Petoskey's Mike Loper a rare breed of dedicated to Northmen family

Note: This story will print in the Wednesday, Nov. 22 edition of the Petoskey News-Review.

PETOSKEY — Ask anyone about Mike Loper and one of the first things that’ll come out of their mouth will be about his love for his family.

If you were to ask Loper himself, part of that family has also included Petoskey High School athletics for more than 30 years.

There’s dedication to a program and then there’s what Loper has given in time, effort and energy to Northmen teams and athletes over the years.

That selflessness between both families for Loper was highlighted no better than following the spring of 2008, when he stepped aside from leading the PHS baseball program to then coach his daughter with the Petoskey softball team.

He later returned to the baseball dugout, though as an assistant every year since.

“There’s nothing more special to Mike than his wife, his children and grand children,” Petoskey head baseball coach Shawn Racignol said. “When he returned to baseball I offered him the head coaching job back and he declined. He said, ‘It’s yours now.’”

Racignol has had the honor of playing under Loper in his own Northmen baseball and football days, before then coaching alongside him in both sports. From his days as an athlete in the early 1990s to now, Loper has been that same dedicated coach.

“It’s just been a blessing to have him as my coach in two sports, then to have him as a friend, mentor and assistant coach now,” Racignol said. “I just can’t imagine it any other way. What a great example to serve for the next guy that would become the coach, which just happened to be me.”

A mind for the game 

In football, there’s really not a positon group or area of the field that Loper can’t offer some expertise in.

He’s been with the Northmen football team since the days of Dave Brines and Dave Farris in the 1980s, to Kerry VanOrman and every big win and coaching staff since.

“He has a lot of knowledge and we really depended on him for putting gameplans together,’ VanOrman said. “He’s so quick to looking at an offensive scheme and say, ‘Hey, here’s how you can line up’ or ‘Here’s what you can do here.’ He was just steady for me.”

Every coach also has their own style and VanOrman remembers Loper’s well.

Simply put, it was all about respect.

“He wasn’t a screamer or yeller,” VanOrman recalled. “He’s always so calm and always balanced our coaching staff out really well. He was always very positive with the kids. He never got over the point where he was upset and it rubbed the kids the wrong way. He had a really good way, when you’re going through something as a team, of speaking up and saying something to the kids or even the coaches.”

Former Petoskey athlete Luke Schrage, who played both baseball and football under Loper, liked the way Loper’s style came off out on the field.

“When it was time to be funny, he was really funny, but when it was time to get work done, it was serious time,” said Schrage. “If you gave him respect, he respected you. His big thing – and this goes for the whole coaching staff when I played – they didn’t care about wins and losses, they wanted to make you a better person, a better potential father, employee, just a better man in general.”

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Loper has coached everything from the special teams and the entire defense, to most recently linebackers with the Northmen and there are few locked into a game as much as Loper is on the sideline to this day.

“Football he was a little more intense, but postseason baseball, if you were up by four or five runs going into the fourth inning, there was nothing he wanted more to get to the mercy rule,” said Schrage. “In football, if you got a turnover, you better make the other team pay for it. That was one of those things that was both football and baseball.”

Fist bumps at first base

The varsity baseball dugout in Petoskey was all Loper’s from the early 90’s to that ’08 Big North Conference championship season.

Now, you’ll catch Loper as the first base coach, seemingly handing out fist bumps to everyone fortunate enough to stand there with him, though he likely has to be careful using those big hands.

Johnny Bench might have been able to fit seven baseballs in one hand, but Loper’s mitts might squeeze in one more.

“Human beings can only get five,” Racignol said with a laugh. “I think he can get seven.”

Schrage remembers them as well.

“I think I’d put his paws up against grizzly bear paws,” he said. “He’s got some hands.”

Those paws made him a great baseball player growing up and later brought him to playing at Central Michigan University as a pitcher, extending his knowledge of the game to later help teach guys like Racignol.

“I remember being really excited when he was hired my sophomore year,” Racignol said. “He was a young guy and we knew that he was a great player in high school and even played in college.”

When Loper stepped away to coach his daughter, Ellen, in softball, Racignol, back at Petoskey after his own playing days, took over the team in 2009 and then openly welcomed him back once Ellen graduated.

Loper has been the calming and knowledgeable force at first ever since.

“He’s fantastic and he’s in the perfect spot,” Racignol said. “There’s so much info that needs to be gathered depending on the number of outs, who is pitching, how developed the pickoff move is, signs, it’s something I haven’t had to think about because he’s there. All we do is gameplan and we don’t have to address it anymore.”

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One thing Racignol has always appreciated about Loper is his ability to speak up and even disagree to find a solution. That openness is something that’s bonded the two together.

“That’s why I knew this was going to be special right from the get-go,” Racignol said. “In order to have a good coaching staff, you have to have a good sounding board.”

Like Racignol, Schrage has had the privilege to go from player under Loper, to coach alongside for a couple years and it’s something he looks back fondly on.

“I learned a lot about everything when I coached with him because I saw it from the coaches perspective,” Schrage said. “I think he really instilled patience in me. There’s not a coach with more patience than him.”

Forever a Northmen 

There’s probably many out there who don’t know Mike Loper now.

They don’t know the years he’s put into the practices and games at Petoskey and hours spent watching film breaking down opponents. He’s not loud and doesn’t walk around with his chest out.

They might just see an assistant coach out there. And, honestly, he probably doesn’t care how anyone sees him, he’s just happy to still be leading young men on the field.

“It’s never been about him,” Schrage said. “My senior year, it was about the kids winning that district title on the football field. In baseball, it was always all about the players. He put so much work into film and scouting. He just did a lot of the extracurricular work to get us prepared.”

For Racignol, what the athletes pull out of Loper’s coaching lasts a lifetime, though he believes it goes both ways.

“I think Mike would tell you he gets as much out of it as the kids that receive his mentorship,” Racignol said. “I don’t ever see him not doing baseball and football. I think it’s part of his DNA to give back all of the great things sports have given him. He’s the most consistent human being I’v ever met. You can just sense that he’s a genuine man that cares for you.”

Throughout VanOrman’s entire tenure as head coach at Petoskey, Loper was there and he’s likely to still be along the sidelines in the fall or in the dugout in the spring for years to come.

“To find someone who has done it as long as he has is very rare,” VanOrman said. “Usually they get out because they’ve got other things going on in their life or whatever. He always said to me when I was there, ‘I’ll coach until I can’t coach anymore’ and I believe him.”

Loper is just simply a family man first, always with the support of his wife, Patti, and kids Ellen and Brian. But, over all these years, that has included his Petoskey family.

“He really roots for the kids,” VanOrman added. “I think that part of him really stands out to me. Sports has a lot to do with it, whether it’s been baseball or football, but he’s a true Petoskey fan.”

Contact Sports Editor Drew Kochanny at dkochanny@petoskeynews.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DrewKochanny, and Instagram, @drewkochanny

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Petoskey coach Mike Loper has given more than 30 years to the Northmen community