Reuther Middle School held its first-ever athletic Hall of Fame ceremony, in collaboration with the school’s 50th anniversary, June 4 at Reuther.
By: Jonathan Szczepaniak | Rochester Post | Published September 17, 2024
ROCHESTER HILLS -- Anytime you’re planning a massive event like a wedding or a surprise birthday party, the months of planning make you reflect on how all this work is for just one day.
For Reuther Middle School Athletic Director Nick Klak, commemorating the school’s 50th anniversary with an athletic hall of fame celebration was nearly a year and a half of planning, and countless hours of scanning record books and searching for inductees online.
Starting in 1975, Reuther's extensive history of athletes showcased college and professional athletes, so there were plenty of names worthy of earning a spot. The biggest problem became actually finding the inductees to let them know.
“I don’t have Facebook or anything like that, so what I did was I’d go online and type in this person’s first and last name, what their age is, and I just put in ‘Rochester, Michigan’ to see what popped up,” Klak said. “What happens is you get these companies, like Radaris or Yellow Pages, that have stuff, but the problem is a lot of that stuff isn’t current."
But even after finally locating an inductee and giving them the call to let them know about their induction, something about a middle school hall of fame didn’t sound real, so Klak was met with yet another obstacle: convincing people of the authenticity of the event.
Fortunately for Klak, he had his good friends Vicki and Murray Woolf of ICS-Global who helped design an organizational system to be able to keep the 202 athletes and 18 coaches in the loop as to updates on how the event was progressing.
“At first, they didn’t even think it was legitimate,” Klak said. “When I left messages, they thought it was a scam. What I started doing was I started calling from the school phone, and when I left my message I would tell them to look at the school number and look me up on the school’s website. I had a few people I had to convince that it was legitimate.”
Through the countless phone calls and months of planning, the Reuther Middle School Athletic Hall of Fame ceremony went off with a bang June 4 at Reuther as over 100 inductees and 500-600 audience members crowded into the school.
“It was a really cool experience,” Josh Renel, Class of 2004, said. “It was cool just going back. I hadn’t been back to Reuther, and I was trying to do the math, and I think it was 20 years since I’d been back there. It was definitely a blast from the past.”
Along with hearing their name called by Kevin Beers, voice of the Oakland University Grizzlies Basketball, inductees received a plaque to take home with their name and year on it while also seeing their plaque on the hallways throughout the school.
“After the ceremony, my sister and I took a picture next to our plaques, which are right next to each other,” Amanda Bowery, Class of 2003, said. “I can’t wait in 10 years to take my son and say, ‘Look, mom actually had a pretty cool middle school career.’”
Athletes from 1975 all the way to 2025 were honored, while coaches, athletic directors and other athletic staff members were also inducted under the “Leaders” category.
For some such as Jim Jagels, a Class of 1976 inductee who lives in Colorado, it was about the moment of seeing old friends and picking up right where they left off decades ago.
“I’ve stayed in touch with Mike Adams, and between Larry and Terry Weathers and Mike Adams, we probably talk once a quarter for the last 30 or 40 years. We’re in some form of contact. Mark Merlo, he coached at Rochester, so when I went back for the Rochester Hall of Fame I saw him there. With Kurt McDivitt, I hadn’t seen Kurt in 40 years, and we were really good buddies. When I walked up, and I have to be honest, I didn’t even recognize him.”
For others such as Eddie Hillery, Class of 1996, it was a moment of reflection when seeing his old athletic coach again and realizing the coach wasn’t as old as Hillery had thought he was.
“Mr. Cheney, who was the PE teacher back then, I swear that I thought he was the oldest man ever when I was a kid,” Hillery said. “To see him there when I was there was like, ‘Oh man, I guess he wasn’t.’” He was probably 40, like I am now.”
On the coaches’ side, in the case of longtime Reuther athletic director/coach Kirk Gibbs, the ceremony brought numerous former players to him, wondering if he could remember them or not.
Gibbs said it was heartwarming to know that former athletes cared enough to approach him.
“You never really know, especially as a coach,” Gibbs said. “You hoped to do the right thing, but then they come back and they were coming up to me like, ‘Coach, I know you don’t remember me,’ and there were a couple where I couldn’t remember the name, but the faces you never forget.”
One of the more beautiful moments of the night happened when Class of 1982 inductee Lisa Rotondo approached Class of 2023 inductee Aubrey Wilson, who broke Rotondo’s longstanding 70-meter dash record.
“She was so nice,” Wilson said. “I wish we got it on video. She was so nice, and it was so fun. It felt really special. It felt like a really special moment.”
Inductees were selected based on a criteria system generated by the Hall of Fame board, which is accepting nominations from now until the last Friday in January each year. Each graduating class has a 10-year window for their respective athlete to be nominated.
It was a grueling process, but Klak, who was inducted himself into the Hall of Fame and received a standing ovation from attendees, was the right man for the job.
“Nick (Klak) is a hero,” Vicki Phillips Woolf, an inductee who coached from 1983-1999, said. “What he did for this is just amazing.”
Woolf herself is known to be a pioneer at Reuther, becoming the school’s first competitive cheer coach before leaving sideline cheer coaching to become the first female football coach, winning multiple championships in the sport.
Reuther also honored the memory of inductees who passed away: Bob Peck (Class of 1975), Dane Lowe Jr. (Class of 1979), Jeff Bruzzese (Class of 1981), Brian Aulph (Class of 1991), Amanda Crowell (Class of 1993), Anthony Mileski (Class of 1997), Tommy Namwichai (Class of 2003), coach Bob Babiarz (1988-2005), and coach Mark Lane (1988-2013).
For more information on the Reuther Athletic Hall of Fame, visit https://reuther.rochester.k12.mi.us.