• If I waited to finish a full read before posting this book review, it would be around Labor Day. That’s how jam-packed are the 650 pages.
• Coach Dave Slaggert, along with the support team he assembled, has offered a timeless contribution to Saginaw’s local history that goes beyond a century of prep basketball and touches the community as a whole. As an educator and a coach, he may not have attained personal or family wealth, as anyone who has performed career service in education will testify. If his effort, with all the details involved in such a project, were measured in “time dollars,” it would no doubt exceed six figures, several times over. And that’s before he donates all proceeds to scholarships.
• For sure, “Trojans and Lumberjacks” is not simply a bunch of newspaper clippings and photographs that are tossed together. Even if Dave’s teaching specialty was not language arts, it could have been. In addition to his own writing, we see chapters authored by the following coaches and players, in chronological sequence: Dick Goodman, Gary Lee, Marshall Thomas (including a Charles Coles tribute), George Kubiak, Greg McMath, Lou Dawkins, Julian Taylor, Tony Davis, Eugene “Fookie” Seals and Jason Richardson. Slaggert’s own section is the longest, as we might expect. His writing may not be as slick as from the contributing journalists Hugh Bernreuter, Jack Tany and Ryan Slocum, but it’s still top-notch.
• We cannot say “it’s the type of book you can’t put down,” because you won’t pick it up to read in the first place because it weighs so much. It would be like reclining in your easy chair and holding up a bowling ball for hours on end. Probably you’ll want to sit at a table and spread it out. We already can see the keepsake quality in the binding, which Dave describes as an “heirloom” that should endure for another century without shredding. It’s a coffee-table item not only for decorative display, but for serious reading and viewing.
• We all will have our personal reactions and so following are some of mine. My first memory is my father, Wally Thompson — Arthur Hill 1932, football but not b-ball — walking me the three blocks to their games at the newer building during the early ’60s. We would sit in the balcony’s top row, and prior to our first ballgame in 1963, he assured me that yes, Craig Dill really would be as tall as the ceiling. !!!
• My mother-in-law is Beatrice Culpepper, who passed away in 2005 but remains alive in my own heart. She worked the Saginaw High popcorn concessions for years during Mr. Charles McNair’s time as assistant principal prior to becoming Morley Elem’s headmaster, and upon seeing the book, my spouse asked about first-cousin Roy Hinton, SHS Class of ’65. Turns out that not only is Roy within the pages, but so is his mother, Inez, in a feature article about the Trojans’ moms. Denise and the daughter, also named Inez, still chat on occasion, and it was with great pride that I showed her not only Roy on pages 118 and 119 and especially 124, but mother Inez on 117 as well. “Wow!” Dee exclaimed.
• In my own tenure in Saginaw News sportswriting, 1973 to 1982, my assignments mostly were the small-town schools and the parochials. An exception was at age 19, a big chance to report on Tony Smith and the Trojans at the newly opened Civic Center in the 1975 districts, not based on reporting merit but because the No. 1 sports scribe, Bill Ayvazian, was with CMU (Dan Roundfield and company) in the college tourney. For me, this fill-in chance was like being sent to the Super Bowl. Later, moving on up, I followed Charlie Coles’ final ’81-82 season, when their fifth and final defeat was in the regionals at the hands of emerging powerhouse Flint Northwestern.  Each loss on the scoreboard was by one or two points. It showed me Coach Coles’ true class, grace in the face of such frustration.
•  Check this out: We may think of WSGW (790 AM) as the radio mainstay back in the old days, with Howard Finger’s “pushes one up there, it’s up, it’s in and it’s good!” But for W-3-SOUL (107 FM), Dante Toussaint and Kermit Crockett formed a team for a spell. So in a visit to Dante to show him the book, he had a guest I never had encountered. Turns out it was Kermit! This prompted a full hour of nostalgia, and general agreement that their broadcasts were superior to the one last February for the reunion Hillite-Trojan showdown at TheDow. “It was all ads and I kept listening for the game score, and they were not even updating the score,” Kermit fumed. “When Dante and me did the games, we were there to serve the community.” They both regretted that they had not preserved an audio tape from at least one of their endeavors.
• And speaking of media, let us consider that Coach Thomas in retirement (he never has really retired) was the analyst for a few years on the state finals telecasts, in a role that Greg Kelser now fulfills.
• Most recently, my honor was to speak with Ernie Thompson over the telephone when Saginaw High reached the 2023 Final Four at Breslin, to gain his retrospective. He was such a gentleman, and he described his older-age loss of vision this way: “I now listen to games on television” without a hint of self-pity. He made my feature story an easy endeavor, like he was writing it himself: Breslin for 2023 Trojans; Jenison for 1962 champs
• In closing, the book’s large type is easy on the eyes and the photographs are stunning. My hard-news side salutes Coach Slaggert for not avoiding (while also not overdoing) the historic racial issues and some of the individual controversies. There is a picture of a post-game fight and another of a game in a closed-off gym, deemed sadly necessary at the time to preclude any more violence. To me, a proper balance is at work.

