MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[hope1]

sac i think  miller is a very good  guard that is coming to hope

[Flea]

[Zach Osburn's] hoping to make that same kind of an impact at Hope and he's working hard to impress the coaches during breaks in Hope's summer camps and during pickup game with current and former players.

It's great to see Hope working hand-in-hand with the NCAA, making sure their coaches are not evaulating their athletes during the off-season.  That statement harkens back to Bosma's newspaper quote about the wonderful Hope coach that worked with him in the weightroom all summer.

[Marshall alum Dustin Miller] was recruited by a couple of other MIAA schools, but he said he like the atmosphere at Hope. And who wouldn't want to play in that new (DeVos Fieldhouse) arena?"

Will the draw of that beautiful arena ever wear-off?  I doubt it.

[MIdoubleA]

I'm very excited about this... Osburn was a really good player in highschool. Very reminiscent of a Travis Spaman, but quicker.

[arena]

Carlson WILL be the head coach someday, but not for a while. The next coach after GVW will probably be there for 10 years (with Carlson as assistant). He's actually following GVW's path (he left Holland after being an assistant to get his doctorate at BYU, then returned to Hope).

Whoa.  Is the BYU, Brigham Young University??   As in the mormon school?

Yes.  According to the Hope website:  Prior to joining the Hope faculty he taught and coached at Grand Haven (Mich.) High School. He holds the M.A. degree from Western Michigan University and the Ed.D. degree from Brigham Young University.

You seem suprised.  Do you see that as weird? 

Yes.  Very.

I'm not going to take this board down any unneeded roads, so I'll keep those opinions and thoughts to myself.

[Trailer Dog]

Carlson WILL be the head coach someday, but not for a while. The next coach after GVW will probably be there for 10 years (with Carlson as assistant). He's actually following GVW's path (he left Holland after being an assistant to get his doctorate at BYU, then returned to Hope).

Whoa.  Is the BYU, Brigham Young University??   As in the mormon school?

Yes.  According to the Hope website:  Prior to joining the Hope faculty he taught and coached at Grand Haven (Mich.) High School. He holds the M.A. degree from Western Michigan University and the Ed.D. degree from Brigham Young University.

You seem suprised.  Do you see that as weird? 

Yes.  Very.

I'm not going to take this board down any unneeded roads, so I'll keep those opinions and thoughts to myself.

I know a former Calvin prof also went to BYU.  His order ... Calvin student -- Hope prof/coach -- Calvin prof/coach -- Westmont prof/coach.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Carlson WILL be the head coach someday, but not for a while. The next coach after GVW will probably be there for 10 years (with Carlson as assistant). He's actually following GVW's path (he left Holland after being an assistant to get his doctorate at BYU, then returned to Hope).

Whoa.  Is the BYU, Brigham Young University??   As in the mormon school?

Yes.  According to the Hope website:  Prior to joining the Hope faculty he taught and coached at Grand Haven (Mich.) High School. He holds the M.A. degree from Western Michigan University and the Ed.D. degree from Brigham Young University.

You seem suprised.  Do you see that as weird? 

Yes.  Very.

I'm not going to take this board down any unneeded roads, so I'll keep those opinions and thoughts to myself.

While BYU is, of course, affiliated with the LDS church, it is a highly respected university and not nearly as exclusively Mormon as you may think.  Their list of officially-sanctioned clubs include the Baptist Student Union and the Muslim Student Association!

While I couldn't find a breakdown on student religious preference, my impression is that it would be only around 50-60% Mormon among undergrads, and considerably less than that among grad students.  (And I would bet that their student conduct rules would make a Hope student feel right at home!)

[MeyeAA]

Article about Hope transfers Zach Osborn and Tim Dykgraaf

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/stories/070906/localsports_20060709035.shtml

....it also mysteriously jumps into a paragraph about a Freshman named Dustin Miller from Marshall

So it looks like GVW did have something up his sleeve even though he lost his prized recruits of Veltma and Mantel to Calvin. I wonder if GVW spoke at Dustin Miller's hs basketball banquet?

[Gregory Sager]

Carlson WILL be the head coach someday, but not for a while. The next coach after GVW will probably be there for 10 years (with Carlson as assistant). He's actually following GVW's path (he left Holland after being an assistant to get his doctorate at BYU, then returned to Hope).

