Beginning Another Tourney Journey
August 8, 2016
Below is the introductory commentary to the MHSAA's spring issue of benchmarks. Histories of MHSAA tournaments published in that issue have been appearing on Second Half every Tuesday and Friday.
By Jack Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director
Concussions and cutbacks. Participation fees and part-time employment. Student safety and specialization. International students and interstate travel. Transfers and trials.
Through a myriad of issues which periodically cloud our mission, the foundation on which the MHSAA was built still shines brightest three times each year: Tournament Time!
It can be daunting and overwhelming to make a living at this business of interscholastic athletics these days, not to mention a tad confusing. Do we need legal degrees? Medical degrees? Business degrees? Marketing degrees? There seems to be no escape from threat of legislative mandates which continually change the landscape of our product and how it’s delivered. Demands pile up, resources dwindle.
Add the daily challenges of scheduling issues, inclement weather and pleasing teenagers and their parents on a daily basis, and it’s easy to lose focus of the primary missions for the MHSAA and its member schools.
And then, scenes like this happen:
• Holly Bullough, a senior cross country runner from Traverse City St. Francis takes her second straight Division 3 championship, winning by 36.4 seconds ... with a stress fracture in her left foot.
• Detroit Martin Luther King QB Armani Posey directs a game-winning drive to give his school the Division 2 football championship ... a drive which started on his own 3-yard line with 37 seconds left and ended with a 40-yard heave to receiver Donnie Corley on the final play of the game.
• Leland sweeps the Class D volleyball title match 3-0 over Battle Creek St. Philip ... ending a string of nine straight titles for St. Phil, the 10th longest national streak in history.
• Davison’s Taylor Davis becomes only the fourth person in MHSAA Girls Bowling history to roll a 300 game in the Singles portion of the tournament ... and the first ever in the championship match.
• The Upper Peninsula’s Hancock HS wins the Division 3 ice hockey title in its first trip to the Final since 2000 ... a trip funded in part from a “Go Fund Me” web page that raised $6,620 from 99 donors in two days.
• Junior Kierra Fletcher of Warren Cousino carries her team to the Class A girls basketball championship with 27 points in the Final ... after scoring 37 of her team’s 60 points in the Semifinals and totaling 198 during eight tournament games.
That’s just a sampling of the magic from last fall and winter.
These moments shine through the current challenges and the unseen future that awaits us as they always have. The uniforms and faces are different, but the tournaments have always yielded the fruits of our labors, and the memories for our mental scrapbooks.
PHOTO: Leland's volleyball team hoists its Class D championship trophy last fall at Kellogg Arena.
Fenton Principal Bakker Selected as MHSAA's Charles E. Forsythe Award Honoree
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
March 11, 2026
An educator who has served in several roles – as a teacher, coach, athletic director, assistant principal and for the last four years principal at Fenton High School – Mike Bakker is able to draw from a wealth of experiences as he serves students not only in his school district but as a statewide decision-maker and leader.
In recognition of his several contributions over the last two decades, especially to educational athletics, Bakker has been selected to receive this year’s MHSAA Charles E. Forsythe Lifetime Achievement Award.
The annual award is in its 49th year and named after past MHSAA Executive Director Charles E. Forsythe, the Association's first full-time and longest-serving chief executive. Forsythe Award recipients are selected each year by the MHSAA Representative Council, based on an individual's outstanding contributions to the interscholastic athletics community at the local, regional and statewide levels. Bakker will be honored this weekend during the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA) annual conference in Traverse City.
Bakker began his professional career at Mason High School. He was hired initially as the boys tennis coach while still a junior in college, and then served twice as a long-term substitute teacher before being hired full time and teaching mathematics and statistics, serving as a club advisor and coaching girls and boys swimming & diving in addition to tennis. He moved to Fenton Area Public Schools as the middle and high school athletic director and assistant principal in 2004. Bakker became interim principal midway through the 2021-22 school year, with that promotion made permanent that March.
“I do think that because I’ve held all of those different roles, I still have all of those connections, and there are other athletic directors who have gone on to become principals and those are the people I reach out to – I know they have a passion for making sure everybody, because of the positions they’ve held, has success in different areas,” Bakker said. “Working in athletics so long, and helping those students find success and helping coaches find success, helped me help students who are not in athletics have success. It’s provided a pretty awesome opportunity and perspective to see how the system works and how to help students be successful and help teachers and coaches be successful.”
Bakker’s contributions have long stretched beyond his classroom and office duties as well. Locally, he’s served on the Fenton Education Foundation board of directors for two decades. As athletic director, he hosted more than 125 MHSAA Tournaments over 17 years and served on a dozen MHSAA committees.
Bakker also has been a member of both the MIAAA – the state’s professional organization for athletic administrators – and National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) for 22 years and has served in several leadership roles with the MIAAA including as president during the 2015-16 school year and as assistant executive director since 2018.
Bakker also is serving his second school year as a member of the MHSAA Representative Council.