Copies are available for a bargain price of $40, cash or check only, at the Saginaw Promise scholarship office in the Community Foundation’s downtown headquarters in Morley Plaza behind the Temple Theater. Call (989) 755-0545. Home shipping costs an extra $14.

The post Saginaw High/Arthur Hill basketball history worth the wait, and the weight appeared first on Saginaw Daily.

No, it won’t be quite like calendar 2000, when our own Jason Richardson helped lead the Spartans, along with Flintstones Mo Pete (Morris Peterson) and Mo (Maurice) Cleaves, to their only post-Magic national championship.

Saginaw-born Jimmy Bell Jr., 6-foot-10, averages 11 points and 10 boards, except it’s not for the MSU in East Lansing, but the campus in Starkville. He played at Arthur Hill until he moved to Scottsdale. His father, who passed away six years ago, was a 1973 Buena Vista standout known as “The Doctor,” adopting the legendary basketball nickname for his career selling cars.

Both MSU school teams this season played 50-50 ball in their major conferences, and so in the middle seeding it is not a bracket buster either way. The winner will be a big underdog against Houston on Saturday.

The ninth seed is below usual standards for the Michigan State men, but a No. 9 for the women is a high point in recent years. Mo (Moira) Joiner is the senior captain, finishing her career with a flourish. At 5-foot-10, the Heritage High state champ in 2018 and ’19 has evolved into a markswoman, hitting 43 percent on three-pointers and 88 percent on free throws while scoring 15 points per game.

The Spartettes open at 11:30 a.m. Friday versus North Carolina. Their middle-of-the-pack seed seems low, given that they lost at Iowa only on a 30-foot buzzer beater by Caitlin Clark that Joiner, a standout on defense, barely missed blocking. If they win Thursday, on Saturday they face Dawn Staley’s South Carolina powerhouse.

Another local link comes at 3 o’clock Thursday on the men’s side, after MSU vs. MSU should be  finished. Illinois, with Ty Rodgers, is a big fave over Morehead State.

Ty is the nephew of J-Rich himself, 6-foot-6 and athletic in his uncle’s style that took root at Arthur Hill. He moved in childhood with his family to Grand Blanc. Who would have known he would become an all-stater for another Saginawian, Coach Mike Thomas, en route to the Bobcats’ 2021 state crown and ’22 runnerup finish?

As a college sophomore, Rodgers is a main cog for the Illini. In a typical role, in the win over Wisconsin for the Big Ten tourney title, he played 17 minutes and contributed 7 points and 5 boards, along with an assist, block and steal.

Illinois joins Michigan State in a bracket headed by UConn, the defending champs.

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Leaders of the Houghton-Jones Neighborhood Task Force are in search of more volunteers like Ricky Flowers.

