From High School to Olympic Swimming
July 11, 2012
Fans of U.S. Swimming already have plenty of reasons to cheer for Missy Franklin later this month at the Summer Olympics -- she's only 17, but qualified to compete in a U.S. women's all-time best seven events.
But fans of high school sports and what they provide athletes at all levels of ability can also support her for how she's chosen to compete when she's not racing against the best in the world.
Franklin, who lives in Colorado, has continued to swim for her high school team despite the financial rewards she could've earned by taking the elite swimmer's usual path of going pro.
A ton has been written about Franklin lately, for obvious reasons. Below is a link to a New York Times story from February that focused on her continued dedication to her high school team.
Before the Olympic Trials, There’s This Big High School Meet (New York Times)
In Memoriam: Chip Mundy (1955-2023)
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 16, 2023
When the MHSAA took a significant step in telling the stories of school sports with the introduction of the Second Half website in 2012, Chip Mundy was a natural to lend his expertise after a career doing the same in the Jackson area.
He always took special care in searching out the human interest side of our “stories behind the scores” – and today we remember that dedication as we mourn his death Monday. He was 68.
Mundy was a graduate of Jackson Parkside and then served as sports editor at the Brooklyn Exponent and Albion Recorder from 1980-86. He then became a fixture in high school sports coverage as a reporter and later copy editor at the Jackson Citizen Patriot from 1986-2011.
Mundy was one of the original correspondents when Second Half took on a regional component beginning with the 2015-16 school year, thoughtfully providing biweekly features from the “Southeast & Border” area that includes Jackson, Ann Arbor, Monroe and the host of smaller communities north of the Michigan/Ohio line. Before the beginning of 2H’s “Region Reports,” Mundy also was among the first to begin producing coverage of MHSAA Finals for the site as Second Half started in part with a mission of covering all MHSAA championship events.
He admittedly ended up reporting on some sports he’d rarely or never covered before, and admittedly often wrote a little longer than he’d intended – but in his own words, because “there were so many stories” or “the story was so good.”
Click to read many of his features for the Second Half website.