Cliffs Riffs - Stuph n Nonsense

Originally published in the Lowell Ledger, August 2022  You can follow Kate's adventures on her Facebook Page: KATE BRIM ON FACEBOOK Katie Brim – The Rest of the Story Katie did, yes she did. Hopefully you read our coverage of Katie Brim when she was on her way to Canada to compete in the UCI 2022 Para Cycling World Cup held in Quebec City, Canada August 4-7 followed by the 2022 Road World Champions August 11-14 in Baie Comeau, Canada. Katie surely did – she came home with four gold medals from the four races she competed in. She won the Time Trial and Road Race for the World Cup and did the same in the Road World Champions four days later. In the time trials, the racers compete alone and the road races pit them against each other. Not only did she win all four, but she finished 10 minutes and 39 seconds ahead of second place in Quebec City and 11 minutes and 9 seconds ahead in Baie Comeau. Fun fact about Katie, she enjoys pedaling her bike uphill more than any other aspect of t...

 Katie Brim Is Going International By the time you read this, Lowell resident Katie Brim will be on her way to compete in her first ever international para-cycling competition. Katie will be a member of Team USA and they will be competing in two events put on by the UCI (Union Cycliste International). The first is the UCI 2022 Para Cycling World Cup that will be held in Quebec City, Canada August 4-7 followed by the 2022 Road World Champions August 11-14 in Baie Comeau, Canada. “I am extremely nervous and excited for this amazing opportunity as this will be my first time racing internationally,” Brim stated. “I am going into these races like I have every race I have done this year and that is to do the best that I personally can do and learn as much as I can.” You may have seen Katie whiz by on her low slung hand powered racing bike. She rides/trains six days a week on the roads around Lowell and Ionia. Nasty weather doesn’t slow her down a bit because she has a stationary smart tr...

No more watching Tiger baseball games for me. Owner Mike Ilitch is worth somewhere north of 3 BILLION dollars. He has enough money to pay ONE player on the team 23 million dollars for covering first base for a season. He has a host of players making 10 to 20 MILLION every year. So what Cliff - why do you care? Well Mister Ilitch also owns the Red Wings and he wants PUBLIC money to build them a new place to play. FWIW, the new Tiger stadium was built with about 38% of public monies. Tax exempt bonds and such. TAX EXEMPT? They want to auction off art work that people DONATED to pay Detroit's debts, but there is enough money around to make playgrounds for millionaires and billionaires. No problem - well, at least Governor Snyder is behind it - after all, he paid 6 million for a $142,000 a year job so we know his heart is in the right place. Oh wait - think of the jobs that will be created. Yes, there will be 800 some part time, minimum wage jobs selling beer for $8.75 a g...

Daughter Amy presented me with this book on Christmas - well done Amy! I had a hard time putting it down and finished it up in 2-3 days. McGrory does and excellent job of telling the true tale of how he, a confirmed lover of city living and all the benefits within walking distance of his bachelor pad, fell in love with a lovely lady - her two children, a host of animals and one bad-ass rooster named Buddy. While Buddy spends a good deal of time in the spotlight, the book is summed up in the title - you know, the part about being a "family man". Brian learns the value of doing for others simply because it is the right thing to do - even if it means something as seemingly ridiculous as giving up a highly coveted seat at basketball play off in order to read a bedtime story to a member of your new family. Easy read - McGrory writes for a living and it shows. Great book for dads, step-dads, uncle dads (family joke), future dads, and anyone who has a dad.  I would give this bo...

Spent some time in a totally alien environment today - I went to watch some of the matches in the 2012 Table Tennis U.S. Open Tournament which was held for the second year in a row right in downtown Grand Rapids. This event goes on for 5 days and has players from all over the world. I read about it last week and really wanted to experience it for myself. It was a very different world - I was waaaaay in the minority in a couple of ways. First and foremost because I didn't have much of a clue as to how things worked. Sure, I have played "ping-pong", but this is a whole 'nother world. These are world class players of all ages from all over the US and lots of other countries as well. Secondly, I was in the racial minority as well. The largest percentage of people were Oriental by far - old white men were few and far between! I heard foreign languages being spoken everywhere as I walked around. It was cool to be surrounded by the totally unique sporting culture of ta...

L to R: Pete Odland, Michael Chambers, and Drew Born.  With all of the political rhetoric, creepy behavior, mudslinging, and outright lies we are bombarded with on the national stage every day it is very possible to miss the glint of gemstone in our own back yard. Pete Odland, the president of White’s Bridge Tooling on Bowes Road in Lowell, is such a gem. He and his good friend Bob Schafer have used their combined skill set to create something that enables physically challenged men and women to do things they could only dream of. To say that Pete enjoys hunting is to put it very, very mildly. He has shared that love with many people on the 337 acres he owns in Belding. Some of the hunters he has invited there have had various physical challenges and Pete has tried to accommodate them by modifying a golf cart so they could hunt from it. In the last couple of years his efforts to enable handicapped hunters has catapulted from simple wooden blocks to state of the art sophistica...

