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.
Applications Available for 2025-26 MHSAA/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Awards
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
September 30, 2025
One of the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s most popular programs, the Scholar-Athlete Award, will again with Farm Bureau Insurance present 32 $2,000 scholarships to top student-athletes at member high schools during the 2025-26 school year.
The MHSAA/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award highlights the value extracurricular activities play in the total education of high school students, often improving their academic achievements in the process. The Scholar-Athlete Award is in its 37th year. Since the award’s inception in 1988-89, Farm Bureau Insurance has presented $1,152,000 in scholarships through this program.
The first 30 scholarships will be presented on a graduated basis across the MHSAA’s traditional class structure. From Class A schools, six boys and six girls will receive scholarships; from Class B schools, four boys and four girls; from Class C schools, three boys and three girls; and from Class D schools, two boys and two girls will be honored. The final two scholarships will be awarded at-large to minority recipients, regardless of school size. The scholarships may be used at the institution of higher learning the recipients attend during the first year at those colleges.
Applications from individual schools will be limited to the number of available scholarships in their enrollment class. Class A schools may submit the names of six boys and six girls, Class B schools may submit four boys and four girls, Class C may submit three boys and three girls and Class D may submit two boys and two girls.
Students applying for Scholar-Athlete Awards must be graduating during the 2025-26 school year, carrying an unrounded 3.5 (on a 4.0 scale) grade-point average and have won a varsity letter in a sport in which the MHSAA sponsors a postseason tournament: baseball, girls and boys basketball, girls and boys bowling, competitive cheer, girls and boys cross country, field hockey, football, girls and boys golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, girls and boys lacrosse, girls and boys skiing, girls and boys soccer, softball, girls and boys swimming & diving, girls and boys tennis, girls and boys track & field, girls and boys volleyball and wrestling.
Applicants will be required to show involvement in other school and community activities and submit an essay on the importance of sportsmanship in educational athletics.
Information – including answers to a number of frequently asked questions – and links to the application are available online on the Scholar-Athlete Award page. Applications are available in digital format only and must be submitted online by 4 p.m. Dec. 5.
A committee composed of school administrators from across the state will select finalists and winners in late January, with the winners to be announced throughout February. All applicants, finalists and scholarship recipients will be announced on the MHSAA Website. The 32 scholarship recipients will be recognized during the 2026 MHSAA Boys Basketball Finals at the Breslin Student Events Center in East Lansing.
Farm Bureau Insurance of Michigan was founded in 1949 by Michigan farmers who wanted an insurance company that worked as hard as they did. Those values still guide the company today and are a big reason why it is known as Michigan’s Insurance Company, dedicated to protecting the farms, families, and businesses of this great state. Farm Bureau Insurance agents across Michigan provide a full range of insurance services – life, home, auto, farm, business, retirement, Lake Estate®, and more – protecting more than 660,000 Michigan residents.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.