The 29/1
Official Podcast of the West Ottawa High School Athletic Program. 29 Sports, One Team. The show that brings you into the lives of student athletes, coaches and other faces in the Panther Sports Community. Bringing you the stories you might otherwise never hear. Join Rodney Vellinga and Athletic Director Bill Kennedy as they dive in with you to get to know each other a little bit better.
The 29/1
The Voice of West Ottawa: Karl Von Ins, Part 2 of 2
The 29/1 continues our conversation with Karl Von Ins this week, highlighting his almost four-decade-long career in coaching in basketball and track and field, and PA announcing in basketball. Step back in time and discover the meticulous craftsmanship that went into organizing track meets before the digital age with mimeograph invitations and typewritten schedules, and how his family's values infused a strong sense of community into these events.
As we uncover the origins of the West Ottawa Relays and the Von Ins Invite, we see the larger role Karl played in shaping the athletic culture of West Ottawa, from fostering fairness and commitment to creating an unforgettable atmosphere that brought together athletes and spectators alike.
Finally, we celebrate the vibrant history of West Ottawa athletics, recounting the legendary moments and personal stories from Karl's experience. He also passed on the love of sports announcing to his daughter Amy and son-in-law Darrin, ensuring that the spirit of connection and family tradition continues. Join us in reliving these cherished memories, as we reflect on the human element that makes sports truly special.
This episode was recorded on October 25, 2024.
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Special thanks to Laura Veldhof Photography.
Tyler Bosma. He was a big man down low and they would foul him all the time and he never lost his cool. He was just a gentleman all the time. But Tyler took a beating and the officials missed many, many fouls on him because every time he handled a ball he would be fouled Because you could, you know, every time he handled a ball, he would be fouled.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, this is Rodney Valinga with the West Ottawa High School Athletic Program and you're listening to the 29.1 Podcast 29 sports, one team. The show that brings you into the lives of student athletes, coaches and other faces in the Panther sports community, bringing you the stories you might otherwise never hear. Join myself and Athletic Director Bill Kennedy as we dive in with you to get to know each other a little bit better. Hey everybody, it's part two of the Carl Von Inns interview. We talk some basketball, we talk some track and field, we go down memory lane and we discuss how public address announcing has become a family institution, with daughter Amy doing track and field at West Ottawa and son-in-law Darren announcing basketball at Hope.
Speaker 2:We recorded parts one and two of this interview in one sitting with Carl, but he played along with us to make it sound like we did them a week apart. It's Carl Von Enns up next on the 29.1. Let's get it Well. Hey everybody, welcome back to the 29.1 podcast. We are in part two of the Carl Von Inns interview. Carl, thanks for coming back. You're welcome. Let's talk basketball. You know, for all the football you've done, which we talked about last week, you have also done basketball here for a very, very long time. You started that later than football, though, right.
Speaker 1:When did you start doing basketball? Oh, maybe 62 or 63. And I started coaching basketball. I coached with Norm Bovee one year because I wanted to get involved in basketball. And then there was an opening in the. That was seventh grade, and there was an opening in the eighth grade. But Herb Montman, our first athletic director, said to me well, I'll give you the basketball job, eighth grade, if you're willing to take coaching the field events in track. I said I don't know anything about track and he said well, our coach will show you. Well, that was Norm Bradaway and he was very patient with me and I coached field events for 39 years and and I got the eighth grade job because I I took the coaching, the field events in the varsity team and high in track, but I I wanted to coach basketball. I wound up coaching basketball 16 years and track for 39. So I found a niche in track and I studied a lot and learned a lot, went to a lot of clinics and it was just—.
Speaker 2:You did like VHS, tapes and books. Right, you did a lot of that.
Speaker 1:Yes, I bought all the copies of each event, learned how to coach it and how to do it and I had four state champions, three in the pole vault and one in the discus. And the discus is kind of a strange but wonderful thing. In 1960 or 75, the coaches and the state was talking about adding the discus in 1976. So I took $45, bought three discs and they were $15 a piece and gave them to my best, my best, three best shot putters. Well, they went home and one of the fathers was really interested in it and so he built his son a discus circle. Well, he wound up being the state champion the next year and we took first, third and eighth with a senior, a junior and a freshman at the state meet.
Speaker 2:Was that Sam Angel?
Speaker 1:Sam Angel right.
Speaker 2:We timed that up perfectly. That was good.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. So just out of, you're like, hey, they're going to add this, I'm going to want to erase it.
