Longtime Leader Brodie Still Giving Back
February 10, 2016
By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
Joe Brodie played basketball for legendary River Rouge coach Loften Greene in the 1940s, he coached Olympic Trials swimmer Ray Martin in the 1950s and coached University of Michigan quarterback Dennis Brown in the 1960s.
Brodie was the third winner of the MHSAA’s prestigious Vern Norris Award in 1994 for his service as an official.
So it should come as no surprise that Brodie, 87, is enjoying his retirement in Flat Rock with his wife of 62 years, Margo, their son and daughter and eight grandchildren.
There is, however, an impressive twist: Brodie still has an active connection with high school sports as he occasionally serves as a referee for swimming meets in the Downriver area. Forever humble, Brodie has a simple reply to the question, “Why are you still doing that?”
“I just want to give back,” he said. “Maybe it’s in my genes, I don’t know. Maybe it’s my heredity. I think it’s like playing cards; you have to go with the cards you’re dealt with. I still work out about three days a week.”
Early days
Greene built one of the greatest dynasties in the history of Michigan high school basketball. He coached 41 seasons and won 12 MHSAA Finals championships, including five in a row from 1961-65 and four in a row from 1969-72. Brodie, who also played football and ran track in high school, played on Greene’s third team in 1945-46.
Maybe sensing his calling as a coach, Brodie also helped the program by starting a summer league for younger players.
“There was a park that had an asphalt court, and when he won his first state championship team, those were kids I started in seventh grade dribbling around in circles,” Brodie said, “and the eighth-grader on that team was Blanche Martin, who played football at Michigan State. DeWayne Smith was on the team, too, and he ended up succeeding Greene as the coach.”
After graduating from River Rouge, Brodie went into the service and ended up in Japan. When he returned, Brodie enrolled at Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University), where he played football for three years and basketball for two.
It was while at Michigan State Normal that Brodie became certified in Red Cross life-saving, and that not only led to a job at Torch Lake near Traverse City but paved the way for his involvement with swimming.
Brodie’s first job came as head basketball, head baseball and assistant football coach at Sebewaing High School in 1952. He wore many hats at Sebewaing.
“I made $2,800 and taught seventh-grade geography and eighth-grade science, two ninth-grade biology classes, a study hall and a phys ed class,” he said. “I didn’t get anything extra for coaching, but I met my honey up there. I fell in love and married her and came back downstate. It was instant love.”
In 1953, Lincoln Park High School hired Brodie as a physical education teacher and assistant coach in football, basketball and baseball. Lincoln Park had no idea what it was getting. In 1955, the athletic director asked Brodie to coach the swimming team because of his background with life-saving.
Within a couple of years, Lincoln Park had its first conference championship in swimming, so the athletic director then asked Brodie to take over the struggling basketball program, which had never won a conference championship.
Brodie led Lincoln Park to back-to-back conference championships and an appearance in the MHSAA Quarterfinals in 1961. No Lincoln Park boys basketball team has made it back to the Quarterfinals since that year.
On to administration
After 13 years at Lincoln Park, Brodie accepted a job as athletic director at Southgate High School. Eventually, the position also included duties at Schafer High School, which is closed.
“It was strictly an administrative job, and that got me out of coaching,” Brodie said. “That’s when I had the time to do a little bit of officiating.”
Brodie, who had first registered as an MHSAA official for 1955-56, joined a football officiating crew that went on to work an MHSAA championship game, served on the MHSAA Representative Council from 1978-80 and 1981-83, and officiated swimming meets. And he was never afraid to let his voice be heard.
“Our crew was headed to Jackson to do a playoff game, and the athletic director there was my good friend Dennis Kiley,” Brodie said. “The guys on the crew were getting up there in age, and the game was getting tougher to do. They were going to pay four of us, but I wanted to have an extra official so we could cover the deep passes and said we would still take the pay for four and just split it among the five of us.
“They told us no, but we did it anyway. I was the umpire that night, and I was the deepest umpire you ever saw in high school football. Nobody said anything about it.”
Kiley chuckled at the mention of Brodie.
“Joe was one heck of an athlete; football, basketball, you name it,” Kiley said. “He is a heck of a good guy and was a very good official. He was excellent. I would have hired him anytime.”
Not one to take time off, Brodie found odd jobs in the summer to pick up a little extra cash.
“I’ve worked every summer doing all sorts of things,” he said. “I’ve jumped off milk trucks, things like that.”
No job was too big or too small for Brodie, whose next move was to Davison Middle School in Southgate, where he was principal when he retired in 1986 – 30 years ago.