Whoa.  Is the BYU, Brigham Young University??   As in the mormon school?

Yes.  According to the Hope website:  Prior to joining the Hope faculty he taught and coached at Grand Haven (Mich.) High School. He holds the M.A. degree from Western Michigan University and the Ed.D. degree from Brigham Young University.

You seem suprised.  Do you see that as weird? 

Yes.  Very.

I'm not going to take this board down any unneeded roads, so I'll keep those opinions and thoughts to myself.

There was an article about Van Wieren in the 1987 Final Four program that I bought when I went to Calvin's gym to see North Park win its fifth championship. I'm not exactly sure why he was chosen to be the subject of a biographical article in that program, seeing as how Hope was eliminated in the first round by Otterbein that postseason. Perhaps the editor who put it together was just looking for an articulate coach who would say good things about the D3 level, given that Final Four programs tend to have a lot of those boosterish type of fluff pieces in them.

Anyway, the reason why the Van Wieren article has always stuck out in my mind is because in it he was quoted at length regarding how much he admired the Mormons. He really went on and on about them. It struck me as weird that: a) the writer would indulge him in this very strange digression from talking about the joys of coaching D3 basketball and teaching at a D3 school; b) the editor would see fit to include it in the final draft of the article as printed; and c) the head basketball coach of a school that is conspicuously and intentionally (small-'o') orthodox Christian would be so enamored with the Mormons, to the point where he goes out of his way to laud them in a conversation about something else.

I don't know Van Wieren, and this dusty old article from back in the day doesn't influence my opinion of him one way or the other. I just thought that it was a quirky sidetrack within an otherwise unremarkable article in a Final Four program, and this seems like a good opportunity to mention it.

[Pat Coleman]

I don't know what the lead time for the program was in 1987, but when I write for the Stagg Bowl program, as I have the past couple of years, they want my copy in mid-October. I expect they only want to deal with the pages directly involved with the teams on deadline.

[Gregory Sager]

I think it's likely that the copy deadline was an early one back then as well. I wasn't really all that surprised by the fact that Van Wieren was the coach spotlighted by the article. Hope might've seemed like a good bet to be going deep into the tourney whenever that article was assigned and written.

[13wapiti]

Batista changes his mind?

http://www.mlive.com/weblogs/hsbasketball/

[seinfeld]

I hope Battista doesn't change his mind. From a basketball standpoint, it makes much more sense to go to Wooster, IMO. At Wooster, he would likely step right in as a freshman and start at center. He would work with one of the best post coaches, in my opinion, that you can find in Div. III in assistant Doug Cline. At Hope, it looks  like he would be in competition with several other guys for that spot.

Off the court, who knows what the motivation would be. While Wooster and Hope sport similar basketball traditions, the type of schools they are, in terms of religious influence, size, etc., is different enough that you should probably be able to differentiate between the two.

Here's hoping he sticks with his initial choice ...

[MIdoubleA]

I don't see why he wouldn't fit right in with Hope's program either. We lose our starting 4 and 5, and we get at least 4 more guys 6'6 and up to fill those spots. He might have to challenge Dan Holt and Evan Hare (??) for PT, but based on last season that might not be too hard to do (based on injuries, etc.)

I guess we'll wait and see 

In the meantime, perhaps Batista did consider Hope for something other than basketball   

[Flying Dutch Fan]

I hope Battista doesn't change his mind. From a basketball standpoint, it makes much more sense to go to Wooster, IMO. At Wooster, he would likely step right in as a freshman and start at center. He would work with one of the best post coaches, in my opinion, that you can find in Div. III in assistant Doug Cline. At Hope, it looks  like he would be in competition with several other guys for that spot.

Off the court, who knows what the motivation would be. While Wooster and Hope sport similar basketball traditions, the type of schools they are, in terms of religious influence, size, etc., is different enough that you should probably be able to differentiate between the two.

Here's hoping he sticks with his initial choice ...

I'm sure Doug Cline is a fine assitant, and good at coaching the post, but Matt Neil is second to none in that field.  If you doubt it - just try to remember that clumsy freshman kid from GR named Overbeek. 

[hope1]

hope would be a good fit for him and maybe start