“I had never served on a board, anything like that,” says Flowers, Saginaw High Class of ’76, a standout in all the sports and world-class in the track and field sprints.

He offered to contribute his services through his enterprise, Adult Fitness and Youth Training, Inc., and made a connection with Houghton-Jones youth projects for after-school and summer time.

“Coaching, helping the community, is why I’m here,” Flowers says.

He was inducted into the Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame during 2010, two years after he returned to town to “run a gym,” as he had made his career after studies and track at Michigan State. He moved back home from Houston following the 2008 passing of his mother, Georgia Williams-Gibson, and set up his fitness training sessions at the Buena Vista Community Center on Outer Drive.

The Houghton-Jones facility did not yet exist during Ricky’s 1960s childhood, but the neighborhood at the time was full of kids who gathered in the park and basketball courts that surrounded the old Mershon Pool, and this was part of his stomping grounds up to Fourteenth near the tracks, where he encountered older peers to compete with.

It was only natural that he would choose this location to give something back when he returned home 16 years ago, a move in honor of his mother’s memory.

“We were always running and doing things,” he notes. “That’s what we try to restore with the young people nowadays.”

Glendorah Lawrence was Houghton-Jones office manager when Flowers got started. She recalls, “He helped to get the kids outside and he conducted group drills.”

“The children loved it,” she adds, “and a few hated it.” 

At Saginaw High, Flowers was sandwiched between a pair of fellow Trojans, Reggie Jones (Class of ’73) and Terry McDaniel (1983). Ricky received a track scholarship to Michigan State and became a professional in phys-ed after a career curtailed by injuries.

The main Saginaw High claim to fame for Flowers was in 1975 with a record-setting 880-yard Class A state champion relay quartet that also included Dan Abraham, Reggie Carter and Henry McClung. Their clocking, converted to 1:27.1 for today’s 800 meters, remains best-ever in the Saginaw area nearly a half-century later.

“For all those years,” he recalls, “our names would be in the newspaper every Saturday with the top track times and records.”

He evolved into longer sprint distances and was ranked as high as third in the world for 300 meters, but the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics cost him a shot at a medal. He protested at first but in the end, he supported President Carter’s decision “to keep us out of harm’s way.”

The disappointment would have ended incentive for many athletes, but Flowers continued competing and winning in senior events up to age 50, learning insight for injury prevention that he incorporates into his training tips.

He was a football standout who drew some pro scouts, but at 6-foot-2, 155 pounds, he felt too lean and lanky for the contact sport. For the sake of his exposed ribs, he focused on track instead.

He also was a part of Saginaw High’s 1976 Class A state runner up on the basketball floor, and he looks forward to attending Friday’s history-closing event, posting a Facebook team photo.

“The tradition is so deep,” he says, “and it brought out the best in the athletes.”

Flowers may be contacted via RickyDFlowers@yahoo.com or (989) 714-9902. For the neighborhood group, info@houghtonjones.org or (989) 752-1660. 

The post He sprinted his way to success, and then returned home appeared first on Saginaw Daily.

Or as the Rev. Charles Coleman, Saginaw Board of Education president, formally phrased the concern, “For African American males, hockey is not something they would (normally) take an interest in.”

Answers to liaison  delegates from the school board, City Council and County Board include:

• History lessons on blacks in Canada’s national sport, starting with the “Jackie Robinson” of the pros, Willie O’Ree, a minor league journeyman who achieved a pair of stints more than 60 years ago with the Boston Bruins. This would be part of a Hockey Hall of Fame walk-through at Heritage Theater.
• Promote “ball hockey,” the gymnasium or street version with a tennis ball, and at the same time offer ice skating lessons, making use of Bayside Ice Arena, out past Tittabawassee Road. (School Trustee Ruth Knapp, retired elementary teacher, said after the meeting that to her knowledge, floor hockey no longer is part of phys-ed in the city district.)
• Conduct a downtown interfaith, interracial Sunday ecumenical service, organized via the Saginaw African American Pastors group.
• Involve people in vendor opportunities outside The Dow Event Center for the 10-day tourney, May 23 through June 2. To sell tacos or BBQ or apparel, for example, one need not understand hockey rules like offsides or icing.
• To make hockey more affordable for young players, “gently used equipment” can be made available for a fraction of the price. The Detroit area’s Urban Hockey Initiative is a model.