Speaker 1:But I must have been one of the few people who bought discs and gave them to the kids and just say you know, if you're on your driveway or someplace, go and throw this for a while. Well, we got back to school in the spring of 76 and they added it, and the rest is history in regard to the way we finished in the state that's awesome and you were.
Speaker 2:can you talk about the early days of the West Ottawa Relays as well? I was talking to your son-in-law, darren, and your daughter Amy, the other night. The West Ottawa Relays, when that got started, was really something. I mean the volume of teams was incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the most. We had 51 teams here, boys and girls, at one time.
Speaker 2:That's a long track meet. Bill Kennedy just made it.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it was a long track meet, but again, there were a lot of people here, and then that was in 1967. The reason I started the Relays was because we had a very good team and there were very few relays to go to. So I figured well we could have one, and so I started planning it and my wife did all the paperwork for it and we wound up having a pretty good relay. And as we got older, you know, it got changed and it became a track meet, which is now the Von Enns invite, which is fine. I mean. Somebody asked me do you care if we change it? Well, I didn't care, because it was just. It was what was people that were worth going to now, and relays kind of died out and track meets using your whole team became the normal.
Speaker 2:So but that's why we did it can you tell a little bit about how you prepped for those meets, because there's no computers yeah, typewriters, yeah typewriters. But you as a family. Amy shared me that you as a family would do a lot of prep at night. Can you talk about that a little bit? Well, we really nice we sent an invitation.
Speaker 1:I'd send a postcard or a letter inviting teams and they would return the postcard and those were on mimeograph and ditto in those days, which is, you know, you didn't have copiers, and then my wife would arrange it. I knew, yes, you'd roll, crank it and them out and we just it's the way you had to do things, because everyone did it that way. So you know, that was the best way to do it.
Speaker 2:It was modern tech at the time, Right you know we moved from a ditto to a mimeograph machine.
Speaker 1:We thought that was you know. Nothing could be better than this. But copiers came and then computers came. And now you know, in the old days when you type something if you made a mistake, you had to put that correcting ribbon in there and type over what you had. Oh, yeah, now it's computers, you just backspace and if you make a mistake, yeah, Do you guys remember the pressure of sitting at a typewriter, Bill?
Speaker 2:Do you remember like being in either high school? I know I'm older than you, but I remember being in high school and college going. Man, this is a lot of pressure right now. I did not want to make an error. Typing it was. I'd slow it down, I'd pigeon, I'd pigeon all those keys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had a typewriter growing up and I remember writing papers on it and getting so frustrated you get down to like the middle of the page and you'd make a mistake and, yeah, you'd have to get the white out Right. Get that sucker lined up perfectly and try to fill in the new letter.
Speaker 2:That's right, Getting that lined up even with the letter before it and you got to roll it back in. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But you know, amy said too, so you know we needed help.
Speaker 2:Well, they look back on it fondly.
Speaker 1:Can you?
Speaker 2:erase any guilt that you have.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't really feel guilty about it.
Speaker 3:Well, and Amy has been involved in West Ottawa track and field in some capacity for a really long time 46 years, she said.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's. I remember when winter or, excuse me, the spring of 1915 or 79, she was we were making our own t-shirts. Well, one of our art teachers, lee Story, was very talented and he would design and then he would silkscreen the t-shirts and she had her winter coat on. I still have pictures of that, selling them out of a 024. My wife would drive the you know boxes and she would sell t-shirts and two t-shirts were a dollar then, or, excuse me, two dollars. You know, everything has changed and and I think in the beginning you know, you could come to this track meet and it didn't cost you anything, you know, and then it costs a dollar. You know, again, things were cheaper in those days, you know, a pack of gum five cents, candy bars five cents. So things have changed.
Speaker 2:When you got started doing that, you didn't have a lot of experience in it, right?
Speaker 3:What was?
Speaker 2:it like for you just to. I know you did all that stuff and learned that when you look back on it now and you have somebody that's new at something, what would you say about? Hey, take something on that you don't know anything about?
Speaker 1:Well, we just did what we thought was the right thing to do and we found the biggest thing we had questions about. People would question it because their strengths would be in certain areas like sprint relays. Why don't you have this one next to this one, so we'd have a sprint event and then a distance event and so on, trying to let kids come back, you know, refreshed, not rested. And people who had sprint events good, 800 teams and 400 teams, sprint medley people would say that they want you know their strength, they would like to have more rest with their kids. You know, let's have the 400 at the beginning, shuttle hurdles near the end, because we use the same kids. Well, we try to make it fair regardless. You know we won a number of times because we were good, but a lot of people. That was before Zeeland West became Zeeland West. John Shillitoe is quite a coach.
