Special Year Thanks to No Specialization
August 7, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
As we embark on another sports-filled school year Monday, we can look to a recent Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central grad for the value of a school year filled with sports.
As specialization at the highs school level continues to be debated, Bryce Windham will start his college baseball career this fall at Division I Old Dominion University – after playing baseball but also football and basketball for the Falcons.
The MHSAA has long advocated athletes taking on as many sports as they have interest instead of focusing on just one in pursuit of a college scholarship – a position that’s received plenty of public backing of late, be it from stars of the U.S. women’s soccer team after their World Cup championship run or former Lansing Waverly multi-sport athlete John Smoltz during his enshrinement in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.
Enter Windham – who easily could’ve been excused for focusing on baseball, or even basketball as his dad is the St. Mary’s varsity boys coach. Instead, Bryce quarterbacked the football team to last season’s Division 6 championship – breaking Ithaca’s national-best 69-game winning streak in the Final – before being named Class C Player of the Year by The Associated Press in basketball and earning a Most Valuable Player honor at the baseball state coaches association all-star game at Comerica Park this spring.
All three of Windham's teams reached at least the MHSAA Quarterfinals.
“His participation in football and basketball helped land a Division 1 baseball scholarship to Old Dominion. They were able to see his athleticism in basketball and toughness in football, and ODU’s coach loved it,” dad and hoops coach Randy Windham said.
“He probably would’ve given up football, and that ended up his greatest memory by winning a state championship.”
Click to read about Windham’s multitude of accomplishments as reported last month by the Monroe Evening News.
Honors Abound
National coaching honors were bestowed on a trio of Michigan coaches over the summer:
- Retired Trenton ice hockey coach Mike Turner – the winningest hockey coach in MHSAA history with a record of 629-126-52 from 1974-81 and then 1995-2014 – was named National Coach of the Year in Special Sports by the National High School Athletic Coaches Association. His teams won 11 MHSAA titles and finished runner-up four times. “I was there when the MHSAA added hockey as one of their sanctioned sports and crowned their first MHSAA state championships in 1975. At that time there were 60-70 high school teams participating, and now there are 170,” Turner said. “It has been great to be a part of the advancements made in the sport of high school hockey, with more teams participating, more player development, and more opportunities that exist for players after high school.”
- Traverse City Central boys track and field and cross country coach John Lober won his second national coaching honor of the 2014-15 school year, named the NHSACA Coach of the Year for track and field to go with a previous honor earned in January from the National Federation of State High School Associations. He has coached the Traverse City Central boys track and field team since 1977 and also the boys cross country team since 1989. His 1992 track team won the Class A championship, and he has coached 17 individual MHSAA Finals champions. He was inducted into the Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2006.
- Ann Arbor Pioneer assistant girls swimming and diving coach Liz Hill was named the Assistant Coach of the Year for all girls sports by the NHSACA. Hill, a former All-American at the University of Michigan and standout sprinter at Pioneer, began assisting her husband Denny Hill in 1983 before becoming his fulltime assistant a few seasons later. Together they’ve led the Pioneers girls to 15 MHSAA team titles, the last two as co-head coaches.
Michigan Mourns
Fremont and the high school athletic community statewide mourned the death July 21 of longtime coach Rich Tompkins, who led Fremont’s boys cross country teams to six MHSAA cross country championships including three and a runner-up finish during his last decade of coaching before retiring in 1997.
The Muskegon Chronicle reported that his boys and girls cross country teams and boys track and field team combined for 45 league championships, with his boys cross country team winning 116 straight duals from 1977-88. Tompkins was executive director of the Michigan High School Coaches Association for more than a decade and served on its board for more than two decades.
Click to read more from the Chronicle on Tompkins’ legacy.
Officials in the News
The Monroe County Officials Association took to the county fair to encourage passers-by to “Be the Referee” – and received 47 sign-ups from people interested in the avocation. Visitors to an MCOA booth at the fair were told in some detail what is involved with being an MHSAA official, and those who then signed up to find out more about officiating football, basketball, baseball or softball (sports the MCOA trains for and schedules) will be invited to an orientation session where they will become eligible for one of 20 complimentary registration fees for this school year.
The West Michigan Officials Association marked a decade of support at the start of this summer for the Visually Impaired Sports and Activity Day, sponsored by the Helen DeVos Children’s Foundation. The WMOA has contributed nearly $18,000 to the event over the last 10 years as well as taking part in the event, which includes a number of sports and other activities.