Organizers are saying the Memorial Cup, hosted by the Saginaw Spirit, is similar for Canadians to the NFL’s Super Bowl or college basketball’s March Madness. But in the planning, a Gus Macker atmosphere emerges with a boatload of extras — live music, films at the Temple Theater, a classic car show, social hours near the Henry Marsh mural under the the I-675 overpass. The strategy is to keep an estimated 17,000 Canadian visitors with their estimated $25 million in vacation cash occupied in the downtown and in Old Town, rather than becoming homebodies at their outlying hotels.

The main difference with the Macker, of course, is activities will be for visitors rather than hometowners.

The Canadian Hockey League develops high schoolers into future stars like Gordie Howe and Wayne Gretzky, or Grant Fuhr, the star goaltender for Gretzky’s championship teams who was black, generally unknown to casual fans because he wore a protective facemask. In the National Hockey League, 97 percent of players are white, either from Canada, U.S. suburbs or northern Europe. The Detroit Red Wings franchise ranks at the bottom for integration, even as one of the NHL’s “Original Six” teams prior to expansion to 31 total cities that began during the 1960s. At the same time, the Wings formerly deployed a “Russian Five” unit of all Soviet players.

There are three junior leagues with a combined 60 teams, one west, one east and the central Ontario League, which includes Saginaw and Flint across the border. Three more U.S.A. franchises are in the Pacific Northwest, and the most recent to host a Memorial Cup was Spokane in 1998. The Spirit’s Kayla Pionk, local event manager for the Memorial Cup, said planners are well on the way to signing up 500 volunteers for the 10 days with bookends of May 23 and June 2. Anyone interested may contact her at kpionk@saginawspirit.com, or by calling (989) 525-7583.

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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.

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He feels fulfilled but he still will consider finishing with an extra fifth year, similar to our recent report on Moira Joiner with MSU basketball.

The Bridgeport High School standout completed his senior season in 2023 with 38 pass catches for 694 yards and five touchdowns, by far the best totals of his college career. He reached a peak when he was named MIAA (Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association) Athlete of the Week.

New NCAA rules allow student-athletes to stay for a fifth year beyond the traditional four, as long as they continue coursework as graduate students. This would be no barrier for Ball, who gets so many ‘A’ grades in the classroom that he still recalls (and disagrees with) his only ‘B’ this year.

“I’m strongly considering the chance to stay,” Ball says. “In addition to another year of football, this would be a chance to take master’s degree classes while looking into some coaching internships.”

At 6-foot-5, the young man known as “Q-Ball,” or simply “Q” to family and friends, led the Bridgeport Bearcats to school-history success in both football and basketball, a sport in which he still strives as a recreational player. He was recruited to Grand Valley State, where the situation did not work out, and so he took advantage of an offer from Olivet College, a small private school southwest of Lansing that is name-changing to University of Olivet.

“Everything happens for a reason,” says Ball, looking ahead rather than dwelling on the past. His scholarship support is not a full ride, and so he works as a groundskeeper on the Olivet campus. 

On Linked In, he writes: 

“I am currently a college student, studying Sport Recreation and Management with aspirations on becoming a coach. I have strong technical and communication skills therefore I am someone who can be very dependable for a company.

“My passion lies in coaching the youth of our society. I am driven by knowing that there are so many different ways to help the youth through sport and guide them in the right direction to help send them on a positive path in life.

“In my current studies, I’ve taken on various leadership roles, including coaching a youth football team, coordinating game plans as well as workout scripts, and leading various study groups.