When Grand Haven bowling coach Patrick Mitchell talked with us regarding Chelsea Winkelman the words “focus” and “focused” entered the conversation numerous times. Mitchell even went so far as to say that her focus was the strongest part of her game. “Chelsea is a competitor,” Mitchell said. “When she gets locked in it is like watching a robot. She is probably the most focused one on the team.” Focus and consistency are two attributes that separate great bowlers from the good ones. They have paid off for Chelsea, a junior, in the fact that she rolled a conference high single game score last season with a 276 and is currently leading the conference with a 259. Her concentration helps her keep her average consistently in the 180 to 190 range. Don’t get the impression that Winkelman is off in her own little world when she is bowling – she combines her attention to detail with a great deal of team spirit and is not shy when it comes to cheering on the rest of the Bucs. Chelsea got i...

Leni (pronounced “lie-knee”) Truong hit the nail directly on the head when she described herself as “the biggest cheerleader who isn’t a cheerleader”. While the Kellogsville senior may not be an official member of the Rockets cheerleading squad per se, the positive attitude Leni brings to her school in general and the volleyball team specifically has garnered the attention and appreciation of coach Mindy Wert. “She is so positive,” Wert commented. “She cheers herself hoarse when she is not in the game.” Wert has coached Truong for three years; one on the JV team and two on varsity. While Leni is not a starter, she is still considered a team leader by the coach because of her helpful, dependable day to day performance. Her teammates must share the coach’s opinion about leadership, because they elected Leni to be one of the captains this season. “Leni is basically like an assistant to me,” Wert continued. “She is right there telling the other players exactly what I would say.” Truong st...

Here is Sven (in green) doing one of the things he does best. Sven Alm just returned from a trip to Mecca – that is to say the small “m” mecca of the wrestling world. The FHC senior spent almost two weeks at an “intensive training camp” at the University of Iowa with three of his teammates. For those of you who don’t know from wrestling, the Iowa Hawkeyes dominate the sport with 22 national championships since 1975 – Ranger coach Brad Anderson likened his guys training there to high school baseball players getting to train with the New York Yankees. For Alm to spend some of his summer vacation at a camp that starts every morning with an hour long run followed by a couple hours of technique training, then weight lifting, more technique training and then “live combat” is no surprise at all to anyone who knows him. To say that Sven is focused on his sport is to put things very mildly and he enjoys a challenge. “I like to look for the toughest thing to do,” Sven said. “If it is tough and c...

Lat night we watched an HBO special on the recently departed sportscaster Jim McKay - Jim covered the Olympics and many other major sports for ABC, and hosted Wide World of Sports, etc. etc.. About 10 minutes into it I realized that I owe Jim McKay a huge debt of thanks. In my Cliff's Riffs column I like to tell student athlete's stories. While my column is not always about kids, (Lordamercy, them Putt-Tones is old geezers), there is a consistent theme in that I enjoy telling about the people involved in the sporting event much more than the event itself. When I used to cover the local race tracks for the Advance, I never reported who won the race or gave a turn-by-turn rendering of it - I would just hone in on one racer or another and do my best to tell his or her story. Its great to tell the story of a winner, but I believe that just as much about life can be learned by losing - especially when you give it your best shot. Which is not to say that I am not competitive, because...

Dan Howe, Kerry Smith, Charlie Eggerding and Biff Birdsall of the world famous Putt Tones. When we got wind of the Putt-Tones softball team and their 30 year history, we thought for sure someone was pulling our leg so it was off to Belknap Park to see these guys first hand. Turns out the report was true; three core members of the team have a 30 year history of playing softball together. Right before the 1980 season three brothers hatched the idea of forming a softball team. Art, Charlie, and Tim Eggerding decided the first guy they would recruit would be their buddy down the street, Dan Howe. Fast forward 29 seasons, (an argument can be made for doubling that number to 58 seasons because they play in both summer and fall leagues), and Dan Howe is still playing softball with Charlie and Tim Eggerding. While these three have the longest tenure, the team has others with equally impressive numbers. Kerry Smith signed on in 1983 as did Ben Tant. Biff Birdsall, the current skipper of the te...

I always like the July issue of the Reader's Digest - it is packed full of great things about America and Americans. Fer instance - just found out about a race car driver who is trying to turn the sport green! Her name is Leilani Munter and she is a woman on a mission - at 200 mph! Read about her here: http://www.leilanimunter.com/

Keegan Pawloski, a Wayland junior, spends a lot of time on the golf links which is just fine with the Wildcats team and golf coach Allen Brewer. We could probably lay the blame for Keegan’s attention to the sport at the feet of his grandfather; Gary Biermacher. It seems that Grandpa had Keegan out on the driving range at the ripe old age of three with a set of clubs that were cut down to size. Keegan still remembers that day and keeps some photos as a reminder. Pawloski shot his first nine holes by the time he was six. As you might expect, eleven years and a whole lot more rounds of golf later, Keegan is an accomplished golfer. He has played varsity for the Wildcats since he was a freshman and has been All Conference the last two seasons. His overall average for this past season is 39.1 and in conference play he is at 39.5. He can place his drives out about 290 to 300 yards. “The most improved aspect of his game has been his overall consistency,” coach Brewer said. “His average has com...

