Breckenridge Football: The Climb

Breckenridge football was in my blood even before I was born.

Prior to 2016, the last time Breckenridge football had made the playoffs was 1993. I was born in 1994.

My father was on the coaching staff of that team, led by the great Joel Colbry, who is the all-time program leader in wins by a head coach.

Growing up, my father remained on the staff. I was always close to the program, and some of my fondest memories of football as a kid are the postgame parties at the Colbry’s house.

Fast forward to 2008. My father has been the head coach for a couple of years, and for whatever reason, things are slipping for Breckenridge football. We’ve been below .500 for years now, 10 in a row to be exact. My dad decided to hang it up after that season, which was my freshman year.

There was promise within the program, though. J.V. head coach Kurt Siler was in the midst of a pair of six-win seasons, his best ever. Siler, now-owner of the local meat market, had led the youth football program for over ten years and was in his third year of coaching at the J.V. level.

My varsity years were tough, but gave me some of the best memories of my life. 2010 was the year that we had a shot. We finished at 4-5, at one point upsetting a third-ranked Carrollton squad.

2011 was my victory tour, my final ride. What people don’t realize, I don’t think, is how talented the Tri-Valley West was, and continues to be. Michigan Lutheran Seminary and Merrill are perennial playoff mainstays, along with St. Charles. While we’re talking about conference playoff teams, I believe it to be important to acknowledge Terry Hessbrook and the dynasty that he put together at Ithaca.

I was a part of three of those games against Ithaca, and the thing that stuck out about those teams was their desire to be great, without taking it for granted. I grew up closely with many of the Yellow Jackets that were on the first two championship teams, and remain good friends with most of them. I also hold coach Hessbrook, coach Brad Showers and their entire staff in very high regard, as they’ve been nothing but gracious and supporting to myself and Breckenridge football.

In my senior season, they beat us 48-0, and I’m pretty sure that it was 42-0 at the half. With that being said, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.

I was fortunate enough to, even with a 2-7 record, be named to the All-State team as a first-team middle linebacker. I led the state in tackles with 136, all in the regular season. I had offers to play DII football, and even a couple of DI offers. I elected to attend Saginaw Valley State University on an academics scholarship instead, in turn ending my football playing career. That, though, was only one of many imminent endings for the components of Breckenridge football.

Cary Huntoon and Mark Seward, my varsity coaches, remain near and dear to my heart. They gave us their lives, as so many coaches do, for half of the year. I appreciate all they did, and when they stepped down, things most certainly were beginning to change.

Following them, even coaching legend Mel Skillman tried his hand at “fixing Breckenridge football.” He lasted one season.

Enter Kris Robinson.

Robinson, a Roscommon and Central Michigan University graduate, was a relatively new face in town. He was the wrestling coach at Breckenridge, but wanted the football job. He was hired, and his first football season was 2013.

Joining him as the defensive coordinator was Mike Ricco. A Frankfort and Alma College standout, Ricco also teaches History and Geography at Breckenridge. When it came to football, he brought in more knowledge and experience toward earning something that this town had so desperately wanted for so long: A playoff victory.

It was a slow start for the new staff.

They went 2-7, followed by a 5-4 campaign that led to nothing more than being left out of the playoffs.

In the winter of 2014, I was notified that coach Siler wanted to talk to me. I was a college student, in the midst of a transfer from Saginaw Valley State University to Central Michigan University. I walked into his store, and had a simple chat with him over his counter. He asked me, “You want to be my defensive coordinator next fall?” “Yeah,” I said. “I’m in.”

I’d love to say that this is where everything turned around, but we still had some dues to pay.

My first season on the sidelines was the fall of 2015. We were 5-4 at the J.V. level, but 0-9 on Friday nights. It was a low once again for the program, and it was time for us to figure things out. We knew we could win, and that offseason, a switch to the Mid-State Activities Conference gave us the fresh start that we needed.

Our out-of-conference schedule started with Houghton Lake, a school that nearly doubled our enrollment count.

A large majority of our players were coming back from that 0-9 team, a commitment that we as a staff remain appreciative of. That Friday night was the first of nine that would rewrite the state record books.

