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.
Cochran, Jenison Rising Among Elite of Inaugural MHSAA Boys Volleyball Season
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
May 27, 2026
JENISON – Quinn Cochran never envisioned that one day he would have the opportunity to compete for a state championship while playing volleyball.
But with boys volleyball an MHSAA-sponsored sport for the first time this spring, Cochran and his second-ranked Jenison squad will have the chance to do just that as they begin postseason play tonight as one of nearly 120 teams participating in the inaugural postseason.
“I love it,” the 6-foot-2 high-flying Cochran said. “It’s great for us, and the sport is finally getting the recognition it deserves, especially because it’s such a fun sport. It’s also a chance for kids who want to play a spring sport.
“There are some teams that just want to play for fun, and some that want to be competitive and try to win a state championship. That’s what we’ve been focusing on this year. The first few years as a club sport it was just about ‘let’s have fun and get better,’ but now that it’s an actual sanctioned sport we want to go and play and win.”
The Wildcats will play Muskegon Mona Shores tonight in a Division 1 first-round Regional matchup.
A victory would more than likely set up a highly-anticipated match against top-ranked Grand Haven, which Jenison beat recently – handing the Bucs their only loss of the season.
“We have a lot of confidence knowing that we can go in and compete against the top teams in the state,” Cochran said. “We know we can play them and beat them, so if we play like we know we can play then we can definitely win a state title.
“Our toughest battle will be Grand Haven on Friday. They were down one of their top players last time when we played them, but we still can beat them. We didn’t play as well as we could’ve against them earlier in the season, and I think if we can beat Grand Haven then we have a good chance to win it.”
Cochran, an athletic outside hitter/setter, is one of several talented players for head coach Teran Peerboom-Vanderbroek.
Jenison entered today with a sparkling 29-4-1 record.
“They’ve done a really good job all year of kind of dialing in, working hard and improving,” Peerboom-Vanderbroek said. “They’ve really concentrated on where our weaknesses are and then focused on fixing them. We had that big win against Grand Haven and played well against Hudsonville, so this is a hard-working group of guys who have a good chance of making a run if we play well this week.”
Cochran believes that the team’s versatility has been a major factor in their success.
“I think what makes us good is that we don’t have a weak spot,” he said. “Our setting and hitting have been great, as well as our passing, serving and middle blocking. We don’t have a hole in our team, and we are all super solid.”
Cochran, a two-year captain, has been the catalyst of this year’s team after a breakout junior season that garnered all-state second-team honors.
He’s been one of the top players in the state again this season and was recently named a finalist for the Mr. Volleyball Award by the Michigan Interscholastic Volleyball Coaches Association.
Grand Haven’s Caleb Cryst, Saline’s Quinn Burns, White Lake Lakeland’s Zachary Dorbin and Farmington’s Charlie Engelhardt are the other finalists.
“I think it’s very cool to be recognized like that,” Cochran said. “And being recognized as one of the best players in the state is something I’ve worked toward my whole life. Seeing that hard work pay off is definitely a good pat on the back, and helping my team be competitive has been fun.”
Cochran played basketball all four years of high school and baseball until his sophomore year.
His true passion is volleyball, and he’s gradually improved each year while playing on indoor club teams for the past seven.
“We had a beach volleyball court in our backyard, and I loved playing with my dad and his buddies,” Cochran said. “At a young age I knew I could play well against people older than me, and then I took it seriously. I started playing at a high level in club and realized I could play at that level.”
Cochran has been playing beach volleyball since he was 6, and even had the opportunity to play with AVP players Logan Webber and David Ryan in tournaments. “That was definitely fun, and I was grateful for the experiences,” Cochran said.
He will play next season at Cornerstone University.
“I didn’t think about playing in college until my junior year,” Cochran said. “I was playing pretty well, and I didn’t want to be done playing indoor volleyball. I was a little late in the recruiting process, but I narrowed it down and I wanted to be close to home.”
Peerboom-VanderBroek has high praise for Cochran’s character and leadership, but has also been impressed by his ability to adapt to a different role when called upon.
“He’s very selfless as well, and he’s been playing some middle for us, which is definitely not his preferred position,” she said. “It seals up some of our blocking issues, and he can run and pass out of the middle and take control a little bit.
“It has been really great, and I think he’s seeing the team’s success as a result of the move – so I’m really proud of him in that way. It’s not easy to go from a spot that you really shine in to something more uncomfortable, but it makes our team better.”
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) Jenison’s Quinn Cochran (1) winds up for a kill attempt against Hudsonville this season. (Middle) Cochran, far left, elevates for another kill attempt. (Below) Cochran and his teammates pose for a photo with a trophy in hand. (Photos courtesy of Quinn Cochran.)