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.
'Let Them Lead' Shows How Through Coach's Eyes During Huron Hockey's Rise
By
John Johnson
MHSAA Communications Director emeritus
September 17, 2021
Over 30 years of riding shotgun with Jack Roberts, I quickly learned to respond whenever I was asked about the lifetime values of high school sports, with a laundry list with these two items at the top:
Hard Work - Team Work
In reviewing the newly-released book by Ann Arbor’s own John U. Bacon – “Let Them Lead, Unexpected Lessons in Leadership From America’s Worst High School Hockey Team” – everything flows from those two values all of us in prep sports hold near and dear.
I met John in 1997 when he was a sportswriter at The Detroit News, where he was covering his high school alma mater – Ann Arbor Huron – in the Class AA Football Final at the Pontiac Silverdome. Just a few years later, the story that holds the detailed leadership lessons together in this book would begin when he was named the head hockey coach at Huron, inheriting a team that finished the previous season 0-22-3.
Building everything he put into that team with the premises that no one would outwork the River Rats, and as a team they supported each other, Bacon’s charges rose from not even being listed in the national team winning percentage listings - about 1,000 schools - prior to his arrival, to a top-five spot in the state’s rankings in his fourth year.
Along the way, the buy-in to the leadership themes made Huron Hockey cool again at the school and earned the River Rats the respect of their opponents. The values being taught gave value to the program. In making it hard to be a part of the team, more kids wanted to join it. They valued the experience. They led and supported themselves on and off the ice.
With the book being written nearly 20 years after the events it is based on, Bacon solicited input from a variety of players to verify the accuracy of events, and they flooded him with additional stories of their own from their playing days and adult lives which illustrated the leadership skills they learned in the locker room, training sessions, practices and games.
Like any book on leadership, you forge through those details about applying certain things in the workplace, but what keeps you engaged is the team. You’ve gotten hooked by the River Rats, and you just have to see how this thing turns out.
This feel-good tome resonates whether you’re a coach or a corporate type. It’s an easy read, and you'll take a lot from it.
John U. Bacon did play ice hockey for the River Rats, owning the distinction for playing the most games at the time he graduated – but also never scoring a goal. His writing, teaching and speaking career have produced seven books which have been national best sellers; he’s an established historian on a variety of topics – including the football program at University of Michigan, where he currently teaches; and he’s in demand as a public speaker.
Let Them Lead is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and available through a variety of bookstores.
PHOTOS (Top) Huron's hockey team runs the Michigan Stadium stairs in 2002. (Middle) "Let Them Lead" tells the story of the program's transformation. (Below) The River Rats celebrate their Turkey Tournament championship in 2001. (Photos courtesy of John U Bacon.)