He didn’t slow down much in retirement.
Every winter for 25 years, Brodie and his wife would go to Arizona, and he could not resist getting involved with athletics. He worked track meets, doing high school and AAU meets. He once was named the official of the year in Arizona and also had a chance to work the Pac-10 conference meet at Arizona State University.
“Here’s a little kid from River Rouge, and I’m lining up guys from Washington, Washington State, USC and Arizona. I felt so humbled being a starter. Where else other than this country can this happen?”
Legacy lives on
Brodie concedes he is slowing down at 87, but slowing down at 87 is a good thing. He and his wife no longer go to Arizona for the winter, so that has opened the door to do a few boys swimming meets in addition to girls meets he often works in the fall.
“I’m not going out and campaigning to referee,” he said. “This year I took the Riverview boys schedule, about four or five meets, and took six to eight middle-school meets – you can’t get officials for middle-school meets – and I had a couple of girls meets that I did.
“I just fill in for people, that’s what I do. I’m not going out and hustling, but I think I’m still sharp enough to do the job.”
Brodie’s legacy lives on, not only in the continued work he is doing but in his son and daughter. Brodie’s son, Bob, has been the head basketball coach at Salem for 26 years and is in the Michigan High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He also has been an MHSAA registered official for 39 years in five sports.
Brodie’s daughter, Jann Stahr, is an MHSAA official in competitive cheer and swimming.
“They are why we don’t go to Arizona anymore,” Brodie said. “Both kids live in Flat Rock. My daughter is about seven houses away, and my son lives about three blocks away.”
The Brodie legacy has more meat to it. In addition to the Norris Award, Brodie is in the Michigan High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame, the Eastern Michigan University Hall of Fame and the Lincoln Park Hall of Fame, which has his bust on display at the Sportsmen’s Den in Riverview.
“I hate saying, ‘I did this,’ or ‘I did that,’” he said. “It’s never been about me. All I ever wanted to do was give back.”
Mission accomplished.
Chip Mundy served as sports editor at the Brooklyn Exponent and Albion Recorder from 1980-86, and then as a reporter and later copy editor at the Jackson Citizen-Patriot from 1986-2011. He also co-authored Michigan Sports Trivia. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Flat Rock's Joe Brodie officiates a swimming and diving meet Tuesday at Riverview. (Middle) Brodie, an official for 61 years, dresses for a football game during the 1970s. (Below) Brodie with the "Brodie Bunch," his family, which includes current officials, coaches, athletes and past coaches. (Photos courtesy of the Brodie/Stahr family.)
Hackett Mentor's Care Sparked Lifetime in Hoops for BCAM President White
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
July 24, 2026
KALAMAZOO — When Kevin White counsels an unruly student, he usually understands what’s going on.
At one time, he was that student.
For the dean of students at Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep, White’s life has come full circle.
He thrived while attending St. Monica Elementary School as a child, but after his father Damon passed away in 1989, the family moved to Portage and he changed schools.
“Eighth and ninth grades there was a change in behavior and grade point average,” White said. “Right about Christmas break, I had three gentlemen in my living room.
“Mike Smith, Shawn Potts and Nib Reisterer were having a conversation with my mom. They were worried about the direction I was headed and I think somehow those three came up with a plan to get me back (to Hackett).
He soon realized he needed the structure, discipline and smaller class sizes available there. But the worst part of transferring to Hackett was that he had to sit out the upcoming basketball season.
“I was not allowed to play right away because they decided my grades weren’t good enough to play, only to practice,” he recalled. “To sit on the bench as a high school kid with a bad GPA, and (bad attitude), it was like when I was little. If I wanted to do things, I had to do them the right way.”
At Hackett, he was reunited with Reisterer, his mentor who put him through some tough workouts.
“They were some of the hardest workouts I ever had because I had to go back to changing some bad habits, which changed pretty quickly,” White said.
He also had to face the players he idolized as a child when they asked why he wasn’t playing.
“That’s when I knew I had to kick it into gear because I didn’t want to let those guys down,” White said. “They said, ‘You wanted to wear that jersey since you were in fifth grade.’ My mom says peer pressure is the best pressure.”
Learning from the best
White first encountered Reisterer, who changed his life, during elementary school.
After losing his father, White would have to remain at school until his mother, Sheila, who was a police officer, picked him up.
“This gym teacher was, ‘Hey, do you want to hang out in the gym?’ Then he said he had basketball practice at 5 and did I want to come with him to practice? And he’s been stuck with me ever since,” White recalled. “It turned into ‘can I come to practice’ to ‘can I go to a couple games?’ Then I got to ride the bus. Then the Reisterer vacations at the lake became ‘Kevin’s coming too.’ There was a time when the Reisterers became my extended family, and within that came a basketball family.”
