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.
Unity Makes Fast Start Stand Up, Sets Up Rematch on Season's Final Day
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
March 13, 2026
EAST LANSING – Hudsonville Unity Christian likes the idea of a rematch.
The Crusaders turned a near-flawless first half into a much-anticipated rematch after outlasting Detroit University Prep 59-44 in Friday's concluding Division 2 Semifinal at the Breslin Center.
The win means Unity Christian will play Freeland for a second time in just over a month in Saturday's 6:45 p.m. championship game.
Freeland knocked off the Crusaders 65-60 in the teams' first meeting Feb. 7. Since that game, Unity Christian (25-3) has won 11 straight, while the Falcons (25-3) have collected nine wins in a row.
Over 30 years as Unity Christian's coach, Scott Soodsma's teams have faced countless rematches in the MHSAA Tournament. His philosophy in matching up a second time in those games has never wavered.
"In the first game, we kind of gave it up or they probably took it," said Soodsma, one of the only Michigan coaches to win boys (2019) and girls (2006) Finals titles. "(Saturday) should be a really good game. They know how we play, and we know how they play. They watch a lot of tape, I watch a lot of tape. It'll be a contest of who steps up and who doesn't."
The question may be which Unity Christian team shows up. Will it be the one which lost the first meeting? Or the torrid Crusaders team which trampled its way to a 34-11 halftime lead against a University Prep club which had won 10 of its last 11? Or the Unity Christian club which was outscored 33-25 in the second half of Friday’s Semifinal, including scoring only four points during the fourth quarter?
Unity Christian senior forward Jack Kamminga thinks he knows which team will arrive at Breslin on Saturday.
"Definitely the better one," he said. "We kinda dropped off in the fourth quarter tonight. They pressured us and put us in a bad position. But we'll go full hammer tomorrow. We've got nothing to lose."
Crusaders senior guard Brogan Sherd said either way he's expecting a classic championship game.
"It'll be fun. We had a great crowd the first time, and we know we've got to play hard," he said. "We kind of got lazy the first time and fell apart."
Soodsma would give away nothing about what the Crusaders learned from the first meeting.
"They've got a very good club, well-coached. They play the right way," said Soodsma, who this season passed Kent Ingles and Kurt Keener to move into fourth place on the state's all-time coaching wins list with 694.
Owen VanderWall led Unity Chistian on Friday with 12 points and nine rebounds. Luke Tubergen had 12 points and Sherd nine points, five rebounds and three assists.
Detroit University Prep trailed by as many as 23 points twice in the third quarter, including at 55-32. But the Panthers cut the lead to as little as 57-44 with 3:37 to go.
"They're a better team than I thought they were," Panthers coach Brandon Barrett said of Unity Christian. "They're a big team, they're aggressive and for their size, they move very well. Maybe if we'd pressured them earlier it would have been a different outcome. But that's 50/50. Credit them, they played well."
Unity Christian's Tubergen said the team's first half was outstanding.
"One of our best," he said. "We rebounded great, hit some 3s, worked the ball inside and the defense was really good."
PHOTOS (Top) Unity Christian’s Owen VanderWaal (12) makes his move toward the basket during Friday’s Division 2 Semifinal against University Prep. (Middle) Maurice Jackson (21) considers his options from just outside the arc. (Photos by Adam Sheehan/Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)