Speaker 3:That is for sure. Yeah, the Vaughn Inns has always been a fun event for us. It's always that kind of beginning of May every year. The weather starts to change, we get out on the track. It's become really almost like a local invite now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because we get the Zeeland schools, holland, holland, christian comes. We've had Byron Center, the last number of years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Holland's been here A long time. Yeah, a long time, Probably forever. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Holland Christian, so it's been really good. I know Dan Diodana loves it because he's able to send a reporter and he can cover all the teams in his reporting area, so that's a bonus for him.
Speaker 2:I have a little history. When was it turned into the Vaughn Inns Relay? What year was that? I'm only asking.
Speaker 1:It wasn't ever the Vaughn Inns Relay. It was the Vaughn Inns Invoid. It was when Bill was here, so it's not very long.
Speaker 2:Okay, not very long. So I have a story. That's where my wife and I's platonic relationship went. Romantic was at one of the Von Inns relays. This would have been in 1994.
Speaker 1:Bill wasn't here then.
Speaker 3:There you go. No, so you have affected my life, carl. I was a junior in high school.
Speaker 2:This is kind of funny, but I didn't know anything about track and field and I was supposed to time people and I had kids running record times. It was really something, because I just listened for the gun, which is about a half second slower than the smoke, and I'm like, hey, you can set a PR, let's go. He's all hype Three seconds later. You didn't set a PR. He doesn't know what he's doing. You were working, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I helped out at a high school at the time and I was helping out with the track team. I didn't, I didn't know a thing, but the thing was I was, I was timing them and silly, silly me is oh, I heard the gun, I heard the gun go off. I guess I'll start it, but that's not how you time track and field. So there, there you go. So we all have kind of our things with that. Let's go to basketball a little bit. Basketball is kind of like one of those things with football where you not only coached it but then you started announcing it. When did you start doing the announcing?
Speaker 1:Oh, I think 1978. Again, people had done it before I started and I started announcing in 78, but I had coached 14 years up to that time and the best thing of it is I had never had a losing season. But it was because the kids I had, not because of the coaching.
Speaker 1:It was just you know, I had kids who could play basketball, but the game has certainly changed. In those days it was two guards outside a center and two forwards and you'd run stuff off the center, pick and roll and scissors and stuff like that. Well, now it's so fast and there was no three-point line and it's just different. And I coached girls for a couple of years, and the first year we were really good and the second year we were not very good, and so I retired from coaching girls basketball because, well, the worst thing was in those days at halftime you'd go in the girls' locker room. Well, I'm in the girls' locker room talking to the girls' team and all of a sudden I hear a toilet flush.
Speaker 2:Well, I get very— I'd get a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was very uncomfortable and it was a girl who wound up living with us for about three months and she thought it was funny to flush the toilet and I said we'll never go in the locker room again at halftime and we never did.
Speaker 3:Sure yeah, when you started announcing games at the Martini Ball Gym, it may not have been called the Martini Ball Gym then.
Speaker 1:It was before Marti Ball. Okay.
Speaker 3:Did you announce from that press box up in the corner? We?
Speaker 1:started there, but that lasted about maybe two years. And when I started, no, we did it down second on the floor. It was very pretty, but it was not practical was it ever really used for anything?
Speaker 3:that's the one thing that first time you walk into that gym. That thing just stands out. You're like they have a press box in the basketball right. Yeah, you couldn't see.
Speaker 1:you know the north end of the floor because the building you know was just built, so you couldn't see anything that happened on your end of the floor. You had to stand up and look. So the athletic directors realized that, and so the scoring table was first, and then behind it was the statistics and the announcer and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So that spot just like kind of sit empty after that. Yeah, really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's still to this day. I mean you go in there and there's like I don't know, they use it for storage. Eventually it'll get reworked when they start work over there to finish up that end of Harbor Lights.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember coming here first of all and I was the same thing too. I was like, wow, that's cool.
Speaker 1:They got a press box, but it was never the first year it was used and when it was built they asked me to monitor that press box. Well, that lasted about two years and then it was a great place to watch a game, because you couldn't hear anything. You know it was airtight, but it was it was. You know you could see things but you couldn't be involved in the game. So really it was locked up after that and, just like Bill said, stored things there.