Reisterer, who was physical education teacher at St. Monica, said he knew White’s situation and wanted to help.
“My son Ryan was only a couple years younger than Kevin,” he said. “Ryan just adored him, and Kevin became my second son.”
Reisterer, who was also Hackett’s head boys basketball coach, noted, “Kevin became my ball boy. He came to every practice and did all the drills with the kids. He led the team in warmups before the game and became quite a celebrity himself.”
The highlight of his younger years was riding the bus with the Irish players, White said.
“Doing my third-grade homework with them showing me how to do the math problems and arguing about giving me the answers or not giving me the answers,” White laughed.
“The reward was, if you behaved in school you got to go to the games. So it was real easy to behave because I wanted to hang out with the high school guys and be on the bench.”
That sparked his love of basketball.
White graduated from Hackett in 1998 and then played at Glen Oaks Community College. With thoughts of prolonging his career in basketball after college – he went on to graduate from Western Michigan University – White remembered words he heard in passing.
“The guy said, ‘You might be able to play for a long time, but you’ll coach a lot longer than you’ll play if you start coaching right away,’” White said. “As a young guy, you hear it but you don’t think about it.
“Then you get into coaching and start working camps and going to the Final Fours and start networking. I like playing, but I love teaching the game. It’s been fun doing it that way.”
Reisterer said White wasn’t going to “set the world on fire” as a basketball player, but he worked his way through the coaching ranks, from instructing young kids and contributing at summer camps to filling roles at the high school and college levels, learning at each stop.
“He has quite a network of coaches and a lot of experience,” Reisterer added.
Prioritizing family life
As an assistant coach at Kalamazoo College, White met athletic trainer Kathleen O’Farrell and was immediately smitten. He credits her with making him more detailed and organized.
They eventually married and have two children – Vincent, 7, and Riley, 3.
“Vincent is at the age where he wants to come to practice with dad,” White said. “People ask if he’s going to play basketball.
“Right now he loves to swim, loves to play soccer. I love that because I can just sit there and be Dad.”
Vincent not only goes to practice with his dad, but has his own whistle, his own spot in the locker room and his own practice plan.
“He’s in charge of the clock,” White added. “I make him sweep the floor because I had to sweep the floor when I was young. If he decides to coach, I wouldn’t be upset.”
White called his daughter a “mini-me.”
“She will say hello to anyone,” he said. “She’s got confidence, she will speak up. If she doesn’t like something, she will tell you.”
White honed his coaching skills as an assistant to several college and high school coaches, including at Hackett last season, and discovered that working at the same school where he coaches is special.
“I will tell any young coach, if you can get a high school job in today’s age and work in the school, that’s a win-win,” White noted. “The relationship with players is an advantage of working in the school because you’re with them during the day and after school, a lot of times more than they’re with their parents.”
White is running the summer basketball program at Hackett, but that’s not all the gregarious coach is doing.
As the current president of the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan (BCAM), “We run an event called Reaching Higher,” he said. “High school teams are selected from all over the state and they come for two days to play at Grand Valley University.
“It’s open to college coaches all over the country to watch the top high school players from the state.”
He was also involved in Midwest Live where 20-40 Michigan teams compete against teams from Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania at Cedar Point.
But next month, White will be back at Hackett, working to keep students on task.
“I see a lot of my classmates and myself in students today,” White said. “Yes, times have changed, but kids still want to be taken care of and want to be treated well and have support. Yes, some discipline comes with my job, but it’s also built on relationship and trust.
“I want (alumni) to come back and tell current kids that yes, Mr. White was hard on me about x, y and z, but when I needed something, he was there for me and if I didn’t follow through, he made sure I did.”
2026 Made In Michigan
July 24: Mackey Leaving Court with 500+ College Hoops Wins, Many More Lessons Shared - Report
July 16: Country Day Two-Time Champ Moore Building Perennial Winner at Harvard - Report
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July 2: Inspired by Home, Eager to Give Back, Spencer Hosts Hoop City Alumni Games - Report
PHOTOS (Top) At left, fifth-grader Kevin White celebrates with the Hackett boys basketball team in 1991. At right, White huddles with his players this past season while serving as an assistant with the Irish varsity. (Middle) White stands for a photo with BCAM Executive Director Dan Young. (Below) White poses with wife Kathleen and children Vincent and Riley. (Photos provided by Kevin White.)