AD Inducted to National Hall of Fame
May 7, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Winter gets hectic so quickly that we’re forced to save some intriguing items that come our way for a sunnier day – and that day is today.
Following are news, notes and a few key links collected over the last few months, including the national Hall of Fame induction of a longtime Michigan athletic director, local recognition for another and statewide acclaim for a group of students putting their video production equipment to good use benefiting all.
Ann Arbor AD Honored Nationally
Former Ann Arbor Huron athletic director Jane Bennett was among five inducted into the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association Hall of Fame in December.
Bennett served 26 years as a teacher, coach, athletic director and assistant principal in Michigan before spending the last decade as a principal at two schools in Montana. She served as athletic director at Huron for 15 years through 2002-03. The NIAAA reported that during her final decade in that position, participation in athletics doubled.
Bennett, who received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan, began her career at Huron in 1977 as varsity softball coach and became a math teacher and the co-director of athletics a year later. She coached the softball team 14 seasons before moving into the full-time athletic director position. Bennett was co-founder of the Michigan High School Softball Coaches Association and served as MHSSCA president from 1982-87.
Among other achievements at Huron, Bennett was a leader in a successful campaign to gain voter approval of a $60 million bond package, which included $20 million to improve and expand athletic facilities. She also developed curriculum for an annual varsity captains/head coaches leadership training program and composed handbooks/guidebooks for coaches, athletes and parents.
Bennett also was a valuable contributor to the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association and the NIAAA. She was president of the MIAAA in 1993-94 and a state conference speaker on several occasions. Bennett also served in various NIAAA leadership positions including on the committee that developed the Leadership Training Institute in 1996.
Bennett was named MIAAA Athletic Director of the Year in 1998 and received its State Award of Merit in 1997. She received the MHSAA’s Women in Sports Leadership Award in 1995 and was inducted into the MHSSCA Hall of Fame in 1995. Prior to her selection to the NIAAA Hall of Fame, Bennett was honored with the NIAAA Distinguished Service Award in 1998 and the NIAAA Thomas E. Frederick Award of Excellence in 2000. In 2005, she was inducted into the National Council of Secondary School Athletic Directors Hall of Fame, having served as its president in 2003 and been selected as its Athletic Director of the Year in 1998.
PSL's Ward: 'Pillar' of Detroit Athletics
Alvin Ward, the executive director of athletics for the Detroit Public School League and a member of the MHSAA Representative Council, received a 2014 Pillar in the Community Award in April from the Coast II Coast All-Stars, a Detroit-based pro basketball team that plays in the American Basketball Association.
Ward has served as a teacher, assistant principal and principal as well for Detroit Public Schools, and directs programs with a combined 500 coaches and 4,500 athletes.
Linked up
- This winter, the MHSAA Representative Council adopted a number of football practice rules changes aimed at improving player acclimatization at the start of fall and reducing head trauma and injuries. The Adrian Daily Telegram’s Doug Donnelly got responses from a number of coaches from that area of the state; click to find out why they feel these changes are important.
- Port Huron Times Herald writer Paul Costanzo let people know about our Student Advisory Council through the experience of Marlette’s Connor Thomas, one of our juniors and a great contributor this school year.
Power of Awareness
The Kimberly Anne Gillary Foundation works to educate Michigan schools on sudden cardiac arrest and train personnel in CPR and the use of an AED (automated external defibrillator). The video below teaches us again about the importance of awareness.
Saginaw Heritage was awarded $5,000 in April as the winner of the Gillary Foundation’s High School AED Contest. Students were asked to create a 3-minute video emphasizing the importance of Michigan high schools being adequately prepared to respond to a sudden cardiac arrest or related event on school property.
Randy and Sue Gillary created the foundation after their 15-year-old daughter Kimberly – an athlete at Troy Athens – died after suffering sudden cardiac arrest in 2000. The contest judges were Kimberly’s sisters Emily Kucinich, Jennifer Gregroy and Katie Gillary.
As of April 1, the Gillary Foundation had raised $1.2 million and donated 650 AEDs to schools – with three lives having been saved with donated AEDs. For more, click www.kimberlysgift.org.
Finals Title Next Step for Versatile Swan Valley Record-Breaker Kuhn
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
May 22, 2024
Sydney Kuhn’s habit for smashing school records at Saginaw Swan Valley has forced the track & field program to start taking cost-cutting measures.
“We stopped changing out the records on our record board,” Swan Valley coach Dave Dawson said. “We just figured she has another year and she’ll break it again, so we figured we’re going to save money this way.”
