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Today in the MHSAA: 11/18/16

November 18, 2016

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

Four volleyball teams secured matches on the final day of the season, and a champion football coach will be coming back from retirement to start a new era next fall.

Each weekday during the school year, we’ll gather and post media links covering the most significant and intriguing high school events from all over the state.

Volleyball

Class C: Reigning champion and No. 2-ranked Bronson swept honorable mention Calumet – Coldwater Daily Reporter

Class C: No. 6 Brown City will play in its first championship match after edging Adrian Madison in five sets – Port Huron Times Herald

Class B: Reigning runner-up and No. 3-ranked North Branch will play for the title again after coming back to beat No. 5 Buchanan 3-2 – Flint Journal

Class B: Top-ranked Lake Odessa Lakewood will play in the championship match for the third time in five seasons after downing No. 7 Cadillac 3-1 – Grand Rapids Press

Football

Former Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central coach Jack Giarmo, who led the Falcons to the Division 6 title in 2014, has been hired at Gibraltar Carlson – Monroe Evening News

Erik O. Furseth

In Memoriam: Erik O. Furseth (1930-2022)

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

March 1, 2022

For 50 years, Erik O. Furseth’s voice chimed throughout MHSAA and Michigan State University athletic events. That voice surely will continue to live in the memories of the many who cherished listening to him, as he died Monday evening at the age of 91.

Furseth began as the public-address voice of MHSAA Boys Basketball Finals in 1968 and continued well into his 80s as those games moved from Jenison Field House to other locations across the Lower Peninsula and eventually settled into Breslin Center. He also was the longtime MHSAA football championship game voice going back to their days at the Pontiac Silverdome and provided the narration for MHSAA Baseball Finals for a decade. He announced his last MHSAA event in 2018.

An MSU basketball player during the early 1950s, the Cleveland Heights, Ohio, native played in the Spartans’ first Big Ten game in 1951. A forestry student initially, Furseth switched to communications. He later became a legendary rock-n-roll radio DJ in Lansing, and for a decade hosted Saturday night dances at the Lansing Civic Center that drew 1,000 teenagers a night – and a surprise performance by a young Stevie Wonder.

Furseth’s voice continued to be known particularly by Spartan fans as the homecourt voice for MSU basketball from 1968-2002 and MSU football from 1971-98. For more, see this feature from the MHSAA Basketball Finals programs written in 2013.

Furseth moved from East Lansing to Traverse City about 25 years ago. Click for his obituary and funeral arrangements.