Memories of Ron Vondette’s tenure as Carrollton High School boys basketball coach will flow during an upcoming event in his honor.
George Kubiak, Class of 1970, recalls Coach Vondette bringing a fish net to practice and blocking all his jump shots with the handle, to drive home the message that he should develop a wider variety of moves.
Dale Brown, 1973, remembers assisting with the clinics that Vondette organized regionwide, always emphasizing fundamentals.
Scott Lewis, 1983, thinks of teammates hiding their laughs, but still learning, when the coach would repeat, day after day, “Don’t go stupid on me.”
The trio of all-staters are slated to speak during halftime on Tuesday, Dec. 19, when the Cavaliers host the Frankenmuth High Eagles. A ceremony will dedicate the home floor in honor of Vondette, now age 86, for his 30-plus years teaching and coaching in Carrollton.
He started at the middle school in 1960 and took the reins at the new high school in 1965, compiling a 27-year varsity record of 425 victories and 164 defeats. This success began during a time of transition in the community, with new K-12 status and the resulting high school athletic squads.
When Vondette’s 1970 team with Kubiak made it all the way to the Class B state finals at MSU’s Jenison Fieldhouse, this was a time when high school games were broadcast on WSGW radio and when all of Metro Saginaw adopted local schools that made deep tournament runs, which gave the community some days in the spotlight.
From the first years into the middle 1990s, Vondette and his teams “made Carrollton proud,” Brown explained. “We are a small township, three-mile radius, and he represented our community with his well-drilled and disciplined teams.”
Rival schools from smaller towns as far north as Gladwin viewed the scoreboard, which often reflected fewer points for their teams, but they also took note of all the red-and-black Carrollton Athletic Association regalia spread among supporters in the spacious gymnasium, with bleachers painted in the same school colors.
Spanning Mid-Michigan
But in the end, the “rivals” were not really opponents. They were teammates when their kids attended summer clinic camps that Coach Vondette started across the region. If visiting players deployed their newly-learned skills against the Cavs during the winters that followed, all for the better.
He was a 24-and-7 constant functioner, as a founding organizer of the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan and a similar national group, maintaining hundreds of contacts long prior to help from the internet.
His priorities emerged during his 2011 induction into the Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame, when his remarks quickly dwelled on tributes and thanks to his family, all the way to the grandkids. Now he spoils the great-grands. To view the speech, click here.
Ron Vondette grew up in the city’s Court Theater area and engaged in all the sports at the former Otto Roeser Elementary, now demolished and site of a neighborhood park. He advanced through Arthur Hill High (1955) and Central Michigan University (1959), coming back home to enlist in the Carrollton schools startup. He was the lead phys ed teacher at the junior high and coached the middle school cagers, many who would join the first varsities for the high school.
In the get-things-done spirit that became Vondette’s calling card, he put together a Boystown youth hoops program so that the athletes would better-trained when they arrived at the high school. He included girls also, years ahead of the curve, which contributed to Carrollton’s statewide dominance once Title IX took effect during the late 1970s.
Kids become coaches
Kubiak, Brown and Lewis learned from those Saturday games and summer clinics. Later, Vondette would call on them, along with Cav teammates, to guide and officiate scrimmages for younger ones, who went on to win 20 conference titles at the high school, along with seven district and four regional crowns.
Vondette coached coaches as well as youngsters, says Kubiak, who followed his footsteps to a career teaching elementary phys ed in Saginaw city schools, as well as taking the sideline helm for the Arthur Hill High varsity.
“We gave him respect because he gave it to us,” explains Kubiak, who was a budding freshman when the coach brought out the fishing net.
Lewis agrees, noting, “All the coaching staff worked at his camps. He taught them, and other coaches, how to run a practice in an organized way, like how to set up an offense or a defense with three minutes to play, one minute, 10 seconds. He truly was a pioneer.”
Indeed, Vondette closed as a Pioneer during the 1990s with five semi-retirement seasons at Delta College. Many of his proteges have made their names at schools in the Saginaw area and beyond.
Elders argue that the fundamentals are lacking in today’s game, and Vondette brings lifelong credibility to the chorus when he says, “Dribble, dribble, drive, pass and shoot. The coaches didn’t read the right books.”
He explains that one reason for fundamentals was that Carrollton often produced players who were shorter in height, sometimes with 5-foot-10 forwards on the front line matched up against opponents who were a half-foot taller.
He attributes his ongoing octogenarian good health to his lifelong fitness, as a top adult recreation performer in all sports, especially as a fast-pitch softball hurler.
Big show in town
Dale Brown has raised his family in Carrollton after studying and playing at SVSU (Kubiak was CMU and Lewis, Alma College). He still follows the teams and joins gatherings at the CAA Country Club, a.k.a. Heck’s Bar, but his nostalgia for the Vondette era is understandable.
“It all started before all the technology. There wasn’t even cable television,” Brown said. “The basketball games were the place to go, the place to be, and with all that, Coach Vondette was like a father figure to us. He gave up his Saturdays for the Boystown games with us, and that was only the start.”
The coach says one of his favorite moments was not after one of the 425 wins, but when a late comeback fell short against powerhouse River Rouge in the 1970 finals. Their bus ride home from East Lansing took the I-69 to M-13 route back home.
“The kids were down in the dumps, of course, because they had come so close,” Vondette says. “Then when we were headed back into Saginaw, it looked like there was an accident or a crime scene up ahead. Turns out it was the Carrollton police, there to escort a parade back home. Everyone brightened up. To me, still, that’s what Carrollton is all about.”
To view a sketchy video of that game, click here.
