(This story is one in a sequence profiling the 2024 inductees into the Higher Flint Space Sports activities Corridor of Fame. The profiles are supplied by the GFASHOF. This 12 months’s induction banquet will likely be held on the Ascension Genesys Banquet Middle in Grand Blanc Township on Saturday, Dec. 7. Doorways open at 3:15 pm.)
FLINT, MI – The Higher Flint Space Sports activities Corridor of Fame broke new floor in its picks this 12 months.
After 43 years of enshrining 318 people and 89 groups, the Corridor is honoring a complete group with its induction of the Flint Olympian and CANUSA Video games within the Class of 2024.
The Flint Olympian and CANUSA Video games is being inducted as a Distinguished Service Award winner, which appears acceptable given its 67 years of service to not solely Flint and Genesee County, but in addition to town and residents of Hamilton, Ontario, the Canadian counterpart of the CANUSA Video games.
“A number of inductees, if not a really vital share of them, have performed within the Flint Olympian and CANUSA Video games via their youth to achieve the heights they reached in highschool, collegiate or skilled careers,” stated Tony Sitko, present president of the Higher Flint Olympian and CANUSA Affiliation. “The existence of those video games had been rooted in group training that grew from the native college stage to group stage to worldwide video games.”
“It goes manner again in time to the Neighborhood College district years, which supplied sports activities from archery to wrestling,” echoed Dan Berezny, a longtime group college director who later helped run the Video games. “That was the spotlight of the summer season again within the ‘60s and ’70s. In 1979 we had over 20,000 Flint and Genesee County contributors within the Olympian Video games, the best quantity at the moment.”
The Flint Olympian Video games had been born out of the Flint Neighborhood Colleges Program, which was one other pioneering transfer that targeted on Flint and Genesee County kids changing into energetic in sports activities and different actions. Opening the faculties, gyms and athletic amenities within the night and summer season saved the youngsters busy and paved the best way for athletes to go on to higher success in faculty {and professional} sports activities. A group college director was in place at each college.
The brainchild of Frank Manley Sr., backed by the robust help of Charles Stewart Mott, the group colleges philosophy turned a mannequin for cities across the nation. Each gents had been inducted into the inaugural class of the Higher Flint Space Sports activities Corridor of Fame in 1980 because the then-named Particular Service Award winners.
The Flint Olympian Video games began in 1957, with two-time Olympic pole-vault champion Rev. Bob Richards serving to to get the video games off the bottom with a pole-vaulting exhibition. The video games had been truly named the Flint Junior Olympics that 12 months, and since the title indicated competitors just for juniors, many adults didn’t enter. There have been 1,300 contributors.
The title was modified to the Flint Olympian Video games in 1958, and a couple of,452 folks entered.
That was additionally the 12 months Manley tabbed Joe Wargo to discover a sister metropolis in Canada for an annual worldwide competitors. Hamilton was chosen due to its related dimension to Flint and since each had been blue-collar cities, Hamilton in metal and Flint in auto crops. Wargo was the founding father of the CANUSA Video games.
“I attempted Sarnia and London, then discovered some folks from Hamilton who had been in Lansing at a observe meet,” Wargo stated earlier than his induction into the Higher Flint Space Sports activities Corridor of Fame in 2003 because the Particular Service Award winner. “We talked concerning the potentialities and tried it out with a couple of sports activities within the first CANUSA Video games. It took off from there.”
The primary CANUSA Video games passed off Aug. 8-10, 1958, in Flint. After Friday’s first day of competitors, Hamilton controller Leslie Parker formally invited Flint to ship a staff to his metropolis the following summer season for the second annual CANUSA Video games. He thanked Flint Mayor George M. Algoe for his hospitality proven the greater than 400 contestants who arrived Friday afternoon. Greater than 100 Flint households had volunteered the hospitality of their properties to Canadian children and their mother and father who could be there for the three-day affair.
“Now we have present in Flint very nice individuals who have made us really feel proper at house,” Parker stated. “We hope you’ll give us the chance subsequent 12 months to point out you we might be fairly good folks too.”
A 12 months later, some 400 Flint athletes traveled to Canada’s fifth largest metropolis for the second annual CANUSA Video games Aug. 21-23, 1959. The 225-mile torch run from Flint to Hamilton began at 11 a.m. Friday and was anticipated at 1:05 p.m. Saturday on the opening ceremonies. A number of the runners had been slowed by the primary rain in Hamilton in six weeks.
“It wasn’t simply the sports activities,” famous Berezny. “The video games had been so distinctive, it was about understanding one another’s cities and other people. The underlying factor was, earlier than we will perceive each other, it’s important to study from each other. We’d play a couple of video games and nonetheless spend 48 hours collectively.”
Chris “Rooster” Daly grew up in a volleyball household and performed the game typically within the CANUSA Video games. He made so many pals with the Hamilton guys that they had been standing up for one another at weddings, together with his.
The Flint Olympian and CANUSA Video games began working into hassle in 1990, when the Flint colleges did away with the group college administrators.
“Dick Daly got here to us and stated I need you guys (Berezny, Jim Whitinger and Jim Bracy) to run the video games in 1991,” Berezny stated.
They quickly introduced Mike Maienbrook into the fold, and with the assistance of paraprofessionals, together with some group administrators who got here again, they had been capable of hold the video games going an excellent 20 years. The district helped by not charging for amenities, fitness center utilization and Northwestern’s area for opening ceremonies.
Alongside the best way, they recruited a youthful crew of Sitko, Rooster, Sean Croudy and Mark Coron to “take over the entrance seat,” as Berezny put it.
“In 2015 the Flint college board stopped offering monetary help for the video games,” stated Sitko, president of the Higher Flint Olympian and CANUSA Affiliation. “The previous chairmen of the video games and previous group college administrators took monetary accountability for 3 years.
“Then in 2018 it shifted to the Crim Health Group, which turned the working group. We nonetheless assist them run the video games, however they’re actually in cost, with Crim Sports activities Director Traci Pigott and Crim Sports activities Coordinator Terence Greene Jr.”
“Gerry Myers, CEO/President of the Crim Health Basis, stepped up and stated we might help out,” stated Berezny. “The Crim now’s the official sponsor of the video games.”
The Crim estimates that, since 1957, greater than 700,000 athletes from ages 5-85 have participated within the Higher Flint Olympian and CANUSA Video games.
“And the video games are nonetheless happening,” stated Berenzy. “This previous summer season Hamilton introduced 250-260 some college students. We plan on going there subsequent 12 months, and hope to carry one other 250 or extra.”