Speaker 2:What was the atmosphere like in in that place back in the day, on Friday nights or whenever they played? You know, it's certainly more everyone's, everything's a little more tight.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What was it, like, you know, back then, you know, announcing those games in that, in that gym?
Speaker 1:Well, we had some pretty good teams in those days in the sixties I wasn't announcing but I was, you know, going to the games and we lost in the district to Unity Christian and they went all the way to the finals and they lost to River Rouge. In those days River Rouge was the team in Michigan to beat. We lost to the people who played in the finals.
Speaker 2:You probably didn't lose by much, I'm guessing. No, I think three points yeah.
Speaker 1:And we, you know, in those days, our best team and the pattern they played was the question are they going to hit it 100 points? Jv team Not, you know well, and we used to play in the armory before we had the gymnasium, where you know where the Holland Armory is, on 9th Street. It became a. Now I do yes, okay, yes, well, that's where I do yes, okay, yes. Well, that's where we played our first basketball games. So, and we had that was 63 that we had a great team in 62, 63.
Speaker 2:And there were some players. Do you remember some players from those years?
Speaker 1:Oh I remember starting lineup.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's go, let's hit it.
Speaker 1:Well, leroy Vedder was a center, roger Borgman was one forward, norm Koop was another forward, koop Koop, yeah, k-o-o-p. And then Lloyd Driscoll was one guard and Bill Phelps was another guard, people who started, so that was 63. But we had a great team and in those days Hudsonville, zeeland, west Ottawa, holland, christian there were five teams in our district and four of them were ranked in the state. And so to get out of our district, unity Christian was the other team and they got out of the district and they went to the finals. But in those days it was, you know, if won a district in the Holland area, you got to go far because this was rigged. Four of the teams were ranked in the best teams in the state.
Speaker 3:That's wild. I always think that Martin Ebal Jim, it just looks like it would be really loud on a Friday night. It's got that drop ceiling. Yeah, it kind of it just seems like that place.
Speaker 2:Got those stained tiles up there these days. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:It just seems like it would have been a loud place to play a basketball game.
Speaker 1:Well, that's all we knew. Yeah so that's what we live with, but Marty Ball was a great supporter of athletics for West Ottawa and it just, you know, the thing to do is name it after him. He died very young, and it's just.
Speaker 2:How young was he when he passed away?
Speaker 1:Well, he was high school principal. I don't know he was. I mean to me 50 is young.
Speaker 2:Sure, but that's still young yeah.
Speaker 3:To me 50 is young, sure, but that's still young, yeah. So, carl, one of the things and we'll kind of connect the past with the kind of somewhat recent you got to see Karen Beverwick play in her high school career.
Speaker 1:Right. When they came back they had played in a state tournament. I think the quarterfinals played in a state tournament, I think the quarterfinals and during a boys game because the girls played in the fall. In those days the girls walked into the gym, they had lost and everybody stood and gave them a standing ovation because they were. That was a team that graduated in 87, and they were really good and Karen was the best player. But one of those people is now the traverse city girls coach. Jenny ritzmo is her name, and but you know, it was just.
Speaker 3:It was different, but it was good and then last year we got to see kind of this really cool moment when karen came back to be at zealand, when gabby, uh, reynolds broke the school. What was it like? Kind of being able to wow. I called games for both of these.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just the way it was. You know you didn't think anything special about it, other than they were both great shooters and in those days there was no three-point. You know, basket.
Speaker 2:Oh my, now you think about the all-time scoring record two points at a time, right.
Speaker 1:Respect, yeah, my.
Speaker 2:Now you think about the all-time scoring record two points at a time Right Respect.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we just got some banners taken care of, so we're going to be hanging those in the gym pretty soon to honor both of those ladies, so it's going to be pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Any difference for you calling football versus basketball? Do you approach it differently? Is it similar? What's that like?
Speaker 1:No, you try and I guess try and do it the same way. There's girls basketball is much slower than boys basketball. You know, I noticed that there's less boys basketball is so fast compared to when I coached it, and I'm certain I couldn't coach it now because I I couldn't keep up with. You know the techniques and all the things you do, but again, the three-point basket makes quite a difference in basketball yeah, it really does.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the game is is really fast, really really fast and especially when we play in east kentwood. Right like right, they are run and gone.