“As someone who has dedicated himself to education and served in various roles over the last 25 years, Mike Bakker has gained a broad perspective that has helped shape his leadership – and he continues to give more of himself with his contributions at the MHSAA and MIAAA leadership levels,” MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said. “As a member of the Representative Council, he provides input on how decisions could affect all groups involved, and our schools are fortunate to have his valuable voice and viewpoint.”
Bakker also has been a member of both the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals (MASSP) and National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) for 15 years. As a coach he was a member of the Michigan Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association (MISCA) and served as a Zone representative from 2001-04.
Bakker was selected as the MIAAA’s Region 9 Athletic Director of the Year in 2010, and as its statewide Tom Rashid Athletic Director of the Year for 2020-21. He also was named Athletic Director of the Year in 2021 by the Michigan High School Coaches Association.
“For me, being an educator, and part of why I went into education and administration, was to help in the education process of the whole student. That doesn’t include just the classroom walls from the first bell to the last bell,” Bakker said. “To really impact kids, you have to build relationships, meet them where they’re at, and you have to help them find success not just in the classroom but out(side it), to help them become better than they thought they could be. … Even when I was athletic director, I still going and seeing kids perform in other things, and I was in charge of clubs as the athletic director, and all of those things allowed me to help meet students where they are and where their needs are as they are figuring out who they want to be when they leave.”
A 1994 graduate of Rochester High School – where he swam and played soccer, tennis and basketball – Bakker earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Michigan State University in 1998 and his secondary teaching certificate from MSU in 2000. He earned a master’s degree in educational leadership from MSU in 2004 and a master’s in sports administration from Eastern Michigan University in 2011. He also received his certified master athletic administrator designation from the NIAAA in 2011.
Bakker and his wife Denise have been married for 23 years and have three children – sons Jasper and Tristan and daughter Paige.
Past recipients of the Charles E. Forsythe Award
1978 - Brick Fowler, Port Huron; Paul Smarks, Warren
1979 - Earl Messner, Reed City; Howard Beatty, Saginaw
1980 - Max Carey, Freesoil
1981 - Steven Sluka, Grand Haven; Samuel Madden, Detroit
1982 - Ernest Buckholz, Mt. Clemens; T. Arthur Treloar, Petoskey
1983 - Leroy Dues, Detroit; Richard Maher, Sturgis
1984 - William Hart, Marquette; Donald Stamats, Caro
1985 - John Cotton, Farmington; Robert James, Warren
1986 - William Robinson, Detroit; Irving Soderland, Norway
1987 - Jack Streidl, Plainwell; Wayne Hellenga, Decatur
1988 - Jack Johnson, Dearborn; Alan Williams, North Adams
1989 - Walter Bazylewicz, Berkley; Dennis Kiley, Jackson
1990 - Webster Morrison, Pickford; Herbert Quade, Benton Harbor
1991 - Clifford Buckmaster, Petoskey; Donald Domke, Northville
1992 - William Maskill, Kalamazoo; Thomas G. McShannock, Muskegon
1993 - Roy A. Allen Jr., Detroit; John Duncan, Cedarville
1994 - Kermit Ambrose, Royal Oak
1995 - Bob Perry, Lowell
1996 - Charles H. Jones, Royal Oak
1997 - Michael A. Foster, Richland; Robert G. Grimes, Battle Creek
1998 - Lofton C. Greene, River Rouge; Joseph J. Todey, Essexville
1999 - Bernie Larson, Battle Creek
2000 - Blake Hagman, Kalamazoo; Jerry Cvengros, Escanaba
2001 - Norm Johnson, Bangor; George Lovich, Canton
2002 - John Fundukian, Novi
2003 - Ken Semelsberger, Port Huron
2004 - Marco Marcet, Frankenmuth
2005 - Jim Feldkamp, Troy
2006 - Dan McShannock, Midland; Dail Prucka, Monroe
2007 - Keith Eldred, Williamston; Tom Hickman, Spring Lake
2008 - Jamie Gent, Haslett; William Newkirk, Sanford Meridian
2009 - Paul Ellinger, Cheboygan
2010 - Rudy Godefroidt, Hemlock; Mike Boyd, Waterford
2011 - Eric C. Federico, Trenton
2012 - Bill Mick, Midland
2013 - Jim Gilmore, Tecumseh; Dave Hutton, Grandville
2014 - Dan Flynn, Escanaba
2015 - Hugh Matson, Saginaw
2016 - Gary Hice, Petoskey; Gina Mazzolini, Lansing
2017 - Chuck Nurek, Rochester Hills
2018 - Gary Ellis, Allegan
2019 - Jim Derocher, Negaunee; Fredrick J. Smith, Stevensville
2020 - Michael Garvey, Lawton
2021 – Leroy Hackley Jr., Byron Center; Patti Tibaldi, Traverse City
2022 – Bruce Horsch, Houghton
2023 – Karen Leinaar, Frankfort
2024 – Sean Jacques, Calumet
2025 – Kris Isom, Adrian
PHOTOS (Top) Fenton's Mike Bakker monitors activities from the field during a Tigers football game. (Middle) Bakker, left, takes a photo with daughter Paige and wife Denise as Paige holds the Flint Metro League volleyball championship trophy. (Photos provided by Mike Bakker.)