Friday was a great day for the Wolverines

On Friday, the Sacred Heart Fighting Irish beat Saugatuck in the Division 8 State Football Finals and Ithaca beat Monroe St. Mary in the Division 6 finals. What is interesting is that both winning team featured a plethora of former Vestaburg Wolverine coaches.

In the late '80s, Rick Roberts was the head football coach for the Wolverines before heading to the "greener" pastures of Central Montcalm for a couple of years before ending up at Mt. Pleasant Sacred Heart. In the early '90s, one of Roberts' biggest opponents each year was the Beal City Aggies, whom Ben Steele coached until winning a State title in 1994.

In '98, he joined the Wolverines as the head coach, and Roberts and Steele, er, the Irish and Wolverines had some classic battles on the grid iron. Steele retired from coaching after the '07 season. But last summer, he got the itch and told Roberts he was coming out of retirement. Roberts asked where he was going to coach and Steele said, "Sacred Heart." The rest is now D–8 history as the Irish crushed many opponents.

The coach who Steele replace in '98 was Brad Showers. Showers is now a coordinator with the Ithaca Yellow Jackets, and his former assistant at V–burg is Jim Thompson, the JV coach in Ithaca. Also, former Vestaburg High School principal Glen Stevenson helps out with the Ithaca program. His son–in–law is the head coach.

The original team that played on the new field, before the new field was "new."

All–in–all, not a bad day for the Wolverines!

The infamous "Flying V" from Vestaburg.