Prolific athlete: A Q&A with former Cheboygan football, track great Tom McGinn
Back in the 1950s, Tom McGinn was one of the best.
It didn’t matter if it was football, basketball, track and field or fast-pitch softball in the summer, McGinn was terrific in just about every sport he competed in.
But two sports, in particular – football and track – were where McGinn thrived the most.
In football, McGinn spent his freshman year playing 6-Man football at Cheboygan St. Mary’s in 1950, before transferring to play for the Cheboygan Chiefs, where he earned a spot on the Detroit Free Press’ All-State Dream Team later on in his career at the fullback position.
McGinn’s track career was also a stellar one, as he earned regional titles both as a sprinter and a long jumper, while also appearing in the state finals three different years.
Over 70 years later, McGinn, 87, recently joined the Daily Tribune to discuss his athletic career in a Q&A interview.
Q: It’s been over 70 years now since your days as a high school athlete. How much do you reminisce about those days?
McGinn: I think about different games, like my senior year when we played Onaway. We weren't a very big school. We only had 390 kids in the whole high school. I mean, we were a (Class C) team but we kept a B rating. There's quite a few games that I can remember. My senior year, we hadn't beaten Petoskey in 23 years. We played them on our field. We outplayed them in everything, but we lost in the score, 19-18. We couldn't get an extra point, and I had 187 yards plus a 26-yard punt return. I had over 200 yards that game, I was a fullback. Back in 1951, I teamed up with Daryl Elliott, who was a senior. He played left (halfback), Dugan Van Paris was our quarterback, Dale Spray was our right half, and I was a fullback. I weighed 145 pounds, but we had a lot of fullback plays that were off-tackle. Cheboygan used to be single-wing, but when I transferred over there, we started Split-T. We went 5-3, I think that year. We lost to Petoskey, lost to Alpena, lost to Clare. We had (Clare) right down to the nitty-gritty. We had a play, I think it was around a minute to go in the game, and Don Smith was our right end, he went down and out, they threw him the ball and he ran as far as he could go, then when he was getting tackled – I was the tailback, coming around – he pitched the ball to me and I ran 85 yards for a touchdown. Don Woiderski never missed an extra point. We would've won the ball game, but the ref said Don was illegal. The referees were from Alpena, and after the game they came up and admitted that they were wrong, that we would've won the ball game. Too late, though. We played Alpena Public High School in 1951. Dave Keiser was their big gun. He ended up playing football at Michigan State and he ended up kicking the game-winning field goal in the (1956 Rose Bowl victory over UCLA).
Q: When did you decide that you wanted to get involved in sports?
McGinn: I was always interested in sports. I mean, I was fast back in grade school. I was an altar boy and at the end of the year we'd have a picnic for all the altar boys. We'd have these races and if you won the race, you got an ice cream cone. I couldn't eat anymore because I gave all my ice cream cones away. I played sports year-round. I played softball in the summer, football in the fall, basketball, and then track. When I was 13 years old, they started a junior league in town, and there was a guy named Glenn Wartella. He had a gas station right across the street from the post office, it was a standard gas station, and we talked him into sponsoring us. He bought us some sweatshirts with his name on it, and we won the league. We called ourselves "East Side Sluggers." The whole team was from the east side.
Q: You eventually went to 11-Man football at Cheboygan High School, but it was 6-Man football while you were at St. Mary's. What was that like?
McGinn: It was wide open. The field is only 80 yards long but 50 yards wide, and you still had to go four downs to get 10 yards, but there was a center and two ends, and you had three guys in the backfield, the quarterback and two halfbacks. When I started off, I only weighed 128 pounds my freshman year. Tony Clark was our coach, him and Jack Baluski. They didn't know anything about 6-Man football, but Tony was a heck of a player back in his days, but they volunteered to coach St. Mary's High School. We played Vanderbilt here in Cheboygan opening night, and that was back in 1950, and Tom Kuczorski and Dick Perry and Don Perry were in the backfield, and we weren't going any place. Finally, Coach (Clark) told me to go in after we got on offense. We went in, they called my play, I went around end, and I went in for a touchdown. I think I ran for four touchdowns in that game. I scored 12 touchdowns that year and then I got recruited over to the public high school and teamed up with Daryl, Dale, Dugan and myself, and (former Daily Tribune sports editor) (Gordon) Scoop Turner called us the best backfield north of Bay City. He called us the "Big Three."
Q: You also did this despite being rather small. What quality do you think allowed you to have the sort of success that you had?
McGinn: I went from 128 pounds my freshman year, but I got up to 160-165 my senior year. I just had speed and I was hard to tackle. We played Alpena Catholic Central here on our field my senior year. We won the ball game 38-25 – I scored 31 points, I scored five touchdowns against them – and their coach said I reminded them of a guy named Red Grange. He said once I was past the line of scrimmage, it was going to be a touchdown.
Q: How much did you enjoy football and playing with your teammates?
