Jackson Area Efforts Net New Officials
February 16, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Recruitment of new high school officials to eventually take the reins from those currently conducting MHSAA events is a challenge faced all over Michigan.
The Jackson Area Officials Association is working to restock its ranks by recruiting directly from local schools and developing them with help from veteran mentors.
Eight new officials – ages 15 to 24 – who worked a series of youth and middle school games together earlier this month, are among those who have been introduced through a program that begins with a meeting at the end of the high school basketball season between JAOA official Bill Walker and local athletic directors, coaches, fellow officials and other young adults he’s made contact with over the course of a season. From that meeting, Walker builds a list of potential candidates to become officials and then invites them to the annual JAOA Legacy Camp in June.
The camp includes two days of scrimmages between local teams, plus classroom and mechanics teaching. Similar to the MHSAA Legacy program, new officials are paired with veterans, and clinicians evaluate their work during scrimmage play. Walker then keeps in touch with the new officials during the rest of the summer, plugging them in for local youth tournaments and scrimmages, and uses as many as possible while assigning officials for youth tournaments over the winter.
All eight officials who worked the event this month are part of the JAOA legacy partnering, and some of the group already are working games at the junior varsity level – with one, a 19-year-old, recently completing his first varsity game. They come from a variety of Jackson-area schools – Parma Western, Napoleon, Jackson Christian, Michigan Center, Concord and East Jackson. Walker said the recruiting effort has a 60 percent success rate so far. (This June’s legacy camp will be the third.)
“By next season, all (eight) will be official MHSAA registered officials,” he said, noting most currently are registered. “It’s great to have these schools support this program. We all benefit from added, good officiating.”
Passing it forward
Our Battle of the Fans trip to Charlotte on Friday included a conversation about a Feb. 2 game between the Orioles and Mason, which has a pair of athletes fighting cancer. The Charlotte student section dressed in blue that night in support of junior Storm Miller, and during halftime passed buckets to raise money for Miller’s GoFundMe account set up to help pay for his care.
Mason, in turn, provided support Friday to an Owosso alum, 2012 graduate Cody Greger, who remains hospitalized at University of Michigan’s hospital with injuries sustained during a house fire in November. Fans and students collected donations to assist Greger’s family with his care.
“This event was yet another example of the values that school sports teach young people,” Owosso athletic director Dallas Lintner wrote on the school’s website. “And it stands as a testament of the integrity of the young adults that represent our schools and the (Capital Area Activities Conference.)."
100 years of hoops
A decade before the formation of the Michigan High School Athletic Association, Eastern Michigan University – then known as Michigan State Normal College – hosted what is believed to be the first organized high school basketball tournament in state history.
EMU will celebrate this anniversary Saturday in conjunction with the Eagles men’s basketball game against Toledo. Game time is noon at EMU’s Convocation Center, and during a break in play the athletic department will recognize the 12 schools that took part in that 1916 tournament – Marine City, Dundee, Milan, Mancelona, Farmington, Elkton, Royal Oak, Middleville, Lansing, Mount Clemens, Wayne and Saline.
More history, courtesy of EMU:
The game of basketball was developed by James Naismith in 1891 at Springfield College in Massachusetts. As a means of promoting the game throughout the country, physical education professor and EMU's first athletic director Wilber Bowen asked his good friend Naismith to bring the game to the Michigan State Normal College (now known as Eastern Michigan University).
The first basketball game west of the Allegheny Mountains was played at Michigan Normal in 1894 to recognize the new physical education program and to dedicate the new gymnasium on campus.
Then in 1916, Bowen, along with instructors Elmer Mitchell and Lloyd Olds (who was also credited with the introduction of the striped referee jersey), organized the first high school basketball tournament in Michigan. A total of 300 invitations were sent out to all Class B schools in the state. Twelve schools responded, and the first high school boys tournament was held on the Ypsilanti-based campus on March 23-25, 1916.
Entrance to the tournament was free and (the event was) played at the Michigan State Normal School Gymnasium. However, expenses related to transportation, room, and board had to be provided by the participating schools. The MSNC's Physical Education Department made it easier for schools to participate by making arrangements with local residents to provide food at 20 to 25 cents a meal and lodging at 25 cents a night for each player.
That first tournament saw Marine City defeat Dundee in the championship game, 23-22.
The winning team was awarded a silver shield mounted on an oak base. Second prize was a silver cup, and the third place team received a banner. Individual participation awards to all players were also provided. The Ypsilanti Press at the time felt the Normal School "went first class with the awards."
For tickets to Saturday’s game and event, which will be followed by the EMU women’s team taking on Northern Illinois, call the EMU Ticket Office at (734) 487-2282 or visit EMUEagles.com/tickets.
Following up
• Second Half’s Chip Mundy this fall wrote a story on the emergence of Ida’s football team on the way to making the Division 5 Semifinals and finishing its best season ever. A theme of that story was Ida’s philosophy of building “brick by brick,” coined by defensive line coach Gary Deland, who himself was building back after emergency triple-bypass heart surgery.
“From that very first practice in the summer to the last game as a senior, everything is built brick by brick,” Deland said for that story. “I can draw a correlation between that and my recovery, what I’ve gone through. It’s the same thing. It’s brick by brick.”
