MHSAA Historian Picks 10 to Remember
August 9, 2016
By Rob Kaminski
MHSAA benchmarks editor
It sounded simple and fun, the theme for the MHSAA's spring issue of benchmarks: a history of MHSAA tournaments.
It certainly was the latter, but simple? Not so much.
There’s no way to do justice to nearly a century’s worth of history in some sports. Complicating matters was the abundance of information and photographs for some, and the scant amount of detailed data and images for others.
MHSAA historian Ron Pesch was given an equally challenging task: recount a “Top 10” list from his days covering various MHSAA Finals. He shares them here and, he adds, they are in no order of favorites.
The Shot: 1986 Class B Boys Basketball Final at Crisler Arena – Saginaw Buena Vista’s Chris Coles’ desperation shot, launched at the buzzer from well beyond half court, dropped through the hoop to give the Knights a 33-32 win over defending champion Flint Beecher in a rematch of the 1985 Class B title game. The shot was Coles’ first of the second half and his only points in the contest.
The Smurfs: 1986 Class A Football Final at the Pontiac Silverdome – The "Smurfs" – Muskegon Coach Dave Taylor's nickname for his small, quick swarming defensive linemen – limited heavily favored Sterling Heights Stevenson to four yards rushing and 73 yards of total offense in a 10-0 win. As a 1979 graduate of Muskegon High School, I was elated.
The Drive: 1989 Class B Football Final at the Pontiac Silverdome – I slid down from the press box into the stands at the Silverdome for the end of this one. With 2:20 remaining, the atmosphere was simply electric, as Farmington Hills Harrison’s lauded quarterback Mill Coleman took the reins with his team down 27-21 to DeWitt. The senior executed a flawless two-minute drill, guiding his team to the DeWitt 9 before scampering into the end zone for the tying points. Steve Hill added his fourth PAT for the lead, then secured the victory with an interception on the next series.
King Kool: 2005 Class B Boys Basketball Final, Breslin Center, East Lansing – David Kool was a flawless 20 for 20 from the free-throw line and scored 43 points as Grand Rapids South Christian downed Muskegon Heights 67-60.
The Parade: 2004 Individual Wrestling Finals, The Palace of Auburn Hills – In 2004, I traveled to Auburn Hills to watch the MHSAA Individual Wrestling Finals for the first time. The pageantry of the Grand March, the skills on display, the roar of the massive crowd, and the ensuing beauty and chaos of a wrestling extravaganza of this scale is truly a sight to see.
A Marathon: 2007 Division 3 Football Final, Ford Field, Detroit – East Grand Rapids and Orchard Lake St. Mary’s ended regulation tied 14-14, and this would turn into a five overtime battle that required an extra hour of play. No previous football playoff game, from Districts up, had ever gone beyond four overtimes. After exchanging field goals, touchdowns, extra points and two-point conversions, East Grand Rapids emerged with a 46-39 victory.
Tawana Towers: 1994 Class A Girls Basketball Final at Kellogg Arena, Battle Creek – Flint Northern, coached by Leteia Hughley and led by 6-4 freshman Tawana McDonald, defeated 1993 runner-up Detroit Martin Luther King, 46-32, for the Class A championship. McDonald batted down an MHSAA-record 10 shots, pulled down 13 rebounds and added five points and seven assists in a stellar performance.
Never Quit: 2008 Division 2 Football Semifinal, Spartan Stadium, East Lansing – Unbeaten, No. 1-ranked and heavily favored Muskegon trailed Davison by 22 late in the third quarter and 16 with less than five minutes to play. In perhaps the greatest comeback in playoff history, Muskegon recovered two onside kicks and scored 19 points in the final 4:31 to escape with a 38-35 victory and its third trip in five years to an MHSAA Final.
MHSAA Legends: 1998-2008 – For 10 years, the MHSAA showcased great teams from the past with their Legends of the Game series. From a historian’s perspective it was a chance to meet and learn more about folks I had often known only from the pages of microfilm. It was quite the treat to see years fall away as coaches, team managers and players reunited, in many cases for the first time after decades apart.
The MHSAA Record Books: Online, 1994 – One of my first efforts as state historian was to expand the record books beyond their primary focus on football, basketball, track & field and swimming & diving. With the arrival of the internet, an enhanced version of the record books was brought online. Coaches and fans were quick to respond with letters and e-mails, happily listing entries that had been “missed.” Soon, five category headings in a sport grew to 20, then to 50 and beyond.
Kids: 2004 Football Finals, Pontiac Silverdome – (OK, this is No. 11 ... consider it an extra point). For the first time, my sons joined me for my annual excursion to Metro Detroit for a Thanksgiving Day football weekend. They got to see the Silverdome before the move of the MHSAA Football Finals to beautiful Ford Field. Future Big Reds, they also got to see their future alma mater win another title.
PHOTOS: (Top) An MHSAA boys basketball tournament game is played at Olympia Stadium in Detroit. (Middle) Flint Northern's Tawana McDonald blocks a shot during the 1994 Class A Final.
