bballfan13 is correct in his thinking regarding the Hall of Fame Tourney/NCAA Volleyball Nationals back-to-back weekends. Calvin asked for a restructuring of the tournament hosting schedule because of volleyball nationals and was granted that request. Hope that clears up the questions.

Trine also unveiled its new Presto site today too at: www.trinethunder.com.

The archives and records will be added. It's just going to take some time to move some of the furniture and household items from the old house into the new house.

Actually OldKnight - an attorney on both sides of the coin (Mlive and Calvin) wrote up the agreement. We'll leave the details out of it.

Maroon and Gold: you will see the Calvin story on the local Mlive site at: http://www.mlive.com/sports/grand-rapids/

The direct link to the story is at: http://www.mlive.com/smallcolleges/grandrapids/index.ssf/2013/01/calvin_mens_basketball_perfect.html#incart_river

Nearly all of the local West Michigan colleges and universities now have an agreement with Mlive to post content on days/nights when Mlive does not staff their game events. We also post the same story from our website to the D3hoops.com site as well.

JF

From my quick count (to answer SAC's question), I have:

1. Glenn VaWieren vs Kevin Vande Streek - 41 games
2. Glenn VanWieren vs Ed Douma - 30 games
3. Russ DeVette vs Barney Steen - 20 games
4. Glenn VanWieren vs Don Vroon - 16 games
5. Russ DeVette vs Ralph Honderd - 15 games

To OldKnight: thanks for the shout-out...I see that Drake is scheduled to host the 2016 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials at the hold horseshoe on the Drake Campus. If I recall, the Hope football team played a game or two at Drake's old stadium in the early 1990s.

JF

Meckes did indeed split time between the JV and varsity. Nate Burgess also split time his freshman year.

Going back to the mid 1980's, Calvin has had several notable players play a year of JV ball.

Some of the names include:

Kevin Van Duyn
Jim Timmer
Todd Hennink
Matt Harrison
Mike LeFebre
Mark Lodewyk
Matt Rottman
Darrell VanLaare
Russ Iwema
Sam Hargraves
Nate Karsten
Nate Burgess
Kevin Broene
Andy Draayer
Josh Meckes
Kyle Trewhella
and just a few years ago Danny Rodts.

Just because a player is on the JV team does not mean the player will not pan out as a varsity contributor.

I am pretty sure that the old film is of Kalamazoo's Tredway Gymnasium. From what I understand, Tredway stood pretty much on the exact same location of what is now the Anderson Athletic Center. I think Old Knight could probably confirm this one way or the other.

Old Knight, thanks for the corrections and additional insights. I knew I could count on you for some more info!

Pat, regarding the AQs for leagues back in the mid to late 70s, you might be right. I do know that in 1981, Calvin, Hope and Albion tied for the league title with 9-3 regular season marks, forcing a three-way playoff with Calvin and Albion playing a 1st round game on the Monday after the regular season with Calvin winning that game and then playing Hope on Tuesday in the "playoff championship" game...Hope had received the bye. Calvin won that game too and in doing so, received the MIAA's automatic bid to the NCAA III Tournament. By the way, both of those MIAA "playoff games" were played at Middleville High School, considered a neutral site for the three teams. This comes directly from old newspaper clippings and other archives that we have. However, that was 1981 and not 1974-77....so how things would have unfolded for 1977, I do not know.

Albion's 1978 team that advanced to the Final Four shared the final MIAA title with Alma at 9-3 believe it or not and had an overall regular season record of 17-5. Whether or not that Albion team received an "at-large" bid to the NCAAs or received some type of automatic bid to the NCAAs through a tie-breaker edge with Alma...I do not know. I'll have to look that one up in the MIAA archives when I get a chance sometime.

Here's a follow-up to Greg Sager's post on the Mark Veenstra era. I think Greg makes several valid points that there is no way to measure how a team would have faired in a single-elimination NCAA III Tournament when they never played in a single NCAA III Tournament game during the four years. I think the only thing that we could say for certain is that if the MIAA did not have a ban on post-season play during the Mark Veenstra era, Calvin would have been in the post-season all four years as conference champions.

