Likely no one is as excited for the start of the Michigan Girls High School Flag Football League season on April 24-26 as Birmingham Groves senior Ella Kecskemeti and coach Geoff Wickersham.
Kecskemeti missed last season’s 1-2 campaign after tearing her right ACL during the first game of the girls basketball season and was only recently cleared to return to football.
Health concerns also forced Wickersham to miss last spring, as doctors’ orders said the stress of coaching would be too much for him. He was relegated to watching from home while interim coach Brendan Flaherty, Groves’ longtime varsity football coach, took over one week before the season started.
But now they’re back, both seeing the game from a different lens after having it taken away from them.
“It was rough, just having to take care of myself, healthwise,” Wickersham said before a practice on April 16. “But it gave me some reflection time, reflecting on some of the things I needed to do better as a coach.”
Wickersham did not waste the time away.
He joined online clinics, networked with as many coaches as he could and tried to become a better leader across the board. He said he went from having an old-school, in-your-face approach to one that’s more laid back and better suited for this generation’s players.
“I realized I’m really good at organizing and details, but I wasn’t very good at delegating,” the third-year coach said. “So I tried my best to learn from other coaches and talk to coaches who are male but work with girls, so I can get a better feel for trying to bring the best out of them without being so much of an old school coach.”
When he received the green light to return to coaching, he couldn’t wait for the spring. In fact, last fall he volunteered to help Redford Union coach Jon Ghazal, his close colleague, prepare the Panthers to face St. Joseph in the Amazon Prep Kickoff Classic at Wayne State.
“I was just super excited to get back into coaching and get my feet wet again,” Wickersham said. “The three weeks I got to work with his girls, I just really, really understood how much I missed coaching and the silly energy that the kids bring to this sport.”
While Kecskemeti couldn’t return as quickly as Wickersham, she was just as eager — maybe even more — to get back on the field.
The senior grew up playing in local flag football leagues through elementary and middle school.
As a freshman, when she learned the Detroit Lions were creating the MGHSFFL, she quickly petitioned Groves’ administration to establish a program and join the league.
“I was really excited about that idea, and I thought it’d be a really simple process to get my school a team,” she said. “But it was actually a hard process. I had to work with the athletic director and the principal a lot, plus I had to recruit Coach Wickersham.”
Recruiting Wickersham, who had been organizing and coaching powder puff football since 2002 at Groves, was about the only easy part of the process.
The rest took plenty of effort for the Falcons to have a team ready by the time Kecskemeti’s sophomore year rolled around.
“She came to me and asked why we didn’t have a girls flag football team here,” Wickersham recalled. “I told her she could play powder puff when she’s a junior, and she just wasn’t happy with that answer. She didn’t take no for an answer, saying she was going to get this thing going and then started doing a lot of convincing with the principal and AD, gathering the needed signatures and getting everybody on board to do this.”
Kecskemeti got to play as a sophomore, even helping the Falcons earn an invite to the inaugural girls flag football game at the Prep Kickoff Classic, the state’s premier Week 1 showcase every fall since 2005. They beat Genesee, 32-6.
But she never saw the field as a junior because of her knee injury.
Groves could’ve used her — and Wickersham. They won only one of their three All of Us League division games and missed the postseason tournament at Ford Field, despite having two players who made Hometown Life’s All-Area team. That included Bella Cocroft, HTL’s Defensive Player of the Year, who averaged two interceptions per game despite splitting time between soccer and flag football, and Gabby Fazier-Body, who is now playing the sport for North Carolina Central.
“Ella was beside herself, not being able to play on the team that she helped get started,” Wickersham said. “Even this school year, she wanted to play powder puff in the fall, but we didn’t want her to risk it. She was going to save herself for this spring.”
Added Kecskemeti: “Not being able to play was pretty heartbreaking. But it helped me a lot to know I could play senior season, so that was my whole motivation throughout recovery.”
Her veteran experience will be valuable, as will the athleticism of some of their other key players, such as quarterback and safety Ke’lko Buskin, receiver and linebacker Chloe Morucci, receiver and linebacker Ja’Layah Buffin-Pitts, running back and cornerback Olivia Lee and running back and pass rusher Kemari Brown.
They’ve also welcomed assistant Erinn Blahnik, who has 15 years of playing experience and will lead the defense.
“We have a ton of new girls, so for me being a captain, I need to do a good job of creating a good team culture,” Kecskemeti said. “We want it to be a positive and safe place for all of our players because the closer we as a team, the easier it’ll be to play as a team.”
While competing for a state championship is Groves’ goal, it’s safe to say getting a senior leader and their coach back on the field is already a win for the Falcons, who hope their returning experience and young athleticism help when they kick off the season April 25 against Clawson.
Brandon Folsom covers high school sports in metro Detroit for Hometown Life. Follow him on his new X.com account at @folsomwrites.
This article originally appeared on Hometownlife.com: Birmingham Groves flag football ready to win with coach, captain back
Reporting by Brandon Folsom, Hometownlife.com / Hometownlife.com
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