Speaker 1:Right all the time. So it's just different. The style is different. It was set up in those days. You know you set up for your baskets and you know who your scorers were and the guards. Again, you had two guards and, unless one of them really is a good shooter, you just got the ball inside to your center or your forwards and they did the majority of the scoring.
Speaker 3:You also were able to witness one of the very best teams to come through West Ottawa the team that was just before my arrival here, that 2018 boys team. Can you talk to us a little bit about that year and what the excitement was like in the?
Speaker 1:current gymnasium.
Speaker 3:I've heard stories, bro, that was a year the current gymnasium- I've heard stories.
Speaker 2:Bro, that was a year Go ahead, Carl. I was there, too, I was a fan, but it was something else.
Speaker 1:But it was just. I mean, it was not whether we're going to win, but how much we're going to win by and Tyler Bosma, he was a big man down low and they would foul him all the time and he never lost his cool, he was just a gentleman all the time. But Tyler took a beating and, you know, the officials missed many, many fouls on him because you could, you know, every time he handled a ball he would be fouled and he just did a great job playing basketball.
Speaker 3:You start to look at who was on that team and the talent that was there Loaded. I mean Xavier Wade, who had a great football career at Ferris.
Speaker 1:State Ferris yeah.
Speaker 3:You have Liam Cavanaugh, who's actually playing football right now at Davenport.
Speaker 2:He took some time away but had a year of eligibility left he did and came back he was a beast, by the way oh yeah he's.
Speaker 2:He's built different um and he and, and, and, speaking like he was a piece on that team a piece because if he played now here he'd be a dominant force yeah, your go-to. But on that team that was so talented he was a piece. Yeah, so you also had Drew Pedersen, and then kind of the underappreciated player on that team was Nick Weirmeyer, who played a role and played it so well. Carl, you could appreciate that.
Speaker 1:No, I'm Nick's godfather or, excuse me, his father's godfather, and so I remember when they were born and when their father got married and so on. So that's family to me rather than basketball.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there were so many. But I always appreciated him that year because there was so much talent on that team and he had the ability to do more, but he purposely stepped back and facilitated all the time, and that's how you build a team. Is there a game from?
Speaker 3:that year that stands out to you.
Speaker 1:The final game Foster Lawyer, lying on the floor shooting baskets. I mean lying on the floor throwing up a three-pointer and going in.
Speaker 2:Dropped 40.
Speaker 1:He never yes, he never had a game like that in college, but he went to state. He never even cracked. He never had a game like that in college, but he went to state. He never even cracked the starting lineup. I mean, you know, for a long time he got to start but he left state and I think, geez, he killed us in high school but our kids were, you know, good sportsmen. I mean, we lost to a better team but we lost a foster lawyer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was a great run. It was one of those moments where the whole community got together. I remember driving to Lansing three times in like five days.
Speaker 1:We played in that old gym in Lansing too Lansing Eastern Remember that Lansing Eastern they had bleachers going up 500 feet, it seemed like.
Speaker 1:You're halfway to heaven. If you're sitting at the top right, you couldn't breathe unless you know and it was. It was an old, dingy gym, but in those days it was huge and we got, we played in that gym and again it was. It was just one of those things. We were going to be in the state finals. We didn't know it, but everybody here went to the basketball games, regardless of where we played. But that was a great team.
Speaker 2:Packed every game here, both sides, black hole to the max, black hole out all the time. Those were good times, man. A lot of fun Just before me.
Speaker 3:And Kennedy come in. I know Ruined it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, but no, you know, you get your ups in sports.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You get your years where you have a whole bunch of athletes. That was a great football year, too, 2018. Yeah, clarkson also got us. It was just a good athlete.
Speaker 1:You know we lost to Clarkson in Clarkson.
Speaker 1:Clarkson yes in the playoffs. I know we played them during the year and they threw a pass over one of our kids for a touchdown and had we been able to knock that pass down, we would have been undefeated because it was a close and they won the next game. Well, it was 3-2, something like a field goal and a safety, so it was a great team. To have a team like that is a lifetime event. You know those kids will remember it and everyone who saw it like you, rod, you know you're talking about it. You remember things that I don't remember and.
Speaker 1:I was calling the game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's how I look back at or how I imagine I will look back at last year's girls basketball run. Right, it was a community unifier and and that's really, I think, at the heart of all of it Right Is we all are involved in athletics here at West Ottawa and it is a community unifier. It's what brings this community together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is no downtown like the city has. You know, it's just, gabby was our Caitlin Clark you know really, so I mean girls basketball became an event to go to.
