Northern Michigan may not be the first place you think of when it comes to semi-professional sports, but that wasn’t the case in 1980.
Cadillac was home to a team in the Michigan Charity Football League.
From year one the team left their mark on not only the game, but the community as well.
The Cadillac Northmen, “Just normal people right out of our community that played football before,” explained former head coach John Jones.
A team no one expected to come together. 
As they returned to Veteran’s Memorial Stadium at Cadillac High School they may not be running drills or calling plays like they did 40 years ago, but their love of the game never faded.
It all started in 1980 when a man named Tom Gilbert went on a mission to recruit the Cadillac area’s best athletes and coaches, like John Jones.
“He said well would you be interested in being the head coach? I said sure. So all the sudden we just started having meetings and we’re putting these different people together. We ran ads in the paper and I’d ask people downtown, do you play football? Are you interested?” Jones explained.
From a high school science teacher and college students, to real estate professionals and military men.
One of those recruits was wholesale sporting goods employee, Dean Jurik.
“We had people from Hoxeyville, Mesick, Cadillac, Manton, McBain, Lake City, Pine River. It takes all these groups to get together and that effort to make practices 3 or 4 times a week,” said Jurik.
With no pay, countless hours of work, and a whole lot of heart the Cadillac Northmen took on the league’s reigning champs for their very first game.
Jurik said, “John Jones, the coach at the time, said hey we’re going to go to Grand Rapids and beat those guys. So all of us were like OK John, that’s great, but let’s take it one step at a time. We actually went there and beat them in a very low scoring game. We came away from that believing we could beat anybody.”
Game after game, the Northmen kept winning.
As their success grew, so did their popularity.
Jones explained, “The community got on our side big time after that. The average team would have about 100 or 200 fans coming to the game. We’d have 3,000 come to a game. It was just packed. That was real exciting to look up there and see the whole stadium there at Cadillac packed.”
The Northmen went undefeated and won the MCFL Championship their very first year.
They did it again in 1984.
Jurik reflected on the ’84 championship saying, “Earl Parsons was the quarterback at the time. We laugh about this now but at the time he threw 4 interceptions in the first half. We got down by 27 points. You dig yourself that deep a hole to the team that won the championship the year before, and we came back and scored 36 unanswered points to win.”
While winning is great, the friendships formed on the field mean more than any title.
Former player Glen Bartholomew said, “My greatest memories are the guys. The friendships and the family that we built over the years, and we’re still together. There is no simple memory. That’s the greatest part of the whole experience.”
The Northmen were more than a source of entertainment.
They gave people something to root for.
“It was just nice you know. Everybody was happy and it brought the community together. Back in 1980 we were in the recession. There was 20% plus interest on stuff and people weren’t working. It gave the community something to look forward to,” explained Jones.
After 7 seasons, the sun set on the Cadillac Northmen.
But their bonds will last forever.
Jones said, “I still have people call me coach which really makes me feel good. We built a family and we’re still a family.”
“I just wish that at some point in everyone’s life, they got to experience that sort of closeness and that sort of a bond. I think the world would be a better place,” added Jurik.
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January 31, 2020 at 06:03AM
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