38-29 was the final score, and for the first time in a long time, the Huskies were on the winning said. We had players throwing their helmets into the air, coaches choked up and one of the greatest rides I’ve ever been on for the trip home.

Next for us was Ashley, a 48-0 win that moved us to 2-0 going into a matchup with regular MSAC champion Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart, up at their newly-turfed field.

Their roster was stacked with studs, including a standout quarterback and fast defense. Our guys knew that it was the biggest game for the foreseeable future, and I’ll tell you, it’s a good thing that the field had new turf.

It got broken in.

It remains one of the top-five games I’ve been a part of, including those that I played in. We traded scores all night, even after trailing at the half. For the first time in a long time, however, Breckenridge football embodied the town that they played for, and didn’t give up.

It’s strange; the way things can go without sinking in for weeks. That’s how a 40-32 victory felt. We were victorious and headed home, and once again, we were rocking. The community was skeptical still, having been beaten down by years of mediocrity and disappointment on the gridiron. They couldn’t feel it, but there was a storm coming, one that would draw press from across the state and nation.

We rattled off three straight wins after that, and we were playoff eligible. We were into the big dance. The next week, though, brought in a chance for redemption. It was Merrill week.

There’s Detroit vs. Green Bay. There’s Michigan vs. Ohio State. There’s Cass Tech vs. King. For us here in our one square-mile, one stoplight town, there’s Breckenridge vs. Merrill.

48-6 was the final the year before, and this rivalry is nasty. Breckenridge was 6-0, and Merrill was 5-1, and this time, there was something other than pride on the line. The winner, with some help from Sacred Heart, could lock up a conference title.

We held a 6-0 lead most of the game, until a backwards screen pass by Merrill was scooped up by our corner, Garrett Miller, and returned to the house. That popped the balloon, and we won by that final: 12-0.

We went on to take down Vestaburg 35-0 and Burton Bendle 22-12 (A game that we trailed 12-0 in), making us the first-seeded team in our district. Our first-round matchup? Saginaw Nouvel.

Experience, as I found out that Friday night, can win ball games. We went down 21-6, ending the greatest Breckenridge football season ever, and leaving us still without a playoff win in program history.

Kenyon Story captained the all-state team in the offseason, and joined Caleb Hurt, Spencer Fleming and Miller as key returning seniors that we had going into this past year.

After a tough offseason of work, the fall of 2017 was upon us, and we rolled into Beaverton for a late-August showdown between promising teams. We were outplayed in every facet of the game, and quite frankly, outcoached as well. We were whipped 29-8, and went home with our tails between our legs.

It had to be fixed, whatever it was that plagued us. It certainly was by the next week, as we took a 60-0 win home and looked forward to our next week against Sacred Heart, a team that had just announced that it would be their final season in 11-man football.

They had to come to our place this time, and in a bit more of a low-scoring affair, we sent them home with a loss, 27-7. We added two more W’s, and then it was homecoming week. The state’s leading rusher in Drew Stout led a stellar Carson City team into our place, in what turned out to be an instant classic.

We went down 14-0 early, but the second half belonged to us. We powered through the adversity, and even as Stout and his comrades racked up the rushing yards, we persevered. Stopping them on a two-point conversion inside of the last few moments, we had one hell of a homecoming celebration with a 27-26 victory.

This time around, the Merrill game wasn’t quite as close. We followed up our homecoming victory with a 40-0 victory over the Vandals, then put a nice game out against Vestaburg, bringing us into week 9 against St. Louis, our rival from the other direction.

To set the stage for the next few weeks of the story, I should provide some information. St. Louis was 5-3, looking to make it to the playoffs for the first time in their school’s history. A win over us would lock that in for them. Since the 2016 season, there had been some chatter about how the league change had affected us. Folks were commenting on the lack of skill in the MSAC compared to the skill of the Tri-Valley West.

This was our chance to prove that we were the only reason for our improvement, and that nobody could take it away from us.

By a final score of 12-7 in what was a hard-fought and largely uneventful game, the Huskies were headed into the playoffs at 9-1, and St. Louis was on the outside looking in.

As many high school football coaches know and as I have learned, the few days between Friday of week 9 and selection Sunday are a confusing time. Time that is generally spent breaking down film and finding the other team’s weaknesses is instead spent wondering who is next on the schedule.

