Page 23 - Scene Magazine August 2021 46-08

G the CharGe
BY GALE FISCHER
n
Eric spent a year after high school playing basketball at the next level at Hope College, before hanging up his basketball shoes to focus on academics, eventually transferring to Grand Valley State and graduating with honors in 1994. Although Eric’s days of playing competitive basket- ball eventually ran its course, basketball would continue to be an important part of Eric’s future.
With everything that Eric accom- plished as a Pennfield athlete, he would become a legend of sorts for past, pres- ent, and future Panthers earning a ballot on Pennfield’s first Hall of Fame Class in 2015.
Eric was not the only star athlete in the family. Jill paved her own path as one of the best female athletes to walk the halls at Pennfield High School. Coming from
a family of athletes, she was a three- sport athlete and excelled at volleyball, basketball, and softball. She experienced much success during her four years – highlighted with a run to the state finals in volleyball her senior year.
Jill was honored with several individual
awards over the course of her high school athletic career. She earned all-conference and all-city honors in basketball, volley- ball, and softball. As a senior, Jill earned all-state honors for volleyball. Perhaps
the greatest honor Jill was awarded was being named Female Athlete of the Year in Battle Creek her senior year (1988), sharing the award with her best friend and teammate, Stephanie Marx.
Jill and Eric’s common athletic abilities and shared passion for sports could sug- gest that the two of them were destined to become husband and wife. Starting as high school sweethearts, they were married in 1995.
Eric and Jill were blessed with the birth of Grant in 1999, adding Ryne to
the family a few years later in 2002. Both Grant’s and Ryne’s first experiences with organized sports came with the typical sports for three to five year olds. Both played soccer and t-ball early on coached by their parents. Although organized basketball would have to wait, both
boys were familiar with the sport before playing. Ultimately it was Jill and Eric’s
vision that created the opportunities for both Grant and Ryne, and their basketball teammates, to play together well before entering middle school. Genetics alone could have predicted that their two boys, Grant and Ryne, would have the potential to be great athletes. And take an interest in playing sports they did.
The blessings that both Eric and Jill re- ceived as high school basketball players for Pennfield were immeasurable. They longed for this same experience for not just Grant and Ryne but for all future Pen- nfield basketball players. Not only were they determined for future generations
to benefit from the life lessons taught through basketball, they also wanted them to take with them lifelong memories. Their desire to produce competitive bas- ketball teams for the Pennfield community to enjoy watching was also a driving force for what the two of them would create at Pennfield.
Eric and Jill were the visionaries and driving force for Pennfield youth basket- ball, which was called Panther Basketball,
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