When summer begins, local playgrounds and baseball/softball diamonds fill up with kids and teens looking to enhance their skills and have fun playing a game they love. This sport can be a big part of a youngster’s life. Who remembers playing pick-up games in a vacant lot? How about keeping a new ball glove under a mattress or bound with rubber bands to “break it in?” And since the game began, playing catch with Dad has become as American and iconic as apple pie. Genesee County is home to multiple youth leagues and this year, My City Magazine sponsored seven youth teams throughout the area. For kids of all ages, the love of the game is going strong in Greater Flint!
Surrounded by the most important people in her life, Whitney Pedersen stood in a room at The Barn Restaurant in Fenton, holding her one-year-old son tightly, watching and waiting. It was March 1, and months of anticipation were coming to an end for the Holly resident, who applied last fall to be the soundperson for Team USA at the 2020 Show Ski World Championships in Yarrawonga, Australia. Essentially, it is the Olympics of show water skiing, a sport the 27-year-old Pedersen has been involved in nearly her entire life. She has directed Silver Lake Ski Club shows for a decade.
Joe Byrd and Samson Doyle were once awestruck teenagers watching their WWE wrestling heroes on TV. The showmanship, athleticism, larger-than-life personalities, intriguing storylines, signature moves and fierce combat of the world’s premier professional wrestling organization captured their imaginations.
For middle-school-aged Dakotah Norton, riding his BMX bicycle was always an exhilarating experience. Whether tearing around his Davison backyard negotiating jumps he constructed, catching air at area skate parks or immersing himself in all that nearby Richfield Park BMX had to offer, the young Norton felt most at home, most free in the saddle of his bike. “In many ways, I’m still just that kid on his bike tooling around the backyard,” Norton says. “Being on my bike wherever, whenever, has always been exciting for me. That has not changed. It’s what I love to do.”
When the Firebirds Hockey Club arrived in Flint in 2015, it was said time and time again: these players will be the next stars of the National Hockey League (NHL). Following the NHL Draft last June, there’s a lot of evidence that it’s true … the players we are watching right here in Flint today are the next stars of the NHL.
Any women’s basketball standout from Southeast Michigan, concluding an accomplished college career, should not be surprised if Dreyon Wynn reaches out to them. Wynn, President and General Manager of the Flint Monarchs bills himself as an “encyclopedia of women’s basketball.” That knowledge, combined with uncanny people skills, passion for the game and the ability to create a welcoming environment, has allowed Wynn to put together rosters overflowing with talent since taking over the only professional women’s basketball team in the city’s history, in 2011.
Gabrielle Anzalone rounded the final turn of last December’s California International Marathon, anticipating the finish line coming into view, but unsure of what time the clock above it would read.
IN 1909, just eight years after the Detroit Tigers began playing at Michigan and Trumbull, the Flint City Baseball League was born.
A Youtube video posted after Flint Powers Catholic won its second girls soccer state championship in dominating fashion last June, perfectly captures the camaraderie, skills, team chemistry and resiliency that make the program one of the state’s finest.