Kent City golf coach Ross Willick and his team received a surprise from Spain this season – an exchange student from La Coruna in the North West part of Spain who just so happened to be a very good golfer. His full name is Manuel Martinez Ubago Alvarez Sotomayor, but around Kent City he skips the last four and goes by Manuel Martinez. Willick is also a basketball coach and that is how he initially met Manuel. Martinez is much happier playing soccer or rugby, but decided to broaden his horizons while in the US and try out for the basketball team even though he had no experience playing the sport with a team. He related that he was “looking to have fun” and learn more about b-ball. He made the jv team and actually was able to play for short periods of time in a few games. It was while they were waiting for the bus to take them to an away game that Martinez mentioned to coach Willick that he knew how to golf. Willick asked him to explain his pre-shot routine and to take a practice swing ...

Flor Rios (back left) and her sisters are taking over the tennis courts! Greg Pfent has been coaching tennis at Kellogsville for over 30 years (he started the program), but nothing in his experience quite prepared him for Flor Rios. Flor, a senior who played number one doubles for the Rockets this year, is the oldest daughter of Antonia Ortiz and Saturnino Rios. Rios and her partner Angela Bergsma racked up a winning season and were named All Conference. They finished second in the OK Rainbow conference match to tennis powerhouse Forest Hills Northern. What makes Flor’s story remarkable is that when she appeared for her first tennis practice four years ago as a freshman, she had NEVER played the game. She fell in love with the sport immediately and took practice very seriously, according to her coach. As you can imagine the first year she played, Rios “got killed most of the time” playing matches for the JV team. Getting whipped only seemed to make Flor more determined. She told us th...

Erin Smith is a planner on and off the soccer pitch. Smith, a junior at Sparta, plays sweeper for the Spartans and she is constantly analyzing the action on the field and directing her teammates to deal with offensive threats from their opponents as they materialize during matches. “She organizes our defenses and directs traffic. I can hear her telling people where to go and who they should guard,” said soccer coach Jack VanderLaan. VanderLaan got to know Erin last season when both of them were involved with the junior varsity team and judging from all of the nice things he had to say about Smith, it is plain that he is very pleased to be coaching her at the varsity level this year. He rattled off a list of her attributes as fast as we could write them down: mature, trustworthy, level headed, coachable, responsible, and communicative. The coach went on to inform us that Erin represents a good mix in that she is very competitive and does not like to lose, but at the same time she practi...

If you pay real close attention to everything Maria Ervin says you might detect a hint of an accent in her speech. That is very impressive when you consider that the Forest Hills Northern senior did not speak a word of English when she came here at age eleven from Russia. While you might miss the slight accent, there is no way you could miss the passion and enthusiasm in Maria’s voice as she talks about two of her favorite things: running and friends. As a middle school student Maria experimented with basketball, soccer, and volleyball before her friend Nicki Keller talked her into trying out for the cross country team. Maria has focused on running ever since. This time of year she runs track for the Huskies where she competes in distance events like the 800, the mile, and distance relays. First year coach Stephanie Hare was full of kind words about Ervin. “She has a good attitude and works hard for the team,” Hare commented. “She is a good kid – she does the little things you want as ...

To say that Wayland senior Macy Merchant is a superstar on the softball field is not an exaggeration. Anyone with rudimentary knowledge of the softball program at Wayland knows of the Merchant family. Macy is the last of four daughters of Bill and Deb Merchant who have done amazing things for coach Cheri Ritz (who happens to be their aunt). We got a kick out of the understated terms coach Ritz used when describing her niece. “She is doing quite well. Macy is a tough out,” Ritz commented. “She is a pretty important part of our team.” At this point in the conversation we had to laugh. Calling Macy a “tough out” who is “pretty important” is like saying it has been a little damp around here lately. When we spoke with Macy she had just come off the field from a double header against conference rival Caledonia. (The Wildcats won 6-1, 10-0.) She was 8 for 8 getting on base in those games. Her batting average was .619 before that double header. She is hitting .750 with runners in scoring posi...

Nolan McBride, a Grand Haven senior, is a young man on a mission. The mission is one of his own design – it seems that as far back as his parents can remember Nolan wanted to excel in a sport and to be a top student. There is every indication that he has been able to meet his goals while maintaining a humble personality and being the type of young man who watches out for the underdog. Golf coach Randy White reports that McBride was All Conference last year and had an unusual story to share about the beginning of Nolan’s 2009 season. It seems that Nolan broke his foot playing dodge ball in January and his foot was still healing by the start of golf season. Most of us would have remained on the bench, but Nolan figured out a way to take some of the pressure off his foot while still participating in his favorite sport: He practiced and played the first two matches on crutches! Coach White has been around golf his whole life and has been a PGA professional for 25 years and Nolan’s actions ...