In 'Turn & Burn,' Kent III Gives Voice Again to Father's Life Lessons, Coaching Wisdom
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 29, 2025
As his son, his player and during their time coaching together, Warren Kent III was front row for the words of wisdom often shared by his father Warren Kent Jr., who coached a multitude of sports at seven schools over more than three decades.
But as the years have rolled on after his father’s death in 2017, Kent III began to realize something most disheartening – he’d forgotten the sound of his dad’s voice.
In an attempt to regain that memory, Kent III has given us all an opportunity to listen.
His book – “Turn & Burn” – is the story of a son growing to love baseball under the tutelage of his father, a teacher and coach of the local varsity. The seeds for that love of the game are planted during the summer of 1984 – coinciding with the Detroit Tigers’ most recent World Series championship season.
Technically, the story is fiction. But it’s set in Fulton Township, which lies just west of US-127 between St. Johns and Ithaca, where Kent Jr. was indeed a coach and Kent III grew up and attended Fulton High School. And all of the information on the Tigers’ historic run that season – including game-by-game synopses of all 162 plus eight in the playoffs – is true as well and easily will connect with fans who, like Kent III, grew up during that unforgettable summer.
“That was my thing. I wanted people to get the feelings I had with the ’84 Tigers and sharing that with my dad as I was growing up,” he said. “My outlet is writing, so this is really a catharsis, just to get this out there, to let other people know the love of the Tigers but more the love of my father and things we went through together.”
Kent III was five months old when the Tigers won their 1968 World Series championship, but 16 in 1984. He said his book is about 70 percent factual, but even the imagined is rooted in reality.
The main character in “Turn & Burn” – EJ – is 12 years old because that seemed a more reasonable age to fall in love with the sport, and by 16 Kent III was well into his baseball fandom. The father in the book is a teacher and coach. Kent Jr. was a special education teacher for more than four decades and his son’s baseball coach at Fulton High School but just for freshman year before moving into the stands for the remainder of Kent III’s four-year varsity career.
Kent III began coaching baseball himself when he was 18 and served as North Muskegon’s varsity coach for 15 years, including 11 with Kent Jr. as his assistant. At one point in “Turn & Burn” players write EJ’s dad’s initials on their hands because he had been hospitalized after a heart attack; North Muskegon players did the same when Kent Jr. had a heart attack prior to a Pre-District game in 2005.
“Some of it’s been changed. Some of it’s been realistic,” Kent III said. “(But the dad) is definitely my dad’s voice.
“I put him in charge of the outfielders at North Muskegon, and that was his one motto – ‘Turn and burn.’ The kids could probably tell you that over and over, (that’s) the one thing Coach Kent would always say.”
A source of many of the fatherly pearls of wisdom found in “Turn & Burn” came from a journal-style “father’s legacy” book Kent III had purchased for his dad years before and asked him to fill out. Kent Jr. passed those on not only to his children but during a coaching run that took him to Hudsonville, Ashley, Fulton, Vestaburg, Blanchard Montabella and Greenville, where notably he led the football program to its first playoff appearance in 2000.
Writing has long been a love for Kent III, who taught English and journalism for 32 years – and served as a yearbook advisor for three decades – while at Battle Creek Central and then the final 27 years at Muskegon Mona Shores. Prior to becoming a teacher, Kent III was “Journalist of the Year” at Ferris State while sports editor of the student newspaper and then moved on to study and serve as sports editor of the paper at Michigan State.
He has written for the Big Rapids Pioneer, Lansing State Journal and Battle Creek Enquirer, among others over the years, and after retiring from teaching at Mona Shores this spring took a position with Walsworth Yearbooks helping schools all over the state with their yearbook programs.
Kent III also is in his 34th year as an MHSAA registered official. He wrote a piece once for Referee Magazine about his experience officiating the 2011 Class D Girls Basketball Final at Breslin Center, home of his beloved Spartans. He’s more recently officiated Basketball Semifinals at Breslin during the 2023 and 2024 seasons and has returned to the baseball diamond as an umpire as well after umping baseball and softball earlier in his career.
Writing a book came to Kent III during the COVID-19 pandemic, as he like many searched for something to occupy spare time. “Turn & Burn” is available exclusively via Amazon; click for details.
The venture was never about making money, but he’s sold 152 books – well above his goal of 100. And while Kent III still has not come across any recordings or voicemails of his father’s voice, “Turn & Burn” has given him a chance to hear Kent Jr.’s words once again.
“The sound, no. But the things and the ways he would say them, yes,” Kent III said. “Everybody else says they can picture his voice. I think it’s because, I’m assuming being his son, my voice probably sounds familiar to his to other people, but I can hear the things he’s saying. And in that book, the way he’s saying them.”
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PHOTOS (Top) At left, Warren Kent III sits in the front row of a team photo as manager for dad Warren Kent Jr.'s 1979 Fulton baseball team; Kent Jr. is sitting far left of second row from bottom. At right, Kent III today. (Middle) "Turn & Burn" is Kent III's first published book. (Below) The Kents anchor a photo with North Muskegon players and their District championship trophy in 2009. (Photos provided by Warren Kent III.)