There is one common link that might be made however that I think at least gives some validity to the quality of play in the MIAA at that time. Calvin won four consecutive MIAA titles during the Veenstra era but over his final three years, Calvin struggled with a young and talented Albion team that was under the direction of  youthful head coach Mike Turner. During Veenstra's final two years (1976 and 1977), Calvin split its regular season series with Albion and needed a Hope upset win over Albion at the Holland Civic Center in the 1977 regular season finale to win the outright league title. Calvin's lone win over Albion in 1976 was a 75-74 decision and its 1977 win over Albion came by a 94-90 score. Albion was paced back then by future Eastern Michigan head coach Milton Barnes and eventual two-time MIAA MVP John Nibert. The year after the Veenstra era had ended (1977-78), the MIAA ban on post-season play was over and Albion in the first year of post-season eligibility, went all the way to the NCAA III Final Four, lost to the vaunted North Park team 75-69 in the semifinals and won the consolation game over Stony Brook of New York 87-78 for a third place national finish. Perhaps that Albion group was a cinderella team that overachieved. I don't know. But my guess is that the 1978 Albion team was pretty good. I think Greg might have been at the 1978 Final Four as a student so perhaps he could shed some light on Albion's team back then or perhaps Old Knight could do so. I can't say much since I didn't see them play as I was only eight years old.

So to get back to the Albion point, you might be able to infer that since Albion was able to play Calvin tough during the Veenstra era and then reach the Final Four the first year the MIAA sent teams to the NCAA III Tournament, you might also think that a Veenstra team could have made a simaler run. Even so, it's hard to know for sure. The 1977 team almost certainly would have had to have gone through Wittenberg (the national champion that year) and most likely would have played Wittenberg in Witt's old cramped brick gym which still stands today and could have served as a filming location for "Hoosiers"....I know some of the Hope and Calvin fans who have traveled down to Wittenberg have seen that old gym which is extends off the south side of Wittenberg's current HPERDS facility.

A few things regarding Mark Veenstra: Mark did turn a full-ride scholarship to play for Johnny Orr (among others) at the University of Michigan coming out of Hudsonville Unity Christian back in 1973. Even in the days before the internet and sports talk radio, that decision made quite a few waves from the newspaper clippings I've read in our archives. I also had a chance to watch several old film clips of Mark's career in helping put together a highlight video for his induction into the Grand Rapids Sports Hall of Fame in the late 1990s. The thing that stands out about Mark is not only was he a towering figure at 6-9, 6-10, but he also had an incredible soft shooting touch from 15-feet in. He was a natural southpaw and held the ball high above his head and could float in the 15-footer from either baseline, the elbow or in the lane. Almost an unstoppable jump shot at the Division III level. Since he also held his hands high above his head on his release, he was able to grab his own rebound quickly. If he missed, he usually got his own rebound for an easy put-back. Heading into last year, Mark still was tied for the Division III single-game record for rebounds with 36 in a game at Metro State (in Denver) during the 1975-76 season. I did not see the game in person obviously but my guess is that at least half of the 36 rebounds were of the offensive variety.

A couple of other notes about the four Veenstra teams....During his first two years, I believe he had a bit more help in the backcourt with sharpshooting guard Marc Hoogewind who probably would have added another 200 points to his collegiate career had the 3-point arc been around. I've heard several stories about how Marc and Art Tuls shot the lights out at the Calvin Fieldhouse in a 72-60 win over a Dan Roundfield-led Central Michigan team during the 1972-73 season. By the 1975-76 season, Hoogewind had graduated I believe and although Calvin's lineup featured no player smaller than 6-4 including a 6-6 point guard, I'm not sure that the perimeter shooting, speed or quickness was quite the same. I gather this only from talking to players and coaches from that era however. Old Knight could probably fill us in more.

A final thought on Mark Veenstra: I've asked both Doug Wentworth from WFUR and Hope SID Tom Renner who they consider the top players they've seen in the MIAA (in men's basketball). Doug has seen MIAA games since 1962 and Tom since 1965. When I asked them a few years ago, neither hesitated in naming Mark Veenstra as the most dominant player the MIAA has ever seen.

It all makes for interesting conversation to say the least.

Trivia Time

Mark Veenstra's High School team lost the State Championship in 1973.  The opposing team was coached by someone who later won a DI national championship in football.  Who was the Coach?

That would be Bill McCartney of Dearborn Divine Child who later served as the D. Coordinator for the U. of Michigan football team and then as the head football coach at the U. of Colorado where he won a national title. Our friend Good Knight had a front-row seat for that 1973 tournament game between Unity Christian and Divine Child.

Speaking of submarines in Lake Michigan, former Hope President and Calvin graduate Gord Van Wylen gave a fascinating speech a few years ago on Veterans Day inside the Calvin Chapel.  VanWylen was a ranking officer on a WWII submarine that was built in Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Michigan and later did all of its deep water dives in the northern portion of Lake Michigan up near Traverse City.  After the submarine was deemed seaworthy, it made its way to the Gulf of Mexico by traveling through the Chicago River, down the Mississippi and into the Gulf where it later saw heavy action in the Pacific.  Van Wylen later wrote a book entitled: "Encounter at Sea" that detailed the torpedo bombing of a Japanese ship.