“I’m graduating in May of 2024 and I’m interested in a full-time coaching or athletic training position. Please feel free to get in touch with me via email at qball2581@gmail.com.”

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Not senior guard, or junior guard, or soph or frosh or redshirt.

“Graduate student” status allows Joiner to continue for an uncommon fifth eligible season at Michigan State. This is under a special NCAA provision, beyond the usual four years, for student-athletes who missed out on some earlier action during COVID-19 shutdowns.

Moira was the leader of Heritage High’s back-to-back state champs, 2018 and ’19. She indeed was disappointed that her first two college years were cut short by the pandemic, which started in winter 2020, but now her unexpected fifth campaign is emerging as the best of her career.

Covid’s damage cannot be fully restored, but the scenario has turned out today to be “a blessing in disguise,” she said last week, after pouring in a career-high 26 points during a runaway victory over DePaul. MSU has started with a won-loss 7-2 record, also the best during Moira’s time at a school where historic local stars Nanette Gibson-Davis, Annette Babers and Tori Jankoska stand tall in the legacy.

She’s averaging 15 points per game, shooting 55 percent overall and 40 percent on three-pointers.

Schoolwork opens door

The extra year for covid relief comes with a provision. Student-athletes must remain in graduate school to continue competing. But that’s been no problem for Joiner, because she’s a three-time Big Ten Conference All-Academic first-teamer.

She majored in business when she arrived in East Lansing, and her graduate studies are on the same path. She envisions a career in sports management, specializing in human relations, although she one day may launch her own enterprise of some sort. If it’s basketball- or sports-related, all the better. And coaching always remains an option.

So for someone with such a full load, we asked which daily challenge was more difficult — working out for an hour, or studying for an extra 60 minutes? Moira laughs with her answer that she prefers the training facilities, where she can sweat out the day’s ups and downs before she hits the books.

For anyone who says she makes her achievements seem effortless, she responds, “It’s not an easy job, going to school and playing (major college) basketball at the same time.”

‘It means everything’

As pandemic precautions slacked off, things became even tougher in a different new way during her junior year. A severe early-season concussion from a hard fall sidelined her for the final three months.

After her intensive physical and emotional recovery, she retrained at peak in summer 2022 and came back stronger than ever for her senior year.

As her transition evolved during the 2022 holidays, she told a Lansing State Journal reporter: “It means everything. There was speculation that I wasn’t supposed to play and I was going to be done with basketball. … Every minute I get out there I’m going to appreciate.”

But still, her senior season closed on a premature note, grinding to a close with February’s tragic campus shooting spree by an outside gunman.

Maybe the pros?

Joiner is among wise college athletes who make the most of their scholarships, providing alternative “parachute” career options in case a pro sports contract does not come forth. Nonetheless, she still aims to continue playing beyond Michigan State, whether it’s in the WNBA or overseas in Europe, where the women’s game remains popular. Gains in the United States have spotlighted such luminaries as A’ja Wilson, Diana Taurasi and point guard-turned-coach Dawn Staley.

“I would like to stay in basketball for as long as I can,” says the daughter of Will and Jerusha Joiner, who provided her first junior basketball and hoop. She began tossing up shots as a preschooler and hasn’t stopped.

It was far more than scoring that helped Moira at Heritage achieve state Player of the Year as a junior, and then Miss Basketball runnerup as a senior. Her team play also features defense as her staple, along with rebounding and passing and organizing the team on the floor in the manner of a scholar-athlete. She’s 5-foot-10, which is tall for a young woman her age, but merely a guard’s height in top-level college or pro hoops.

Her prospects for the pros may seem uphill because during her first four MSU seasons, she was regular in the player rotation but started for only about half the games, among the first off the bench in others.  She received praise from Coach Suzy Merchant last year for her courageous recovery from the head injury and emerged with more playing time near the season’s end, which was stopped again when she finally was gaining Mo-mentum.