Kim Farver sent along this photo of Deland holding up a brick after the team’s 43-20 Regional Final win over Buchanan.
• We released the last batch of this year’s MHSAA-Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award winners today, and one of the highlights during the 27 years of the contest came two years ago when we caught up with some of our winners from the first 25 years – including Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood’s Abby Cohen, who has gone on to co-found a company and help develop a smartphone application, Wing, to help asthma patients monitor their lung function.
Here’s a look at a video describing the technology she’s helped create:
Multi-Sport Career at TC West Helps Gillis Thrive as Pro in Game She Once Left Behind
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
July 9, 2026
When Gaby (Muller) Gillis walked away from golf her sophomore at Traverse City West High School, she had no idea she would sprint back to the sport.
Especially since her walk quickly turned to a stumble thanks to a torn ACL suffered during basketball practice a few months after giving up the fairway.
“I think everything happens for a reason,” said Gillis, a three-sport star at West and now the first female head golf pro at the John’s Island Club in Vero Beach, Fla. “It’s a silver lining — it’s what got me back into golf. A few months after my surgery, all I could do was chip and put. I had to try to do something.”
When Gillis was a freshman in high school, girls golf was a spring sport, girls volleyball was a winter sport and girls basketball was a fall sport. Girls golf and volleyball became fall sports her sophomore year. After consultation with her coaches and her parents, Gillis chose volleyball, then her favorite sport, over golf.
Gillis did play golf and volleyball in the same season her junior and senior years, balancing academics and competing in two sports simultaneously. She practiced golf mostly on her own, following volleyball team practices.
“I wouldn't change anything,” Gillis said. “School was important to me as well, but I was very lucky with the opportunities that I had. Those fall seasons, junior and senior year were pretty hectic. I had a lot of support from the coaches and my teammates.”
After leaving West, Gillis went on to play golf for Michigan State University and become a golf pro. Before her ACL injury, she was seriously entertaining thoughts of playing volleyball at the next level.
“A lot of the elite athletes were playing club throughout high school, and I just couldn't do that because I was playing my other sports,” Gillis recalled. “So could that have affected maybe my volleyball career? I don't know if volleyball would have taken me to where I am now.”
Gillis, who credits much of her success to her parents encouraging her to play multiple sports, points to high school athletics as key to functioning as a golf pro today and managing two golf courses and a staff of 30. She is one of two head golf pros at John’s Island. The other is her husband, Tim Gillis.
“High school sports taught me a ton,” Gillis acknowledged. “High school sports teaches kids discipline, time management and how to work with others. When you're on a team and also for individual sports, you learn how to handle things and experience the highs and lows and trying to figure something out on your own.”
She recommends today’s student-athlete avoid focusing on just one sport.
“I do a lot of recruiting and hiring in my job now,” she added. “I ask them about their golf experience but I also ask if they grew up playing any other sports. I think high school sports can teach someone so much. A lot of the people that I hire have played high school sports.”
Gillis graduated from West in 2010. She was an all-state golfer for the Titans and selected to the all-Big North Conference first teams in basketball, volleyball and golf. During her junior year, she eagled two holes during the same round.
She went on to play for Big Ten championship teams at MSU. Her younger brother, Gage, joined her at Michigan State and played for the Spartans, too.
“I grew up a very passionate Michigan State fan and had the opportunity to play golf there,” Gillis said. “Even though golf is an individual sport, it still had that team aspect at the college level and I'm still extremely close with some of my teammates. Golf added the family aspect, which I think is so important.”
Gillis has been around golf much of her life. Her father, Fred Muller, was the head golf professional at Crystal Downs Country Club in Frankfort for 42 years. He died a little over a year ago. Gillis recalls vividly playing at Crystal Down as young as 5 years of age,
Gillis pointed out she couldn’t imagine doing any other kind of work today.
“Growing up, I watched my dad work at the golf course, caddying, working in the bathroom and the golf shop,” Gillis said. “I played at a high level in high school and college, but I didn't really know that's what I wanted to do after graduating college.”
Gillis is ready to start her own family any day now. She and her husband are preparing to celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary in September, and they’re expecting the birth of their first child by the end of this month.
So golfing once again has been halted.
“We're expecting a little boy, which we're very excited about,” Gillis said. I hung up my clubs up a couple weeks ago, but I actually played really well in my last round.”
She was under par going into the 18th hole and three-putted to finish even.
“But I gave all those men a run for their money,” she noted. “My body is not quite moving how I would like it, so I hung them up on a high note.”
The soon-to-be-new parents are planning to raise their son in sports similar to Gaby’s experiences at West and MSU.
“I feel like that was important that our parents didn't limit us to just one sport,” Gillis said. “When you're on a team learning how to work with people, you're working with people to try to be as successful as possible and win. And with individual sports, you're trying to find success as well. It translates to the real world.”
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PHOTOS (Top) At left, Gaby (Muller) Gillis poses for a photo with her Traverse City West coach Cathy Coon during her senior season in 2009. At right, Gillis now serves as a golf pro at John’s Island Club in Vero Beach, Fla. (2) Gillis stands for a photo with her husband Tim, who also serves as a pro at John’s Island. (3) Gillis, right, blocks a kill attempt for West’s volleyball team. (4) Gillis posts scores during an event. (Photos provided by Gaby Gillis.)