Michel Finishes with Story to Tell
June 11, 2013
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Andrew Michel received the heart-breaking news only moments before leaving his golf team’s Regional on Friday to get ready for that night’s Brownstown-Woodhaven prom.
But missing making the MHSAA Finals by a stroke was not the first thing he shared with those who asked about his day at West Shore Golf and Country Club in Grosse Ile.
Instead, the graduating senior told of the 132-yard shot he dropped for a hole-in-one on the par-3 12th hole, his second ace but first in competition.
Michel finished with a season-best 76, missing the cut for this weekend’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final by a stroke despite firing another eagle during the final holes of his round.
“At the start of the day, I told myself don’t leave anything on the table. Go for it on every hole, make every shot and just have fun at your last tournament,” Michel said Tuesday afternoon as he readied for that night’s graduation ceremony. “Being a senior, I went for everything.”
The best part might’ve been how he came back from a disappointing previous hole.
Michel had just finished off a triple bogey on No. 11, and admitted he was down on himself. He stepped to the next tee with his pitching wedge, and “I didn’t really care what happened. I chose the club I like to hit on that hole, and in the air I was thinking it was really good,” he said.
The ball touched down on the green and spun back into the hole.
Michel also played golf and soccer at Brownstown-Woodhaven. He’ll attend Grand Valley State University in the fall, study engineering, and will try to walk-on the Lakers’ golf team.
“Deep down inside,” he said he’s disappointed he won’t be playing at Michigan State’s Forest Akers West on Friday. But he’s got a quite a highlight to take with him from his final high school round.
“It was very bittersweet. I really wanted to go to state,” Michel said. “But the hole-in-one balanced it out a bit.”
Eye on the official
Hopefully you caught our MHSAA benchmarks piece (also published on Second Half) on longtime official Lamont Simpson, who has worked not only MHSAA Finals but NCAA tournaments and is one of 32 officials in the WNBA. (Here’s the link in case you missed it.)
He also became that league’s first to wear the referee cam, debuting the new gear during a recent game between the Phoenix Mercury and Indiana Fever.
The camera provides plenty of ref’s-eye views. Click the video below to check it out.
Wheels of Steele
We’ve been watching the inspiring progress of Frankenmuth runner Bobby Steele especially over the last few years as his story became known across the Lower Peninsula.
Steele, who is visually impaired, has run cross country and track for the Eagles, thanks to the help of guides who ran with him to help him stay on course.
If you haven’t heard Steele’s awesome story, check out this 8-minute video. Not only did Steele run, but he cut roughly 12 minutes off his first cross country times over the course of his career.
COMMENTARY: Public Act 184 a Real Loser for School Sports in Michigan
By
Mark Uyl
MHSAA Executive Director
October 20, 2022
There is a crisis in Michigan schools today that centers on one problem:
Not having enough people.
In discussions with school district personnel, we are being told there has never been a more difficult time for finding people than today. All of us are searching high and low to find coaches for athletic teams, and officials, referees and umpires to administer those games in an orderly and safe way. Dig a little deeper, and school districts are desperate to find those willing to serve as substitute teachers and bus drivers.
Because of this current reality, we continue to be dumbfounded over the approval of Public Act 184 this past summer. This created a new set of retirement rules stipulating that a retiring teacher or administrator cannot be rehired to serve as a coach until after a nine-month waiting period. Even more frustrating: Individuals who had served as high school coaches for many years, who retired from the classroom last June but had planned to keep coaching for a few more seasons, are being told they cannot do so. Those coaches are sidelined, and for no sensible reason.
Cheri Ritz has been the varsity softball coach at Wayland High School since 1995. Cheri has won numerous championships, and has been a model coach and great leader of students throughout her career. Cheri retired as a teacher in June and planned to keep coaching the softball team for a few more years, making a small fraction of what her classroom salary was before retirement. Under the “old” retirement law, Cheri could have retired in June and been detached from the district for 30 days, and then returned and worked for the district in any capacity as long as she was making less than 30 percent of her compensation at the time of her retirement. Under PA 184, this scenario can no longer happen.
In the state of Michigan, we have hundreds of recently-retired school people who want to continue to be some of our best coaches, making pennies on the hour for their time. Now they simply aren’t allowed to do so because of a law that had no intention of impacting coaches and school sports. Cheri is just one example. The same issue has found several more longtime, successful coaches including Northville’s golf coach Chris Cronin and cross country & track field’s Steve Porter at Milan High School.
For the past few months, the MHSAA has met with the Office of Retirement Services, representatives from the Governor’s office and even the bill sponsor of PA 184. Every single conversation revealed the fact that coaches were not even part of the discussion when this new retirement law was passed. In other words, recent retirees continuing to coach were not the issue, but yet this new law now treats coaches as some sort of enemy with zero phase-in period, modification or even the ability to seek a waiver of this new law which became effective immediately on July 25, 2022. We have tried to work within the system to seek some commonsense approaches and solutions to this problem, but to no avail as of yet.
We need your help. We need you to contact the Governor’s office and your State Representative and State Senator’s offices. Let them know PA 184 needs to be fixed now. We need to find a way to let these individuals continue to coach and lead our student-athletes. Let them know our kids cannot play their games without individuals who want to coach, and let them know our kids will miss out on learning valuable life lessons if these coaches are not allowed to continue.
And let them know that PA 184 could not have been passed at a worse time given our most valuable resource – people – is at an all-time low.
PHOTO: Wayland softball coach Cheri Ritz, front right, accepts the Division 2 championship trophy in 2015.