Merchant has retired after a career that began at SVSU during the 1990s and led to more than 500 victories over nearly 30 years, replaced on the Breslin bench by Robyn Fralick. Joiner has started every game under her new coach, aiming to lead her younger teammates to their first postseason bid after finishing in the middle of the Big Ten pack during Moira’s prior four seasons.

She predicts the fifth time will be a charm.

The post ‘Extra’ MSU season caps local star’s college career appeared first on Saginaw Daily.

Referees may cite Saginaw’s Memorial Cup organizers for “too many men (and women) on the ice,” although this would represent praise instead of the penalty box.

The Saginaw Spirit and The Dow Event Center are hosting the Canadian Hockey League’s junior championships next year, and up north the Memorial Cup is as popular as the NCAA football playoffs in the USA. The 10-day event begins May 22, with 17,000 visitors and their favorite teams anticipated to spend up to $25 million in the region.

Nearly 500 volunteers already have signed up to assist, said Jimmy Greene, the Spirit’s new special events sales coordinator, during an advance information and planning session Tuesday. Another is set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday at City Hall, open to the general public.

Of 60 CHL franchises from five smaller leagues, Saginaw and the Flint Firebirds are among five from the United States, with the other trio in the Pacific Northwest. The last to host the Memorial Cup across the border was Spokane, Wash., 26 years ago. Teams for more than 100 years have provided training for future NHL superstars like Gordie Howe and Wayne Gretzky.

Fifty participants Tuesday took part in a City Hall session organized in cooperation with local sources, ranging from Great Lakes Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau to Saginaw Future. They learned, among varied minutiae, that many Canadian families take their pets on vacation car rides.

They also were informed:

• Improvements surrounding The Dow include a social area under the I-675 overpass on Washington named for Henry Marsh, first black City Council member and mayor during the 1960s. The plaza will extend behind Wendler Arena along Symphony Lane, named in 1972 when the former Civic Center opened. A Marsh mural already is completed. The goal is to develop a “campus environment.”

• STARS bus routes will expand hours beyond midnight for Canadian revelers, while providing a special rapid shuttle service to make sure city-based entrepreneurs are included. Funding is separate from the city-only 3.2 mills in property taxes.
• Hoyt Park, one mile south, will serve as a major activity venue, including a Canada versus USA baseball game along the hillside.
• WNEM will pursue broadcasting rights for Channel 5 to show some of the games that will fill the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. airwaves, while Jolt Park will have a big screen feed for visitors, both Canadian and local, who opt to enjoy the outdoors with an array of food and souvenir vendors.
• The courthouse Easter Bunny lawn figurines will do double duty in spring, starting with the annual egg hunt and moving to the new big news in town, with mystery Memorial Cup promo appearances at sites across the community. Canadians will have the chance to win the grand prize of a return expense-paid vacation back to Saginaw
• Small businesses may seek mini loans for short-term needs such as more supplies or more employees during the sports celebration.

In response to critics who may feel that the powers that be are favoring visitors over day-to-day residents, organizers say most improvements, ranging from the Marsh Plaza to Hoyt Park, are supported with federal and state funds that will linger long after the Memorial Cup has departed, while also boosting Saginaw’s reputation to hopefully host similar events along the road. 

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Passes snared with one hand sometimes are seen in the pros, even during a few college contests, but this is highly uncommon among high schoolers.

And get this: Braylon recalls the first time ever doing this was in third grade, doing a flag football game. He couldn’t palm the ball at that age, of course, but he could pull it into his body.

“It was flying over my head, and I dove for it,” he recalls.

Right or left hand? Braylon pauses a split second before he answers that this was with his right. After all, he has used both during his four varsity seasons, which concluded with Heritage’s first district crown since the turn of the millennium.

The son of Dean and Carrie Isom had his eye on the state record for pass receiving yards when the season started.

