being built right now in the Flying Dutchmen wrestling room is something special.
“I always call this our preseason,” he said. “We’ll have four tournaments before the new year. That’s 26 or 27 matches per kid. That way, we can figure out where we are at, what we need to work on more. Then we can start tweaking stuff a little bit.
“It’s been a really great start. I see a lot of improvement in our team.”
Vlcek, who has won more than 700 meets in his career, and Manchester have been on the cusp before. The Flying Dutchmen have won 18 straight District championships and own a dozen Regional titles. Manchester was the Division 4 runner-up in 2008 and has reached the Semifinals multiple times.
The last two years, they’ve qualified for MHSAA Team Finals weekend but have lost the first day in Quarterfinals.
“It’s been a little frustrating, but you have to keep plugging away,” Vlcek said. “We’re trying. We have a good shot the next couple of years.”
Vlcek was a football guy at Manchester, but when the school didn’t field football in 1981, he turned to wrestling.
“We didn’t have football my freshman year, and I was driving my mom crazy,” Vlcek said. “I took up wrestling.”
During his four years with the varsity, Manchester went through three coaches. It was his final coach, Dan Jordan, who invited Vleck back a couple of years later to work with some of the wrestlers on the team.
“He called me up and asked if in my free time I would come and work with a couple kids,” Vlcek said. “Two years later, I was the junior high coach, and two years after that he resigned, recommended me for the job and I got it. He did a really good job of bringing up the program.”
Vleck never thought he would be a coach, but it became his passion.
“Once I started working with the kids, I really enjoyed it,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how much I would like it as a 19-year-old, or 20-year-old kid, but I did.”
Some of his early Manchester teams struggled with numbers. They’d often have seven or eight wrestlers win matches but lose in a dual-meet format because of the forfeits. That started to change during the mid-2000s.
“We started getting good classes together, and that made a considerable difference,” he said.
He picked things up from rival coaches, some of whom he has become friends with over the years.
“You pick up little things from each coach you coach against,” he said.
He credits a strong youth program at Manchester with developing wrestlers at a young age.
“We have a very involved youth program,” he said. “They’ve brought a good product to me. I try to stay away from it, let them develop it. We are very lucky to have it.”
He also credits a slew of assistant coaches, such as Mike Bunn.
“I can name 20 guys who have come into the room and make the program better every day,” he said. “I have my son (Brock) coaching with me now, and I really enjoy that.”
The Flying Dutchmen have 10 juniors on this year’s squad, including Sammy Stewart, who won an Individual Finals title last year at 113 pounds, and Blake Sloan, who was runner-up at 138.
Stewart missed a good part of the 2022 season while recovering from a hand injury.
“He had a really bad accident in shop class,” Vlcek said. “He almost cut his hand off. He came back in mid-January. He definitely had to overcome some obstacles. He avenged the loss he had (during the regular season) in the state finals.”
Sloan is another of the super sophomores. He’s coming off a record-setting football season in which he rushed for more than 2,100 yards.
“I can’t ask more out of those guys,” Vlcek said. “They put their time in and help their teammates out. We have seven or eight kids who have been state qualifiers. We still have some work to do, but there is improvement.”
Manchester is 10-2 in dual meets to start this season, giving Vlcek 711 career victories. The Flying Dutchmen have played a good schedule and have been ranked anywhere from No. 2 to No. 5 in early-season team rankings.
“I like to be challenged,” Vlcek said. “You don’t get better without wrestling the best.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Sammy Stewart’s hand is raised by the official in victory after the Manchester standout won his championship match at the Individual Finals in March. (Middle) Teammate Blake Sloan, right, considers his next move during his championship match last season. (Below) Coach Steve Vlcek embraces Stewart after the victory. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)