Speaker 1:In other words, there are two years. You know boys would play first and girls would play first. Well, nobody got up and left during the girls game. You know it was. You know, is Gabby going to hit 30 points and are we going to win the game by a lot or by a little, and so on. You know so. It was Magali. You know have to score, but we had just an outstanding team.
Speaker 2:It was a nice team, a lot of pieces that complement each other as well. Let's talk about a couple other things. For basketball, one thing, tony, about you, about sports, we could literally just let the sun go down and the moon come up, and we don't have to stop. One thing is that your son-in-law, darren Dijsdermars, who calls Hope College's games and we'll talk about that in just a second, because this is really cool but you actually, before he was your son-in-law when he was a sophomore at Holland. Christian, do you remember this at all?
Speaker 1:Yeah, when he scored his. Yeah right, I remember Jay Cortright was our big scorer and Darren Dystermars was Holland Christian. Well, I don't have a whole lot to say about Holland Christian. My wife went to school there and Darren went to school there.
Speaker 2:Darren talks very fondly about it. It was his very first basket. He was in his sophomore season and he got called up, and sure enough he's. I forget where it was.
Speaker 1:It was at our place it had to be at our place.
Speaker 2:obviously I guess that makes sense. But actually he said he was boxing somebody out and then he was offensive rebounding, boxing on a defender, and then Marty Codzillo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Codz.
Speaker 2:I had to say that name because when I heard about the name I'm like this is a great name. But Marty Codzillo was behind him and he actually touched it. But Darren was so close to the play that he got credit for the basket.
Speaker 3:So, there you go Future father-in-law calls that shot.
Speaker 1:I didn't know it then. No, didn't know it then Until they were seniors at Hope.
Speaker 2:When I sat down with Darren and Amy the other night and you're just going to have to listen to this, Sorry, Carl Every once in a while you're going to have to. But Darren said you know he got his start very similar to how you got your start in it. Does he shared that with you a little bit before or talked about?
Speaker 1:it somewhat.
Speaker 2:So they needed someone to do jv at hope. They didn't have anybody. They said darren, can you want to do it? Sure enough, darren steps and starts doing jv, and now you have season tickets to basketball. Hope girls basketball right, so you go there a lot. What is it like for you? Because you know you're a sports guy, you're the announcer for a while, but then you're also in the stands. How cool is it to have Darren doing such a nice job at Hope. What's that like for you?
Speaker 1:Well, I I mean, I just expect him to do a great job. He does a better job than I do in regard to—.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to let you say that, but keep going.
Speaker 1:Well, calling a game. I mean, he doesn't make mistakes and we talk about that. And when I say things I say it and then it's gone. And somebody said you know, you said the wrong person. Well, I don't know that because I don't listen to myself. You know, I don't know that because I don't listen to myself. You know, I just announce it. But I watched Darren and listened to Darren and he said I told him. I said you never make mistakes. He said you don't realize it. He said but I make mistakes too and I thought you know you don't. And the reason we started getting season tickets is when his brother, brad, played for Hope and he was really good and Hope was good and we started buying season tickets. And now it's just routine. We buy four tickets Amy and Lauren. Now I don't know if Lauren's husband will probably have to get another ticket, but we sit in the top row right by the doors yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know when the game is over, we're out the door into the car. Although we stay for the majority or all the games, I just don't like it when people leave early. But sometimes you know, if we get killed by 30 in the last minute, I leave a hope game early.
Speaker 2:Oh, you do leave early now.
Speaker 1:Not often.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:So this is a sticking point for my wife and I when we go to games. She's like a let's get out and beat traffic and that's not how I was raised. My dad is like we paid for this ticket.
Speaker 2:You preach it, Bill Kennedy.
Speaker 3:We paid for this ticket. We are staying, bill Kennedy, we paid for this ticket. We are staying for the end. Yes, we are.
Speaker 2:Right, we had some of our best moments growing up. It's a shame to admit Staying late.
Speaker 3:We left early last week from Smart State with like a minute and 30 left.
Speaker 1:And that was your wife's doing.
Speaker 2:That was the wrong of the game and, sure enough, the only people around are us, because it's so late. Who's driving out? Spark Anderson's coming out. We're talking a Sparky Post game. Staying late has its benefits.
