The Muskegon Big Reds hoist the Division 2 championship state trophy.
(Photo by Tim Reilly)
By Tom Kendra
LocalSportsJournal.com
The Muskegon Big Reds have now won 900 football games dating back to 1895, during the second administration of President Grover Cleveland - the only president to ever serve two nonconsecutive terms, but I digress.
That is a lot of years, a lot of games, a lot of coaches and a lot of players.
So to say this latest win over vaunted Warren De La Salle, 33-21, in Saturday’s Division 2 state championship game at Ford Field was better than all 899 that preceded it is pretty presumptuous and certainly a case of recency bias, right?
Wrong.
This was the best football win in 129 years of Big Reds football because of where it happened, how it happened, who did it and who they did it against.
It happened at Ford Field, a gem in downtown Detroit which has turned into a house of horrors for the Muskegon High School football program, producing more heartache than any school/fan base deserves to endure - with a 1-7 record there in its last eight games, coming into Saturday night.
How it happened, now that is where Victory No. 900 gets so much sweeter.
It happened after the Big Reds had been written off as dead, not unlike the way they were back on Sept. 1, when this same De La Salle team came into Hackley Stadium and handed them their second consecutive butt-kicking at home (following in the footsteps of Rockford the week before).
Muskegon was down 21-7 at halftime and seemingly cooked.
The score was 21-7, but it was actually much worse than that. Muskegon had one good play in the first half - an 80-yard touchdown run by senior quarterback M’Khi Guy- while the Pilots had about 27 good plays, most of them courtesy of quarterback Sante Gasperoni on offense or linebackers Dewayne Williams III or Robbie Ermanni on defense.
Exactly what was said in Muskegon’s locker room at halftime may never be known by any of us that were not there, but what happened in the third quarter was apparent for all to see:
Muskegon came alive by throwing the ball.
Guy, who had his usual, ho-hum, 25 carries and 215 rushing yards, turned the game around in the third quarter through the air - finishing 4-of-6 passing for 159 yards and two TDs, a 94-yarder to Destin Piggee and a 23-yard strike on 4th-and-2 to another senior, two-way starter De’Carion Taylor.
It was fitting that the guys who led this improbable 26-0 comeback in the second half were all part of this incredible senior class - led by the “Big 3” of Guy, Piggee and Jakob Price - who are all better people than they are football players, which is saying something.
If you don’t believe me, just ask the organizers of the Muskegon Polish Festival, or Bike Time or the crew at Hamburger Mikey or the teachers and staff at Muskegon High School who have worked with these kids at fundraisers, kids’ camps and just day-in, day-out events. These seniors are special.
And finally, consider who the Big Reds did it against.Warren De La Salle is like the Soviet Union hockey teams of the 1970s and 1980s, the UCLA basketball teams under John Wooden and the collection of “unbeatable” boxers from the old Rocky movies - Apolo Creed, Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago, to name a few.
In other words, a machine.
That machine was clicking on all cylinders in the first half, dominating the line of scrimmage and roaring out to a convincing 21-7 lead, leaving the Big Reds, for all intents and purposes, down and out on the canvas, gasping for breath.
Muskegon coach Shane Fairfield, in his 14th year and now just three wins away from passing Leo Redmond as the all-time winningest coach in Big Reds’ history, has always loved the Rocky movies, because he identifies with the underdog, coming off the street and scrapping and fighting his way to the top.
Unfortunately, his coaching story had been stuck on repeat mode of the original Rocky, the most critically-acclaimed of all the series (winning the Oscar for Best Picture in 1977), largely because the ending is so real, with the underdog falling just short of ultimate glory.
Finally, on this night, after seven different losses that produced more tears than Talia Shire shed as Adrian, Fairfield and his team rose up off the mat and delivered a happy ending. It was breathtaking watching them land one haymaker after another, hearing the crowd roaring back to life and witnessing the De La Salle machine sputtering and ultimately succumbing to the emotion and determination of the senior-led Big Reds.
Officially, it will go down as win No. 900 in school history.
But it’s No. 1 in my book.
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