McGinn: It was great. My senior year, we had a really good team. My junior year, I think we won three games and lost five. We didn't have very good players all the way around, but my senior year, I think we had 26 guys on the varsity squad, and 19 of us were seniors, so we had a good turnout. All the way through from my sophomore, junior and senior year, our class, we had intramural sports for time trials, and our class always came in first place. We had good athletes.
Q: Who was the toughest opponent you faced and what made that team tough?
McGinn: Our toughest ones were Alpena Public High School. They were a Class A school then, we played them on their field. Like I said, Dave Keiser was their fullback, he was a senior, and they had a state champion in track, a guy named Smith. I don't remember the (first) name, but we played on their own field, it was like a mud field. It was like on the end of a swamp. Since then, they've moved their field and everything, but the score was 32-0 at the half, they were ahead, and then the second half, we came out and they only scored six points, and they didn't pull their varsity out until about two minutes left to go in the game. They had five teams on the sidelines. I mean, that's how big they were, and we had like 300-some kids in our high school.
Q: You had a great track career, as well. What was it like competing for the track team back then?
McGinn: I was in the state track meet three times. I tied the regional record with a guy, I forgot his name. We ran a dead heat. I won my preliminaries, he won his preliminaries, and then you had the finals in the afternoon. We got together and he's right alongside me when we pulled up and found out what lane we're in. Him and I were side by side, we tied the regional record at 10.2, a dead heat. I won the 220 (yard dash) that year and the long jump, and the next year we went back, and this would've been my junior year. I won the 100, the 220, the long jump, and I was the anchor man on the (800 relay), so we won first place there. My senior year, I won the 100, the 220, the long jump, and I was the anchor man on the relay team, so all the years that I was down there, out of 11 medals, I had one second and all the rest were first (place). The first year I went to the state finals and we ran at the University of Michigan. I ran on the same track that Jesse Owens ran on and set the world record on. That was just a thrill right there, just being on the same track that he was on, but I didn't do too good. I came in fifth, I think. I was the only kid from Cheboygan to ever be invited to the Manfield (OH.) Relays.
Q: Football in the fall, basketball in the winter, track in the spring, and softball in the summer. Of those four, which did you enjoy the most and why?
McGinn: I think football. I was a good football player. I mean, I was the first guy to ever come out of Cheboygan High School to be all-state. I was all-state, I was on the Detroit (Free Press) Dream Team, and I scored 148 points my senior year. We only played eight games. That's 23 touchdowns and 10 extra points.
Q: Is there a particular memory you had during your athletic career that you would say was your greatest memory?
McGinn: Well, it was in track. There was a guy named Jim Bigelow, from Petoskey. He was a 440 state track champion, and we ran here on our track, and when I got the baton, I was ahead of him and he almost caught me. He was a yard behind me when I reached the finish line, we won first place. They used to have what they used to call the "Petoskey Relays." Everybody ran against each other, (classes) A, B, C and D. So, then (the newspaper) had a big thing on "Bigelow, McGinn to tangle." I don't know if they did that to draw people or what, but anyway, their coach told our coach that, "If Bigelow gets a yard in front of McGinn, McGinn will never catch him," and our coach didn't know how fast Bigelow was or anything like that. When we got the baton, Bigelow was about eight yards in front of me, and I came across the finish line, I made it to eight yards and caught him, two yards in front. Their coach just stood there and looked at me and couldn't believe it. To tell you the truth, I couldn't believe it. I'd like to have my (split time) in that 220. My record is 22.25 in the 220, and my 100 is 10.1. One time somebody had me at 9.9, one had me at 10.0, and the rest of them had me at 10.1, so they'd take the most out of the clocks, and I still own them records. They'll never be broken because yards are meters now. I lost my long jump record, but I still have those ones. I think I lost it by a quarter of an inch.
Q: Did you ever have aspirations of competing in college athletics?
McGinn: I went to Adrian College my senior year. It was a couple weeks before school started, it was three of us from Cheboygan, and we just left during the night and came home. I don't know why I ever did it, because the coach wanted me back. He called our coach then called me back, he said one (player) probably never would've made the team, the other guy that was with me probably wouldn't have made it his junior or senior year, but they had me down as a right halfback starting my freshman year – and I never went back.
Q: How would you compare the Cheboygan sports scene back then to the sports scene now?
McGinn: We actually had no sports at one time. See the Thompson Gym, where the (Cheboygan) Brewery is now. It used to be called the Thompson Gym, and it burned down on Christmas, I think in 1941 or 1942, Cheboygan was without sports, football, basketball and everything, for about four years. They never got sports back until 1946. They had baseball back in them days. They said they had track, but I don't remember them ever having track. When I got there, they put track in there and they had basketball, just the three sports.
This article originally appeared on Cheboygan Daily Tribune: Prolific athlete: A Q&A with former Cheboygan football, track great Tom McGinn