Then he discovered another benchmark, career touchdowns, and he decided he also could catch up with that one.

Isom achieved both, with 3,830 yards and 52 TDs. Imagine the young man catching passes and crossing goal lines all the way along Center Road from Heritage to White Pine Middle, more than 2 miles of gridiron glory.

He has achieved an array of honors, including the fifth annual Harry Hawkins Award for Saginaw County’s top prep football player, the local equivalent of college’s Heisman Trophy, presented by the downtown Saginaw Club along with MLive Media Group. Hawkins was a 1922 Arthur Hill grad who went on to the University of Michigan, where he became the first local All-American player, and returned to town in civic leadership.

Staying close to home

Isom is headed on scholarship to Miami of Ohio, which competes in the Mid-American Conference with Central, Eastern and Western Michigan universities, along with Toledo and Ball State and others. After he racked up half of his career touchdowns during a stellar senior season, he’s sticking with his decision from last spring. He likes everything from the campus in Oxford, a college small town between Cincinnati and Dayton, to the curriculum for his career in sports management. 

Isom said in his announcement: “I have truly enjoyed the Saginaw Township Community Schools experience, from academics to athletics. I have made so many great friends and relationships with teachers and coaches through the years. I had the opportunity to enroll early in January at Miami of Ohio. Instead, I chose to finish out my senior year with all my friends. I thank STCS for all they have done for me as a student athlete.”

His grade-point average is 3.395.

It also helps that the RedHawks are a traditional power in football, known as the “Cradle of Coaches,” including U-M’s Bo Schembechler and Ohio State’s Woody Hayes among alumni. A youth basketball trainer, Eugene Seals Jr., recommended his alma mater. So did Lauren Seals, one of Braylon’s school teachers. Local sports followers also will note Miami of Ohio as the final work place for Charlie Coles, the legendary coach. And so Saginaw High has an influence.

Plus Miami passes the ball more than 20 times per game, and so Isom will have his chances, similar to within the Heritage offense. The RedHawks on Dec. 2 claimed the Mid-American Conference crown with a 23-14 playoff win over Toledo.

At 6-foot-3, he still is nimble enough for point guard duties on the Heritage basketball squad. His ability to run after the catch, usually in stride with both hands, has roots from his middle school years, both playing basketball and being deployed in football as a running back at White Pine.

First-year Coach Justin Thelen and freshman Braylon Isom both arrived at Heritage in 2020 and were curtailed by covid at the start, or else the state record numbers would be even higher. When Thelen suggested that many top runners are shorter fireplugs, and that taller guys like Braylon fit better as pass receivers, the transformation took place.

Other teen athletes may have protested the switch of positions to receiver instead of runner, especially from a newcomer coach, but Isom embraced it.

“Coach Thelen turned around our program,” he says, as he describes a feeling of “family” within the team. “I knew I could always catch the ball, so I was all for it.”

As someone who shares credit with teammates, Isom is most proud that the team gradually rebuilt during his time, achieving its first district crown in November when he added three more TDs in a victory over Midland Dow, resulting in the “ridiculous catches” video.

Coincidence for namesake

Going back to flag football years, U-M fans have peppered Dean and Carrie with inquiries because a now-40-year-old Detroiter, future pro Braylon Edwards, was setting pass-catch records for the Wolverines back before their son was born.

Yes, it’s true. The name is no accident. Mom and Dad both had been young athletes, Dean in track and field at Saginaw High and the former Carrie Schluckebier at Bridgeport High in softball. And so with Carrie expecting a child that ultrasound had deemed a boy, it was only natural the two would relax and watch a Michigan game on TV. Braylon Edwards was in a star’s role, and the name appealed to them, so that was their choice, simple as that.

Who would have dreamed that their child would favor not only in the same sport, but in the same position on the field? He also follows his dad’s footsteps with the Heritage track team as his third sport, and he followed mom’s in summer rec baseball.

