Home-grown AD may restore WHS athletic relations

ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.

“History? What do I care about history? I AM history!” — A joke caption underneath a photo of former Detroit Lions coach Wayne Fontes.

More than a few people over the last several years have expressed disappointment with the Wayland High School athletic department in what they perceive as not caring about great Wildcat deeds of old. At least not caring enough about them to acknowledge them properly as well as more recent accomplishments.

I had one WHS old-timer facetiously tell me, “Sometimes I feel like they don’t think Wayland High School even existed before 2000.”

I personally have seen evidence. Let me count the ways:

• When Avery Hudson in 2016 set the school record for scoring the most individual points in a basketball game, I was given a cold reception when I challenged the incorrect announcement that Hudson had tied Alex Lyle’s record of 41. I quickly called a point of order, noting Ron Kidney’s 45 points in 1963.

Then-athletic director Justin Wilson proceeded to scold me for not making that known on the school’s web site since I visit the site so often. So much for wanting information to be right. The 41 points as record was fake news.

• The impressive deeds of Jessica and Brittini Merchant and Mallory Teunissen  as players of the year in softball rightfully grace the west wall of the gym, along with Jessica Armstrong’s dual state championships in track and the only WHS basketball team to go 20-0 in a regular season.

When they rightfully add Sydney Urben’s state championship in bowling from this year, they also should add the co-state championship in golf by 1998 graduate Zeke Fletcher, who has been unjustly and inexplicably overlooked. If we’re going to honor great deeds of the past, let’s acknowledge all of them.

• The web site indeed does list school records, but it’s horribly outdated. Most significantly, it still lists Lyle’s 41 points as the single-game scoring record and it needs to be updated to reflect record-shattering scores on the lanes by Urben this past winter. Also missing is the astonishing 31 strikeouts by pitcher Joe Koperski in 1971 in a 17-inning game.

• Perhaps most significantly, something needs to be done in the public relations department about the now-defunct “Border Wars” season opening football games between Hopkins and Wayland (from 20012 through 2015). The games were terrifically popular because of the close proximity of the opponents and they drew large crowds, which translates into a lot of money into the athletic department coffers for both schools.

I was told by the Wayland Athletic Boosters the year after the series was terminated that only 25 Grand Rapids Union fans showed up for the season home opener versus more than 1,000 from Hopkins a year before. The difference in concessions and gate revenue was astronomical.

Yet more than two years after the termination of Border Wars, I have yet to see, read or hear of an explanation, which Hopkins and Wayland fans deserve at the very least. Why wasn’t this Cash Cow continued? Don’t tell me the athletic departments of the two schools are managing money wisely. Don’t say Hopkins cannot compete with Wayland in football, it won all four in the series and the last game, a real thrilling cliff-hanger, wasn’t decided until the very last play.

So I join the many who have expressed pleasure with the hiring this week of hometown product Santino DiCesare (a member of that 2010 20-0 basketball team), but I challenge him to clean up the wrongs of the past and to negotiate the resumption of Border Wars, if only for the added revenue and elimination of the necessity for of a long trip to play the season opener.

DiCesare, being a proud Wildcat from days gone by, just might restore the faith of the old-timers, me included, in showing respect for history and extending the hand of friendship and challenge of competition to our closest neighbor.