Speaker 1:That's one of them when I was a kid. The Tigers didn't make much money, so on the off season they would go around and visit cities like Holland and they well, the Knickerbocker Theater is there now. It was the Holland Theater and Harry Heilman, you remember that name. He's in the-.
Speaker 2:I remember that name.
Speaker 1:It's on the wall. He was the announcer then, and George Kell. I was in the eighth grade and I was the same height as George Kell.
Speaker 2:He was an all-star, you made it.
Speaker 1:Right. But Fred Hutchinson and Jerry Pretty and so on, and they walked out in the hallway in the back and a number of us kids followed them out and asked for autographs and I got George Kell's autograph. Harry Heilman wouldn't sign any autographs. He's in the on the hall of fame, but he wasn't announcing in those days and he wouldn't just wouldn't, sign any autographs. He'd probably done it often enough.
Speaker 2:So yeah it's. You know it's hard to hold them. They got to be great all the time. Now they're tired, they just want to go on once in a while. You know it's really cool too, like Amy, of course, announces track.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:How nice is it to just have your daughter doing something you do Like it's kind of a shared experience. Like you, darren, and your daughter have this shared connection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, amy was always helping in the press box and I would announce the track meets. Well, I told her. I said I've got to be on the track to make sure the hurdles are in the right place and everything. Starting blocks are moved. You know where they have to be moved. And I said how about you announcing? She said okay, so she took over while I was still coaching and she announced you know the track meets and the calls. You know you make three calls. You know on up on deck and in the hole.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so she did that and I was on the track, so we worked together and it's fun. Yeah, it's fun, and she was. She was good at it, she knows, she knew what track is just like and whatever she announces, just because she had been there long enough and she didn't make mistakes.
Speaker 3:Nothing for me.
Speaker 2:Well, you know the thing is. Here's the thing. When you're doing what you're doing, Carl, everybody is making mistakes and from the crowd Do you hear many of them? I don't know. We're once in a while. Maybe there's a stickler that does no I know I'm.
Speaker 3:You know, in the occasions that I do get to announce, I'm super critical of myself, right. Like oh, I just bumbled over that name or that name was tough and gosh. I feel bad that I said that name wrong or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1:There was an eighth grade yeah, an eighth grade, seventh grade football team and they were playing and one of the running back is in my daughter's class and he said to her your dad mispronounced my name three different ways, you know, last game or last night, and I said well, how do you pronounce it? Well, she gave me the pronunciation. It's the way it's spelled. So and I just screwed up because it was not the way I saw it. But once I learned how to pronounce it, it was very, very simple.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody makes mistakes. I'll share one funny story because this is just too good. So if you feel bad about making a mistake, listen to this story. This past spring we're doing jenison baseball game and I had talked to the coach and got all the names right and I come up to the booth, I'm transferring names over so I can be nice and organized. So now batting for jenison, number so and so paul ginsler, or ginsler crowd, let's go, paulie, let's go big, like they're just really supporting this kid.
Speaker 2:Next time up now batting for the Genesis in the first baseman, paul Gensler. Again, people going bonkers for this kid. Let's go, pauly, you got it. Big boy, all kinds of crazy stuff. Right, we get to the next time. He's coming up and this is a little bit before and Kevin Roloff is in the booth with me doing the, the uh, the clock and he goes. Who did this? And I go, did what? He goes. You put his name down. This guy's name's down wrong. His first name is pierce. So people are going crazy. Third time up now batting for blah blah, the first baseman. Thousand one thousand, two thousand three pierce ginsler, and everybody goes crazy.
Speaker 2:so mistakes are fine, you know what I mean, like you're going to make them when you're doing that and just embrace it. But what I've always liked about you, carl, is if you do it, you just keep moving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you don't listen to yourself and I've got to tell you a story. All right, it's a basketball story. At times in the old building, in the old gym, we'd have kids announce the teams and you know the team we're playing against, and that lasted until this, the end of this year, and we were playing Holland Christian and the boy I won't say his name because he's an adult now, but we're playing Holland Christian and he introduces them the Christians of Holland Maroon. And I said what? And I looked and he didn't know that he had said that. You know, he thought the Holland Christian Maroons, the Christians of Holland Maroon.
Speaker 2:So that was the end of kids announcing yeah, and that happens to anybody that has done that type of work. I've looked up a lot of announcers. I went online, I Googled it, I did that. I can't find anybody other than Vin Scully, who went longer than you, but I can't find anybody that's done PA longer than you. So it's just like I just say like, let's just, you know, enjoy it, like, embrace it. It's really cool that you've done it this long. Bob Shepard of the Yankees 56 years. There's another gentleman in the Grand Rapids area, bob Beckett Hopkins. He's done it for 53 years. So I don't know, it's really cool. Have you ever figured out how many football and basketball games you've done?
