On the heels of a milestone: Madsen wants to be remembered for respecting game
?The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.? ? Terrence Mann, James Earl Jones? character in the movie Field of Dreams
by Peter Jakey–Managing Editor
For 26 years, the one constant in the dugout of the Rogers City baseball program has been Hall of Fame baseball coach Howard Madsen. The uniforms, field, practice drills, and even the program?s intense leader from the past quarter-of-a-century has been rebuilt and erased again, but baseball doesn?t change. It has changed lives.
?I used to argue all the time. I would get in an umpire?s face,? said Madsen at last Friday?s practice. ?Back then I did not realize it was not about winning and losing, it is about how you project yourself to pass on the game. It has nothing to do with the score.?
Several years ago Madsen realized that if he was going to do justice to the game, after all it had done for him, he needed to respect the game. Madsen is on the brink of a milestone only about a dozen high school baseball coaches have reached, 600 career wins. He is 594-217-7 since the spring of 1982. According to the Michigan High School Athletic Association website, he is currently tied with Jim McCloughan of South Haven. Only two coaches in the top 12 are no longer active, so the rankings are going to continue to change in the coming years. Blissfield?s legendary coach Larry Tuttle tops the leader board with 940 career wins, and was 33-7 in 2006. Madsen?s name is not yet included on the all-time MHSAA career coaching list.
FOR MADSEN, whose desire for the school?s ever elusive, first-ever state baseball championship still burns as strong as ever, it is the day-to-day grind of being at practice that keeps bringing him back.
?I just love the game,? he said. ?That?s what brings me back. When it is spring you play baseball. The kids will keep you young. It is not so much the triumph at the end, it is the journey to get there.? It warms Madsen?s heart to have a junior varsity baseball program, because it allows 40 young men (20 varsity/20 JV) from Rogers City the chance to be a part of the program. Sometimes it?s the players with the least amount of talent that work the hardest and are the first to practice and the last to leave. Among them could be a future Jim Leyland, the current Detroit Tiger skipper. Leyland did not have the playing ability of Al Kaline or Norm Cash, but he was a ?Student of the Game.? Madsen likens himself to that type of player during his days as a catcher and shortstop at Grayling High School.
HE GREW up along the AuSable River, but was an avid fan of baseball. Madsen collected baseball cards until he was a senior in high school, and once took his father?s bulldozer onto state land to clear trees to create a field for him and his brothers. It had a fence and all. After high school, Madsen went to Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, less than a half hour drive from downtown Detroit. Less than a half hour from Tiger Stadium. Suffice it to say, Madsen?s extracurricular activities were spent in the upper deck bleachers at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. He would pop his own popcorn and go to 40 to 50 games a summer. Gasoline was only 17 cents a gallon. He would tie a radio to the railing and watch the game.
The working world would put him a little further from downtown Detroit, but never too far from a diamond. He took a teaching job at East Lansing High School and served as an assistant varsity baseball coach from 1974 to 1979. Howard and his wife Ann, who had been living in Okemos, decided to move to Ann?s hometown of Rogers City, where her parents John and Ida Szczerowski still lived. It is where they wanted to raise their children. There was a lot of work for a contractor to do in the early 1980s, said Ann. Madsen eventually landed a job as girls? basketball coach and took them to their first district championship. Dan Cox would later resign as head baseball coach in the spring of 1981 to focus on volleyball. Cox took the Huron volleyball team to a state title in 1988. Madsen was the only person to apply for the baseball job.
SINCE THEN, it has been a quick, but successful, 26 years. In that time period, the Hurons have had only one losing season. That occurred in 1989. A 9-14 season was followed by a 14-13 campaign. The program has been 10 games or more above .500 for 16 consecutive years. Rogers City won 30 games three times or more, including last year?s 31-4 team, which won an amazing 28 games in a row. Even with all the great teams, including last year?s squad that had five all-staters, the big prize still seems to elude him. Assistant coach Wayne Karsten needles Madsen in practice, that even five all-staters could not get him the Division IV trophy. Madsen returns the favor, by reminding Karsten that he was on the last RCHS team to finish with a losing record. Madsen says he feels like Buffalo Bill coach Marv Levy, who took four NFL teams to the Super Bowl, but could not come home with the title.
?I can relate to him, to be so close,? said Madsen. His wife has said for years that it is not always the best team that wins. When Quincy won the state title, Ann believes Rogers City had the better team. The 2004 team, which could be one of Howard?s most overachieving squads, almost put the coach into his first state title contest. He was one out away in the sixth inning with Adam LaLonde pitching a three-hit shut out. A triple with two runners on gave Bay City All Saints a 2-1 lead. Even if the Hurons had won him a title, he still would be in practice, raking the infield at Gilpin, or teaching and talking baseball to his players.
?THIS IS WHAT I love about baseball,? said Madsen, pointing to the RCHS gym, which is turned into a baseball/softball practice facility until it warms up. ?Just carry the lunch bucket. Let?s go in and do our thing, get our 150 swings in, let?s take our 100 ground balls, let?s throw our pitches, let?s work on our blocking, let?s do all that stuff. That?s what I love about the game.? Ann said the greatest compliment for her husband is to see former players coaching other programs, or having them with him in practice. Former player Ryan Howell is in Onaway this season, Jamie Meyer is in Rudyard, Greg Pietsch is an assistant for Posen softball, and Ryan Felax had been the Marine City JV coach until just recently. Former players assisting Madsen are Karsten, Matt Bredow, and Dave Haselhuhn.
?What greater tribute could a coach ever have, that he has a kid motivated enough to think that they would like to do what they did in high school,? said Madsen. ?That is the coolest thing.? The program has evolved over the years. Even after 15 years, Karsten said there is not much that they do in practice that is the same. The uniforms have changed from ghastly looking uniforms that mirrored the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Houston Astros, to today?s Atlanta Braves look. The field has been one of the most noticeable changes. Madsen remembers crying on the day Steven Schalk Memorial Field was dedicated. The field is a far cry from the day Matt Bruder almost was impaled by a steel stake holding the snow fence in place, while tracking down a flyball in centerfield. The stake grazed him. Soon after, the Huron Sports Boosters helped purchase safer equipment.
?I have been the guy in charge of the program, but it is the kids that have won all the games,? said Madsen. ?People kind of lose sight of that.? Madsen was inducted into the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame during the summer of 20
?Baseball has been so good to me,? Madsen reflected. ?I have been so fortunate. Ten years from now, nobody is going to remember the score to games, even though I do know we lost 5-3 in the 1983 state semifinals to DeWitt. I?ll remember, but the fans will not remember. They will remember what the coach was like.? And hopefully, beyond the wins and the accolades, time will remember coach Madsen as a steward and disciple of the game that reminds us of all that is good and could be again.