State champion 1994 Lakers to 2019 footballers: “Seize the Day”

By Jacob Wheeler

Sun editor

Carpe Diem. Seize the day.

That was the motto of the 1994 state champion Glen Lake football team. Twenty-five years later, ’94 coach Bill Hollenbeck encourages Jerry Angers and the ’19 Laker gridiron squad to do the same.

Glen Lake plays Monroe St. Mary today at 4:30 pm in the Division 6 state championship game at Ford Field in Detroit. Watch it live here. [Read Glen Lake football mom Sarah Ash Dilley’s account of the crazy week leading up to the big game.]

The star-studded 1994 team counted among its assets a tall quarterback who could see the field in front of him, a tough offensive line, various ball rushing options, wide receivers who ran like cheetahs and could catch the football with one hand, and a German exchange student kicker who could boot the ball from here to Heidelberg. Like the ’19 team, the ’94 squad also suffered a loss in the regular season, which made them all the more hungry.

A proud photo of the ’94 state champions hangs in the northwest corner of Art’s Tavern in Glen Arbor.

The ’94 Lakers were also well coached by Hollenbeck and a crew that prepared them well for the pressure cooker state championship game. Their’s was played on the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving at the Pontiac Silverdome, the former home of the Detroit Lions.

Hollenbeck’s team practiced all week in the gym at Glen Lake, spent the Thanksgiving holiday at home with their families, left on Friday to practice at an indoor training facility at Michigan State University (MSU), then watched a Friday night game at the Silverdome to get acclimated to the enormous stadium. They spent the night in a hotel, ate breakfast at 7 on Saturday morning, and suited up before they boarded the team bus for the Silverdome for a 10 a.m. state championship game.

[The 2019 team left Glen Lake on Wednesday, practiced twice at an indoor facility at Saginaw Valley, spent Thanksgiving yesterday as a team, and plays their big game on Friday afternoon.]

“From an administrative standpoint as a coach, there was so much to deal with that week,” said Hollenbeck. “You have to give the Michigan High School Athletic Association all the information they need; how are you gonna get down there, where are you gonna eat, spend the night, practice? All a coach wants to do is watch film and get the team organized to play football.”

Hollenbeck credited assistant coach Mark Ciolek with doing the lion’s share of the planning and getting the Lakers a date at MSU to practice indoors.

However, ’94 quarterback Greg Aylsworth remembered that some MSU athletes didn’t take fondly to Glen Lake’s gold and black colors and helmet design—which from a distance could be mistaken for State’s archival Michigan Wolverines.

Walking into the Silverdome was awesome, said Aylsworth, who remembered as a third-grader watching a Lions game there with his great-grandfather Walter. “He told me he was going to watch me some day play in that stadium.” Walter passed away soon after Glen Lake won the state championship game.

“We were a part of something bigger than ourselves,” said Aylsworth. “I knew that a victory in that game wasn’t just about our team: it was about our town, our community and our school pride.”

Mark Ciolek’s son Todd, a senior on the ’94 team, remembers feeling how strange it was to wake up on a Saturday and play football in the morning. And to do so on the turf graced by Lions’ star running back Barry Sanders, who Todd had watched on television on Thanksgiving just two days prior.

“But once the game started, we were just playing football,” said Todd. “We couldn’t even hear the crowd.”

Today’s state championship game brings the experience full circle for Todd. He and his wife Kelly Ciolek have two sons on the ’19 team: Jackson, a junior wide receiver, and Connor a sophomore safety. They also have a nephew who is a freshman on the team.

Not having Thanksgiving dinner together with their boys was different, said Todd, but they were able to participate, virtually, in their NFL fantasy draft, an annual family turkey-day tradition. “We kept the Ciolek fantasy draft tradition alive,” laughed Todd.

Todd, Kelly, and other Laker parents haven’t been with their boys since Wednesday, and they won’t until after this afternoon’s game. Glen Lake moms and dads plan to meet today in Detroit and do a little sightseeing before they head to Ford Field.

“We’re just gonna keep busy around town [today] so we don’t get stressed out as parents,” he said. “In some ways it’s more stressful as parents than it is for them as players on the field.”

“You’re just a teenage kid living in the moment,” Todd Ciolek reflected on his own experience 25 years ago. “These kids probably don’t realize the impact this will have for them, beyond football.”

Todd’s own football experience opened professional doors. After high school he attended MSU, and the first job he got after college was with General Electric. The person who interviewed him had played football at Glen Lake, and Todd remembered, “just wanted to hear about the ’94 state championship game”. He was offered the job two weeks later. … This spring he was named CEO of Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor.

“These kids playing today are living in the moment, and it’s awesome,” offered Todd. “But they’ll have this experience forever.”