Speaker 1:I was afraid you'd ask that.
Speaker 2:No, I don't have any clue all right, I did some early math so I, but I figured it's almost around a thousand football games after all these years and close to 2300 basketball games. Is that some?
Speaker 3:this is crazy.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of games it's a lot of games, but it's.
Speaker 2:It's the game that we're doing, thinking humble.
Speaker 1:I love it, we're, we're doing at that time is the game, and I know I go up and ask kids how do you pronounce your name? Because quite often coaches say I don't know, I just call him Pat or something like that. And so I ask the kids. I said I don't want to get your name wrong, and parents come down sometimes and tell me sometimes not happily, you know, my kid is number 13.
Speaker 2:I love the impersonation. Let's go. I love it when you do that.
Speaker 1:But you know, I try and get it right because I mean I'm Von Inns. To me it's I-N-S, is Inns, i-n, but it's Von Inns and Voninns and so on. So I know what it's von eins and vonens and so on. So I know what it's like to have your name mispronounced.
Speaker 2:And the original pronunciation is von ins Von ins right you told me that story once.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a place.
Speaker 3:I am not like the others. I have never had my name mispronounced.
Speaker 2:Ladies and gentlemen, William Lee Kennedy it's such a nice American name, Carl. You've been doing this for so long. What inspires you to keep announcing?
Speaker 1:Why do you keep doing it? Honestly, I don't know that I'd show up every time at all the games if I wasn't obligated, if I didn't have something to do, that I'm expected to be there on time. I mean I get there an hour before the game just because that's what I need to prepare, and if I leave my glasses at home, I can call and my wife is still home and I said will you bring my glasses? Because she said I can't find them. Well, they were in my bag and I had them all the time. But you know, you do things and Bill shows up and sometimes I said where is the roster? Well, he's had to go back. He said it's in my office. Very calmly, he opts in his cart and drives back to the office. But that's happened a couple times, but not often. It's just I'm obligated. I mean, I said I would do this. Therefore I do it.
Speaker 3:Well, I've been working on the schedule for basketball the last couple of days and the easiest slot to fill is always who's my announcer in the main gym. It's very easy Von Ince.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there it sits. There it sits. You've had a great career. Here we are just I know like this is being part of a community, Like whatever anybody does right out of school, whether you're coaching or teaching or doing PA or doing concessions you're just doing your part, right, that's how you feel about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we just want to say thank you for doing your part. Right, that's all part of this and doing what we're doing. Speaking with Darren and Amy, we talked about your attention to detail. You're very like good at being organized and putting things in their place and it really shows in the things that you do. And they said that you got that from your mom. They called her. It's Grandma Margaret, right, yeah, can you talk about your mom and maybe how you got some of that from her?
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know, she was a teacher and there was a right way to do things and a not right way to do things. And when I didn't do things the right way, she would tell me and no, when I didn't do things the right way, she would tell me and no, you know she wouldn't hide it. She would come out and say you know, you do it this way or you don't, don't do this. And once, you know, when I was growing up, I was in eighth grade and I I said something to her and she said don't talk like that. And I said I'm a big kid, I can do that. And I ran away and I tripped over a log and she caught up with me and she wailed on my butt.
Speaker 1:So so I didn't, you know, I just I mean there's a right way to do things and an easy way or a not the right way to do things. And I just, I don't know, if you don't do it right and you know that you're not doing it right, you feel guilty about it. I mean, when I go home from a game and my wife will say how was the game? And I tell her and I said but I messed up a number of times and I don't know if Bill will let me do the next game. But then I see him standing at the end, you know, talking to somebody. Well, he didn't hear me screw up that time. I mean, that's just, that's how I feel. I feel I want to do it perfectly, but I can never do it perfectly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there are a few perfect games as an announcer, announcer. But what you've done over the years, if you, you've always done it with class and with dignity and really to honor the, the kids that are out on the court competing each and every day, um, and we can't thank you enough for all the years that you've put in here at west ottawa yeah, you've always put the kids first, carl well, thank you and uh, we'll take that with us as we move forward.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks so much for coming in and sitting down with us Well, thank you. It's been a pleasure Thanks man.
