HOUGHTON LAKE – It’s been more than a month since the ceremonies were held, but Houghton Lake native Mark Vick is still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he was inducted into the Oakland University’s Hollie L. Lepley Hall of Honor Feb. 12 at the Mariott in Auburn Hills.
Vick received a phone call from a former college coach he worked for, Jeff Smith, in December about the 2005 Oakland University men’s basketball team. The school made a fairy tale run to the NCAA tournament and Smith was going to be inducted into the school’s Hall of Honor.
Vick’s reaction was “Great! Those guys deserve it!”
Then he was told that as a member of the staff at that time, Vick would be included.
The news left him speechless, and a bit awestruck.
“So, I hung up and said to myself, ‘Mark Vick from Houghton Lake, Michigan is going into the Hall of Fame for anything, let alone basketball at a Division 1 school,” Vick related.
“It was just kind of surreal. I took my niece, and my nephew, who are both in college now, and both Houghton Lake grads. I wanted to see them surrounded by greatness.
“The other people being inducted into the Hall were major league baseball players, a 26-time All-American, coaches that have over 1,000 wins.
“One of the best basketball players in Oakland history who broke the national record for 3-pointers in a career. Those are the type of people being inducted at the time that Mark Vick’s name is being announced.
“To be surrounded by greatness like that, it was a little bit overwhelming. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”
Vick was measured for a championship ring, and while he says he doesn’t like wearing jewelry, if it strikes up a conversation with the youth using The Northern Center he will.
Passing it on to the next generation.
“I don’t care what kids want to be, whether it’s a basketball coach or the CEO of a big company, I want them to recognize that just because you’re from Houghton Lake, Michigan or northern Michigan doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” Vick said.
“Not too many people from northern Michigan get to have the experiences I’ve had. If I can light a fire or motivate or mentor some of these boys and girls in our community to try and achieve great things, that’s the most rewarding part of my experiences.”
Passing it on to future generation. That’s what Vick’s journey has been about.
“If you believe in a God, or a higher power, I think that’s truly what my little role on that (Grizzles) team was, to help motivate and bring a sense of hope to a community, to a generation that grows up in a northern Michigan area.”
Vick related that his parents were going through a divorce when he was in high school, and basketball was a way for him to escape from some of the emotional trauma.
“We played basketball all afternoon, eating pizza and drinking pop,” Vick recalled. “So, the game of basketball started to become a thing.
“I started playing at the high school level for coach Eric Droght. Him and I struck up a close relationship.”
A football player …
But he was actually better at football, playing three years on the varsity and earning All-State honors as a senior. Saginaw Valley and Ferris State recruited him.
Hoops were his love, though, and he spurned the football offers.
“I like to say I was a basketball player in a football player’s body,” Vick chuckled. “I had big, broad shoulders and wide hips, so I wasn’t extremely athletic to play college basketball.
“For whatever reason, I had the mind of a basketball player and a coach. It just always made sense to me. I didn’t have a dad that was a basketball coach, I didn’t grow up in that circle.
“But, watching basketball and then playing basketball just made sense to me.”
His senior year, the Bobcats’ football team made it to the MHSAA state semifinals, the furthest any Houghton Lake football team has gone.
A passion for basketball
However, basketball was always his passion.
Vick’s birthday is March 23, about the time the NCAA tournament is hitting its peak. When his mother was building a new house in 1991, he convinced her to let him to skip school to watch the tournament on TV.
A few of his friends came over, and they put up a makeshift hoop (a wooden crate with the bottom sawed out) and hooped it up indoors while still keeping tabs on the progress of the tournament.
An opportunity to coach
Eventually, he would be asked to work a youth camp in the summer of 1994 – one year before his senior season – for Jay Smith, a star basketball player at Mio-AuSable, who still owns the state record with 2,841 career points.
Smith was an assistant coach with the University of Michigan men’s basketball team at the time.
“He gave me a hundred bucks at the end of the week, and I’m like ‘I just got paid for to coach basketball,'” Vick said. “It was kind of cool.”
After graduating from Houghton Lake in 1995, Vick attended Central Michigan. When Smith took over as the head men’s basketball coach there, he asked Vick to be a student manager, and he agreed.
Vick graduated from CMU and went to Florida State for his masters degree. But every summer from 1997-2003 he would drive back and work basketball camps in Mt. Pleasant with Jay Smith.
