(This story is part of a series profiling the 2024 inductees to the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame. Profiles are provided by GFASHOF. This year’s induction banquet will be held Saturday at the Banquet Center Ascension Genesys in the canton of Grand Blanc December 7. Doors open at 3:15 p.m.).
FLINT, MI – The Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame broke new ground with its selections this year.
After 43 years of honoring 318 individuals and 89 teams, the Hall honors an entire organization by inducting the Flint Olympics and CANUSA Games into the Class of 2024.
Flint Olympian and CANUSA Games are inducted as Distinguished Service Award recipients, which seems fitting given his 67 years of service not only to Flint and Genesee County, but also to the city and citizens of Hamilton, Ontario, the Canadian counterpart to the CANUSA Games.
“Many of the inductees, even a very large percentage of them, participated in the Flint Olympics and CANUSA Games throughout their youth to reach the heights they reached in high school, college or in their careers professional,” said Tony Sitko, current president of the Greater Flint Olympian and CANUSA Association. “The existence of these games was rooted in community education that developed from the local school level to the community level to the international games.”
“It goes back to the years of the community school district, which offered sports ranging from archery to wrestling,” echoed Dan Berezny, a longtime community school principal who later helped organize the Games. “It was the height of summer in the 60s and 70s. In 1979 we had over 20,000 participants in the Olympics from Flint and Genesee County, the highest number at that time.
The Flint Olympics grew out of the Flint Community Schools program, which was another pioneering initiative to inspire children in Flint and Genesee County to become active in sports and other activities. The opening of schools, gyms and sports facilities in the evenings and summer kept children busy and paved the way for athletes to achieve greater success in college and professional sports. A community school principal was in place in each school.
Envisioned by Frank Manley Sr., bolstered by the strong support of Charles Stewart Mott, the community schools philosophy became a model for cities across the country. Both gentlemen were inducted into the inaugural class of the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1980 as Special Service Award recipients.
The Flint Olympics began in 1957, with Rev. Bob Richards, a two-time Olympic pole vault champion, helping to kick off the games with a pole vault exhibition. The games were actually called the Flint Junior Olympics that year, and because the name indicated a junior-only competition, many adults did not participate. There were 1,300 participants.
The name was changed to the 1958 Flint Olympics and 2,452 people participated.
This was also the year Manley asked Joe Wargo to find a sister city in Canada for an annual international competition. Hamilton was chosen because of its similar size to Flint and because both were blue-collar towns, Hamilton in the steel and Flint in the automobile factories. Wargo was the founder of the CANUSA Games.
“I tried Sarnia and London, then I found some people from Hamilton who were in Lansing at a track meet,” Wargo said before his induction into the Greater Area Sports Hall of Fame Flint in 2003 as a Special Service Award recipient. “We talked about the possibilities and tested it with a few sports at the first CANUSA Games. It took off from there. »
The first CANUSA Games were held August 8-10, 1958 in Flint. After Friday’s first day of competition, Hamilton Controller Leslie Parker officially invited Flint to send a team to her city next summer for the second annual CANUSA Games. He thanked Flint Mayor George M. Algoe for his hospitality to more than 400 applicants who arrived Friday afternoon. More than 100 Flint families offered the hospitality of their homes to young Canadians and their parents who would be there for the three-day event.
“We found some really nice people in Flint who made us feel at home,” Parker said. “We hope you’ll give us a chance next year to show you that we can be pretty nice people too.”
A year later, some 400 athletes from Flint traveled to Canada’s fifth largest city for the second annual CANUSA Games, August 21-23, 1959. The 225-mile flame run from Flint to Hamilton started at 11 a.m. Friday and was scheduled for 1:05 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday during the opening ceremonies. Some runners were slowed by Hamilton’s first rain in six weeks.
“It wasn’t just sports,” Berezny emphasized. “The games were so unique that it was about understanding each other’s cities and people. The underlying idea was that before we could understand each other, we had to learn from each other. We played a few games and still spent 48 hours together.
Chris “Rooster” Daly grew up in a volleyball family and often played the sport at the CANUSA Games. He made so many friends with the Hamilton guys that they stood up for each other at weddings, including his.
The Flint Olympics and CANUSA Games began to struggle in 1990, when Flint schools got rid of community school principals.
“Dick Daly came to us and said I wanted you (Berezny, Jim Whitinger and Jim Bracy) to run the games in 1991,” Berezny said.
They quickly brought Mike Maienbrook into the fold and, with the help of paraprofessionals and some community directors who returned, they were able to keep the games going for a good 20 years. The district helped by not charging for Northwestern’s facilities, gymnasium use and field for the opening ceremonies.
Along the way, they recruited a younger crew consisting of Sitko, Rooster, Sean Croudy and Mark Coron to “take the front seat,” as Berezny puts it.
“In 2015, the Flint School Board stopped providing financial support for the games,” said Sitko, president of the Greater Flint Olympian Association and CANUSA. “Former games chairmen and former community school principals have assumed financial responsibility for three years.
“Then in 2018, that was transferred to the Crim Fitness Organization, which became the operating organization. We still help them run the games, but they’re really in charge, with Crim Athletic Director Traci Pigott and Crim Sports Coordinator Terence Greene Jr.”
“Gerry Myers, CEO/President of the Crim Fitness Foundation, stepped in and said we can help,” Berezny said. “The Crim is now the official sponsor of the games.”
The Crim estimates that, since 1957, more than 700,000 athletes ages 5 to 85 have competed in the Greater Flint Olympics and CANUSA Games.
“And the games continue,” Berenzy said. “Last summer, Hamilton welcomed between 250 and 260 students. We plan to go next year and hope to bring another 250 or more.