The Saginaw Athletic Officials Association sent along this photo of five members who worked 2013-14 MHSAA Finals, from left: Mark Jarlock (baseball), Tom Behmlander (softball), Scott Helmka (football), Dale Brown (softball and football) and Mark Schoenow (football). The Baseball Final was Jarlock’s first; the other officials had worked Finals in the past.
PHOTO: (Top) Monroe St. Mary quarterback Bryce Windham unloads a pass during last season's Division 6 Final win over Ithaca at Ford Field.
After Finding Drive for Golf, O'Grady Grows Into GR Christian Ace, Finals Contender
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
September 26, 2024
Lillian O’Grady will be the popular choice to win when she tees it up in this week’s Ottawa-Kent Conference White championship tournament at Thornapple Pointe.
However, at one point in her early life, the Grand Rapids Christian junior standout was admittedly uninterested in the sport in which she would soon thereafter excel.
“I really didn’t like golf when I was younger,” O’Grady said. “I thought it was boring and just not fun. My dad made me go out and practice.”
O’Grady was 7 years old when she started playing golf with her parents and siblings. She got her first hole-in-one a year later.
While that ace is the pinnacle accomplishment for every golfer, O’Grady was less than enthusiastic.
“I remember that I didn’t want to golf that day, and it was the second hole at Cascade Hills Country Club.” O’Grady recounted. “I was hitting off the U.S. Kids Golf Tees, and I hit my 5-iron right of the hole and it just rolled down into the hole. My brothers (Max and Sawyer) are still jealous of it.”
Despite her hole-in-one, which is still the only one she’s ever had, O’Grady still wasn’t fond of golf.
But that all changed a couple years later, when at age 10, she took part in a Drive, Chip & Putt Regional event at historic Muirfield Village Golf Club in Ohio.
“That’s when I realized I was pretty good at this and I could go pretty far with it,” O’Grady said. “From there I was like, ‘I want to play in college and be the best I can at it’.”
O’Grady became engulfed in the sport and kept her promise to be the best she could be by practicing diligently and taking part in several tournaments throughout the summers.
Fast forward to the summer of 2022, just before her freshman year, and O’Grady’s hard work paid off. She was named the 15-and-under Junior Girls Player of the Year by the Golf Association of Michigan (GAM).
“That was super cool and amazing,” O’Grady said. “I just played well and was consistent in a lot of those tournaments. I had a really great summer.”
“Consistent” is the word that best describes O’Grady, according to Grand Rapids Christian girls golf coach Seth Davies.
“I think I’ve seen her maybe hit two bad shots. She would say it was a lot more, but she doesn't have a lot of those kinds of shots,” he said. “She’s a little off-line at times, but it’s part of the competitiveness that makes her so good – and most of the time she’s just consistent.
“She’ll bomb a drive down the fairway, hit something on the green and then she has a really good short game. She has a good feel as a putter, too. If you look at her game, there isn’t anything that you could identify as a major weakness.”
O’Grady wasted little time making her mark on the high school scene.
As a freshman, she placed fourth at the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final as an individual. Last year, she finished in a tie for second.
“My goal is to always win,” O’Grady said. “I’m a very competitive person, so even though I was a freshman and sophomore. I wasn't going to let that stop me from trying to win.
“My goal coming into high school was to win everything I could and be No. 1 on my team, which was building at that point.”
Over the last three years, O’Grady has been winning – a lot.
The two-time conference and Regional medalist has won all three of her 18-hole tournaments already this season and has a 35.57 scoring average in conference play. She’s had only one round over par.
“The last couple years she has worked a ton just to improve,” Davies said. “She has a goal of playing big-time college golf somewhere, and she has done a lot of work on her own. She enters all kinds of tournaments in the offseason, and she's working out and getting stronger and longer with all of her clubs. She is just someone that puts a lot of time and effort into it.”
O’Grady is thrilled with how she’s been swinging the club this fall and is looking forward to the postseason.
“I’ve been playing really well this year, and that makes me excited for state,” she said. “I always go into the state finals to play my own game and be confident in myself because I can’t control anybody else.”
While O’Grady has qualified for Finals the last two years as an individual, she hopes to have some company this time around.
“I really hope my team can join me this year,” she said. “We are ranked third in our region right now, so that’s a big goal for our team. It would change the experience for me.”
Davies believes O’Grady has all the tools and talent to make another run at the top spot.
“That’s one of her goals this year,” he said. “This year, next year. She has as good a shot as anybody in Division 3 to be a state champ.”
Dean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for five years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Grand Rapids Christian’s Lillian O’Grady powers through an approach during last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final at The Meadows at Grand Valley State. (Middle) O’Grady points out her score, which tied for second among individual competitors. (Top photo by High School Sports Scene; middle photo courtesy of the O’Grady family.)