Linked Up: Meet Mr. Basketball

March 19, 2013

To casual high school basketball fans who hadn't heard about him coming up, Monte Morris introduced himself during Flint Beecher's run to last season's MHSAA Class C championship. 

On Monday, the Iowa State recruit won a close competition among the top three finalists for this season's Mr. Basketball award, as voted on by members of the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan. 

Morris gives Flint its first Mr. Basketball since Kelvin Torbert in 2001. 

Monte Morris of Flint Beecher Named Mr. Basketball (Detroit Free Press)

PHOTO: Flint Beecher's Monte Morris brings the ball upcourt during a game against Rockford this season. (Click to see more at HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)

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.

Chip MundyMundy 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.