The Heritage High juggernaut with Isom and quarterback Ethan Mason reached full force this fall. A talking point with family and friends is that Braylon broke the state record with 47, and then a researcher found out he actually needed 49, so he just went ahead and broke that standard also, with three more to spare.

Mason joined Isom for Saginaw Valley Conference honors, along with teammates Ty Robertson, Ethan Kraatz, Wyatt Vondette, DJ Burns, Joshua Walker, Carter Collins and Jace Sullivan.

More than football

Half of the Hawkins award is based on achievements in the field of play, while half incorporates community service and classroom grades.

Even before the family learned the criteria, Isom was volunteering at Hemmeter and then at Sherwood elementaries, where he has attended classrooms to read to children, and then joined them for some recess exercise. He has taken part in youth sports camps for both football and basketball, four summers in a row. His main protege is younger sister Brooklynn, in eighth grade, who enjoys “all the sports,” just like he did at that age. On the day of our interview, he was preparing to join mom and dad at one of her volleyball games at White Pine. His four older siblings also are sports-minded.

When he describes “sports management,” this could range from teaching and phys ed to becoming an agent for athletes, even while maintaining his own NFL hopes.

He summarizes, “It could be anything, as long as it keeps me around sports.”

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The merging of the “High” and the “Hill” in 2024 officially ends Michigan’s longest running, and we contend, “Best Ever,” high school basketball rivalry. The book’s 664 pages are filled with first-hand accounts and behind-the-scenes stories from all the head coaches and many outstanding players from both schools.

Woven into the historic fabric of the Saginaw community are so many great players, coaches and epic games. There are 813 captivating and priceless photos and news stories that help paint the picture of classic Saginaw High and Arthur Hill battles and bring their stories to life.

To compile this history has been a five-year long labor of love, my attempt to “give something back” to Saginaw, the community that raised me. It is 100 percent nonprofit, run through the Saginaw Community Foundation. My intent is to celebrate our prestigious and historic rivalry, and to keep the stories alive. Advance sales ensure you will receive your copy of this limited edition, due in March during tournament time, and also helps us with upfront costs.

Some of the unparalleled achievements the Trojans and Lumberjacks accomplished were a combined 47 trips to the state quarterfinals (final 8.) Add to that, 36 of those trips extended to the (final 4) semifinals, 18 to the finals, with 8 outright combined state championships. This is unprecedented for two schools from the same town that, in most cases, played each other in the district (first round) tournament!

Our book contains individual chapters on many great Trojan and Lumberjack coaches including: Larry Laeding, Chuck Fowler, Marshall Thomas, Bill Kelly, Charles Coles, Greg McMath, Lou Dawkins, George Kubiak, Ken Gray, Gary Lee, Julian Taylor, Tony Davis and more.

Also featured are legendary players like Jason Richardson, Draymond Green, Craig Dill, Ernie Thompson, Larry Savage, Dick Rifenburg, Webster Kirksey, Gary Lee, Tony Smith, Anthony Roberson, DeeAndre Hulett, Eugene Seales, Maurice Jones, Charles Rogers, Dar Tucker, LaMarr Woodley, Eric Davis, Darvin Ham and so many more. 

With this being the final year, our great rivalry absolutely needs to be remembered and passed down to future generations, a real family heirloom treasure. “Remember The Trojans & Lumberjacks” is a limited edition, so when they’re gone, they’re gone. Through generous sponsors, we’ve made the price extremely low for this kind of quality and large coffee table-size book, a bargain price of $40.

The $12 shipping is optional for home delivery. Otherwise, omit that amount and pickup will be available at the downtown Saginaw Promise office in Morley Plaza, behind the Temple Theatre.

Dave Slaggert’s youth coaching service included South Intermediate, SS. Peter and Paul, and Hemlock High, concluding with Arthur Hill High. On the media side, he has been involved with high school broadcasting and 17 years of radio color analyst for SVSU athletics.

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