My parents live about 20-25 min. west of Napoleon. I'm orginally from Williams County.

Well actually born in Fort Wayne where I learned at an early age to love IU hoops (Hilliard Gates was the announcer)-I remember the Shepards out of Carmel IN and over 15,000 people at a hs semi-final game.

About third grade we moved to Napoleon. That's where I was a carrier for the Northwest Signal. Starting in grade 6 I attended every Friday football game. There were more people there than at some EMU football games even back then. Wasn't real good at sports.

About eighth grade moved to Nick Freer's high school Lakeshore Stevensville and yep they encouraged me to play football in 9th grade all 5'11 105 pounds of me. I was the fastest runner on the team because I was afraid of getting hit. Played varsity baseball that year with a guy by the name of Chris Knapp who later played with the White Sox and Angels. Not good at baseball either. So guess what I lettered in cross country and track. Went on to a junior college and played one year of soccer. Oh yeah back then SW Michigan was loaded with hoops players I saw Tom Scheffler of St Joe and Purdue, Bill Weaver of Niles and EMU, Leo Drake of Niles Brandywine who was scored 62 in a game of CMU and Edgar Wilson of Dowgwaic of MSU fame. The best guy was Andy Wooden out of Benton Harbor who basically disappeared. Lets just say I got to see some quality hs hoops in hs.