By Jim Moyes
LocalSportsJournal.com
Another year has raced by and already 2025 is upon us.
Although not a banner year like 2008 when Muskegon County brought home four state champions in football, 2024 did have its moments with hopes that 2025 will provide even more.
We’re just a few weeks into the basketball season and it has become clear that the Muskegon Big Reds are poised for another great year in hoops after being nipped by Zeeland West in the tournament last year. In recent years, with veteran head coach Keith Guy expecting the football team to make a long run that made for a short window for any football player making the quick transition to basketball, the Big Reds scheduled just a handful December games. With the 2024 football team not making the playoff for the first time in decades, Guy has had plenty of practice time to get his team ready for this year and it has paid off with four wins against top notch competition. With a handful of his players committed to play at the next level, it should surprise no one if the Big Reds make it back to the state final as they did in 2023.
If their last game is any indication of how productive they will be when the New Year rolls around, the Big Reds tallied 100 points against Lansing Everett, the alma mater of Magic Johnson. That certainly pleased the big crowd on hand at the annual Muskegon Sports Hall of Fame Holiday Basketball Classic. The current Muskegon squad brought back memories of the run and gun big Reds from the early 1960s during the Ed Hager era.
After posting a perfect record during the regular season a year ago, Whitehall was surprised in their very first game of the post season with an upset loss at the hands of Spring Lake. Viking coach Christian Subdon has dramatically toughened up his schedule and don’t let a couple of early-season losses fool you. Subdon has a team this year that is poised to make a long run come tournament time. The Vikings dropped a pair of games against Hudsonville and Grand Blanc, Division 1 schools with winning records, but already boasts wins over Division 1 Forest Hills Central while partially making amends for their stunning playoff loss to Spring Lake with a convincing victory. Also looming ahead in the schedule are contests vs. Mona Shores and an always powerful Rockford team.
Leading the Vikings is senior Camden Thompson, a talent the likes Whitehall fans have never seen on the Vikings’ hardwoods. Already possessor of virtually every record at Whitehall High, Thompson is an athletic marvel who will take his extraordinary talents to Western Michigan University next fall. Camden will have a lot on his plate as he has been accorded the rare opportunity to play both football and basketball for the Broncos. However, playing both football and basketball is much different from yesteryear as the football season now overlaps deep into the roundball campaign. The Broncos last regular-season game this year was on Nov. 30 and was extended even longer with WMU playing in a bowl game on Dec. 14. Meanwhile, by Dec. 14 the Western basketball team had already played nine basketball games.
Times have changed over the years for those with desires and expectations of playing multiple sports in college, especially trying to compete in both football and basketball. Fifty years ago, that was more than doable. In 1974, the Broncos football season ended on Nov. 12 while their first basketball contest wasn’t scheduled until Dec. 4, plenty of time to make the transition. The most recent player of note that played both football and basketball was Keon Coleman from Michigan State. However, Coleman, now with Buffalo in the NFL, played very little for Tom Izzo’s Spartans. During the 1950s, two sports stars in basketball and football did occur. It was much easier for an athlete to combine football with a spring sport like track or baseball with the perfect example being the great Earl Morrall.
I can recall from Moyes’s Memories, a couple of players from the 1950s who excelled in football and basketball. The first was MSU’s Bob Carey, an All-American football player who was the starting center in the winter for the Spartan basketball team. Just a few years later, Michigan had the legendary Ron Kramer do both. Kramer, an All-Pro for Vince Lombardi’s great Green Bay Packers teams of the early 1960s, was also a starter (at 6-3) as the center for the Wolverine’s basketball team. Can Camden Thompson in today’s era also do the same? Camden may have to make a decision of one over the other sometime during his career, but we’ll standby and let this extraordinary talented player make that decision.
Meanwhile. Whitehall and Greater Muskegon fans can enjoy watching this all-around performer display his talents in his final months as a prep performer. Camden may have inherited much of his size from his grandfather, Ron Farmer, a teammate of your author at North Muskegon in the late 1950s. Grandpa Ron was an outstanding athlete for the Norsemen where at 6-6 and well over 200 pounds. He was the starting center on NM’s basketball team in 1957-58 and as a fire balling pitcher on the baseball team. No opposing batsman felt comfortable in the batters’ box when facing the hard-throwing Farmer. Ron spun a one-hitter in an 8-1 victory over Scottville in 1957 while he also struck out 15 batters, while allowing just two hits in a 4-2 victory over Montague. Camden’s mother also was no slouch as an athlete. Annette (Farmer) was a two-time West Michigan Conference champion in the high jump and the Class C regional high jump champ while attending Hart High in 1983.
While Whitehall has toughened up their schedule the same can’t be said for my alma mater North Muskegon. Just like Whitehall accomplished last season, the Norse ran the table to post a perfect 22-0 record during the regular season, but were ousted in the first game of the regionals by Pewamo-Westphalia. The Norse lost three starters from last year’s team, but appear again to be in line for another season that will see many more wins than losses. Junior guard Adam Dugener is off to a torrid start, capped by a 39-point explosion in their recent victory over Hart. The Norse play in a rather weak Rivers Division of the WMC where it is likely they will see few challengers to repeat as division champions.
I will probably incur the wrath of my NM friends, but other than future contests with Ludington and Grand Rapids Covenant Christian, it is doubtful if any other foes on their schedule will pose any problems for the Norse. However, will the weak schedule toughen them up for the MHSAA playoffs? What I cannot for the life of me understand is why North Muskegon and Whitehall, both longtime members of the West Michigan Conference do not schedule a game with one another. The one-time rivals played each other for 86 straight years from 1936 through 2022, but none have been contested between the Vikings and Norse in the past 3 years. The Norse did compete in a weekend series at Benzie Central when they played and defeated Menominee and Lapeer. However, both of those teams were nowhere near as strong as they’ve been in recent years as NM easily won both games.
Before I close out this Moyes’ Memories story, I wonder how many of our Local Sports Journal readers recall Brian Montonati. Brian led Orchard View to a Class B regional basketball championship for Mike Henry’s Cardinals in the middle 1990s and surely could be on the Orchard View Mount Rushmore of past OV greats like Curtis Adams, Jim McClain and Dan Rohn. Brian took his talents to Oklahoma State where in his senior year, with teammates that included the much-maligned Doug Gottlieb, the current head coach at Green Bay who lost his last game to Nobody U. (Michigan Tech) Montonati was the second-leading scorer for the Cowboys. Brian is the current head coach of Owasso High School in Oklahoma where he led his team to the state basketball championship last year. Brian has another powerhouse this year and is ranked among the top teams in the country. And his best player? None other than his son, Jalen, who has already received 23 major offers.