For us, things were especially confusing, because we were literally the dividing line between D7 and D8, so we could’ve played just about anyone.

The draw, however, was something out of a movie.

The first seed in our district? Beaverton, the same team that had handed us our lunch in week one. We were the two seed, followed by Oscoda, our first round opponent. The fourth seed in our district was none other than our friends from down the road: St. Louis.

Friday night came quickly that week, and Oscoda looked terrifying both on film and getting off of the bus. They had the size and the athletes that good playoff teams require, and honestly, that can terrify squads like us that have never won a playoff game.

What I saw when I took the field that night with the team was amazing. As is true across the state and country, most small-time games only draw in crowds of a couple-hundred people. That used to be the case in Breckenridge, but clearly not any more.

I had never seen so many people there to watch a football game. Every seat was full, and the fence that surrounds the track was two-deep with people. They were all there to see their Huskies, hoping to witness history.

Oscoda walked down the field on their first drive, hanging an easy touchdown on us.

That is all they would score.

We rattled off 33 unanswered points, and as the clock ticked down in the fourth quarter, it was pandemonium in the streets of Breckenridge. Everyone was hugging, cheering, and some even openly crying. I paused for a moment to stare at the scoreboard, still not entirely believing it was real. Even more unbelievable was the news that coach Ricco, passed me through the headset from the press box.

“You’re not going to believe me on this,” he said. “St. Louis just upset Beaverton, 13-12.”

So, the team we had beaten a week before had just upset the team that had handed us our only loss of the year. That meant that instead of going to Beaverton again in week two of the playoffs, we were hosting St. Louis for a district title.

We once again shattered attendance records at Breckenridge High School, with an estimated 2,500 people watching the game. There were media outlets everywhere; even our sidelines were packed to maximum capacity.

From the kickoff, our guys did their best to leave no room for doubt. In a game between two teams with two combined playoff victories, it was our chance to prove that we belonged, and to forever put to rest the notion that our conference was inferior.

This time, the 26-6 margin of victory was the proof that we had searched for. The game went quickly, but do I ever wish that I had a pause button for that postgame celebration. Medals, a trophy, enough pictures to make the Facebook and Instagram servers slow down…it was truly amazing. That is a night that I will never, ever forget.

The following week, we went to undefeated Lake City. The Trojans were the Highland conference champions, and we were projected to be blown out by another team from a supposedly superior conference. Down 12-0 going into the fourth quarter, most said we had no chance. Well, we had every chance, honestly. We scored three times that quarter, but ended up losing 20-18. Our run, once again, was over.

Lake City went on to get steamrolled by eventual state champion Pewamo Westphalia in the semifinal, 51-8, and we wish it would’ve been us in that game. That’s why we set goals, though.

Let’s continue to get better next year.

Breckenridge, as most standards go, is a typical small town. About 50 students graduate each year, we’re a farming community, and we take care of each other.

When I talked with coach Siler four years ago, I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into by coaching. I knew that it took time, I just didn’t know how much. This, as I’ve learned, is time well spent.

At the end of the day, my reason was giving back. I started my time with this football program from the day I was born, as I said. I was going to games before I knew my own name, before I knew how to walk. It’s where I belong.

Everyone has a story about their football experience, and there’s no way to truly convey it the way you lived it. There is no way to put the blood you shed onto a piece of paper, or to make the game-winning catch with a keyboard. I wanted to share what makes not just my story, but this town’s story, unique.

0-9 to 9-0 is what we’ll forever be known for. We’re the only team in Michigan’s playoff era to do it, and we’re proud of it. It’s a comeback culture, and it’s what we do in this town.

Over the past few years, this community has lost some of its most wonderful residents, some to tragedy, some to age. Those are our moments of dejectedness, our 0-9 moments.

The 9-0 moments? They can be found in many places, not just on the football field. They can be found in a conversation up at Siler’s Market, or in a classroom at Breckenridge High School. They can be found in a local church pew on Sunday morning, or in a farm shop on a Saturday night.

There is no doubt in my mind as to why it was little, unknown Breckenridge that went from nothing to everything.

We do it every day. It’s the only way we know.

Contact Information:

Isaac Gregory

grego1im@cmich.edu

@IsaacOnSports52 on Twitter

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