Kuhn, a junior, owns the school records in the 200, 400, 800 and 1,600 meters. She also has the program record in 60 meters, an indoor track event. She’s run the school’s second-fastest 300 hurdles time, and one of the top five 100-meter times. The 1,600-meter relay team she’s part of with Mackenzie Morgan, Grace Spear and Mackenzie Powell is close to setting a record, as well, and has qualified for the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals on June 1.
“Her ninth-grade year, everybody knew, depending on what happens and her attitude, they knew she could be something special. There was potential there,” Dawson said. “Lauren Huebner, she graduated in 2016 and went to SVSU and was a two-time Division II national champion, she had eight records on the board. Sydney feeds off that. Especially now that Lauren is helping coach, she’s definitely been pivotal in this.”
Kuhn qualified for the Finals in the three events she ran at last week’s Regional: the 200, 400 and 1,600 relay. She will be the No. 1 seed in the 400, and has run the fastest time in the state regardless of division, at 55.11 seconds. She’s the No. 2 seed in the 200, where her personal best of 24.89 is the fifth-fastest time in the state this year, regardless of division. She finished third and sixth, respectively, at the Finals in the events a year ago.
“I feel good,” Kuhn said. “I’m just getting ready. It’s been a good year, it’s been going smoothly. The 400 looks pretty good, and the 200 there will be some good competition. Freshman year, I got fifth, then third (as a sophomore) in the 400, so hopefully this year is first.”
She did not run the 800 at the Regional, as it was decided it was too close in the meet order to her other events. She’s run 2:12.75 in the event, the fourth-fastest time recorded in the state this season.
That could be where she has the most potential, however, as it’s a race she had never run competitively until her sophomore season. The first time she ran it in a varsity meet, she recorded a 2:21, setting the school record.
“(Coach) Andrew Wendler put a bug in her ear, ‘If you’re running this fast in the 400, think of what your 800 would be,’” Dawson said. “She says, ‘Yeah, I’ll try it.’ So, in one of our first conference meets, she ran against a girl that’s pretty good in the 800 and we just said to follow her – stick with her and see what you can do. With 200 meters left, she just took off and broke the school record the first time she ran it.”
A year later, they tried the same thing with the 1,600. And again, Kuhn responded by running 5:12.73 in her first try, setting the school record. She’s since run 5:06.45.
“The first time I ran the 800, I ran against Mary Richmond from Frankenmuth who is really fast, and I sort of paced behind her the first 400, then the last 300 I took off. Same thing with the 1,600. I felt like staying behind her, I wasn’t really racing, so I could just go, I thought.”
Richmond is a three-time all-state finisher in both the 1,600 and the 3,200, as well as a four-time all-state cross country runner.
With Kuhn’s instant success in every race she’s tried, the logical next question is, what about the 3,200?
“My coach mentioned that,” Kuhn said with a laugh. “But I usually just shake my head. You never know.”
There is a real question, however, about what event, or events, Kuhn is best suited for moving forward. She said that she would like to shift some focus to the 800 for her senior year, and several college coaches who have been in contact with her have indicated that’s where she could land.
“The pattern typically is they would probably turn her into a half-miler or a miler,” Dawson said. “Some college coaches want her for the heptathlon with her hurdle experience, and she is not a stranger to the weight room. That’s the fun part about this, she tries something and it’s usually pretty fun. It’s usually a positive experience.”
Kuhn is ready for whatever is thrown at her.
“They’re mostly like 800, 1,500, those types of races,” she said. “Some of them just say whatever you like best. One coach mentioned the steeplechase – I don’t know about that. One coach did mention (heptathlon). I’d be open to whatever is best.”
While she’s taken some unofficial visits, she said she’s in no hurry to choose a college. Her focus remains on winning a Finals title at Swan Valley, and a series of times she’s set as goals for herself: 24.4, 54.9, 2:09.9, 4:59.9.
They’re all saved on her phone screen, where they’re easy to change as she reaches them. And at no cost.
“Every time I look at my phone, I see the times I want to get,” she said. “I’ve changed my screen saver a lot when I do break it.”
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) Saginaw Swan Valley’s Sydney Kuhn runs toward the finish during the Korf/Schultz Saginaw County Invitational on May 10 at Hemlock. (Middle) Kuhn anchors a relay during the Tri-Valley Conference Red meet May 8 at Frankenmuth. (Photos by Eagle Eye Photography.)