Jeff Smith, who is no relation to Jay Smith, was camp director and one day asked Vick what he planned to do after he got his degree, and Vick said coach college basketball.
“He said ‘Mark, this is a tough business to get into,'” said Vick. “He said ‘What you should do is finish your degree, go back to Houghton Lake and coach high school basketball. Replace coach Drogt when he retires.’
“I took that as little bit of a motivation. Through those next four to six years, I dedicated myself to the Central Michigan basketball program, even though I was no longer a student.”
Vick got married in the summer of 2003 (he is single now), returned from his honeymoon on a Saturday, and the next day he hopped in the car and drove from North Carolina, where they were living at the time, back to Mt. Pleasant, Michigan to work camp.
After doing that for several years, Jeff Smith ended up taking a job with the men’s basketball program at Oakland University. Vick then worked some camps at Oakland.
“Jeff had introduced me to Greg Kampe, who’s the head men’s basketball coach at Oakland University in the summer of 2004,” said Vick.
“The three of us kind of came up with a plan where I would become a volunteer video coordinator and camp director. So my wife and I moved from North Carolina to Oakland County.
“I began my career as a college basketball staff member. I’m working this job, and I’m sitting on top of the world. We’re a Division 1 program.”
But the results on the court weren’t quite as exhilarating, and gave no indication of what was in store down the road.
The road to the NCAA tournament
The Golden Grizzles were only 9-18 during the regular season, and their only hope of making the NCAA tournament was to win the Mid-Continent Tournament (which is now the Summit League).
After the airlines temporarily lost the team’s luggage on the flight out to Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Grizzles could have been forgiven if they felt a little snake bitten.
Some of the other teams were offering the use of their jerseys and shoes, Vick remembered, just hours before Oakland’s first game. Although one player wore size 17 boats, which would have been difficult if not impossible to find.
But the Grizzles, the No. 7 seed, shook off the luggage fiasco, and won their first two games in the tournament against second seeded Kansas City and sixth-seed Chicago State.
The next game would not only be against No. 1 seed Oral Roberts University in the championship game, but it would be broadcast nationally on ESPN.
Although it was technically at a neutral site, it was still on Oral Roberts’ home ground.
Oakland trailed by two points with only two seconds left in regulation, Vick recalled, when the Grizzles’ best player, Rawle Marshall passed the ball to Pierre Dukes, who hit the game-winning 3-point basket with 1.3 seconds left.
“I don’t think Dukes made a shot the whole game before that one,” Vick recalled.
As the conference champion, Oakland received an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Vick joined the team in taking his turn cutting down the nets in celebration of the miracle finish.
“I’m on the court and I’m calling my family, I’m calling Coach Drogt,” Vick said. “This is when cell phones were starting to become more of a thing, and I’m calling Houghton Lake, Michigan from the court.
“‘Did you see the game?’ ‘Did you see what happened? I’m going to the NCAA tournament.’ It was significant for us. That night we get back to the hotel and we turn on Sports Center, and we’re the lead-in story.”
The team flew back to Detroit, and they were greeted by a horde of media members and hundreds of fans, and there was a big welcome party when they got back to the Oakland campus.
Oakland had a play-in game against Alabama A&M at Dayton, Ohio and won, 79-69.
The Grizzles faced No. 1 seed North Carolina in Charlotte, and saw their run ended with a 96-68 loss. The Tar Heels went on to win the national championship.
Coming back home
Vick eventually returned to Michigan to be closer to family, and his father, Mark Sr., came up with the idea of starting The Northern Center for weddings and receptions.
“I said to my dad, ‘You know, if we’re going to put up a building, the community could use a gymnasium,'” Vick recalled. “What I started having was flashbacks of me and my buddies playing basketball on the weekend during the NCAA tournament.
“We used to play on outdoor courts where there’s ice patches and snow drifts. So, dad and I started building The Northern Center in 2017 and opened in December 2018.
“The first weekend we had 60 kids in the gym. It was just unbelievable. Kids playing basketball. During the pandemic it slowed down,” Vick said.
“But on a Sunday night I had 35 kids in here just playing basketball. We’ve got other things, just to give kids an opportunity for something to do.”
And if they’re willing to listen, Vick’s more than willing to relate his story about a remarkable journey for a young man from a small Northern Michigan town.
