Blue-collar Avondale community stands as one on this championship day

In the movie, Hoosiers, the fictional town of Hickory, Indiana, is boasted by characters as being “not found on most state maps.”

The small, rural, western Indiana town, stakes claim to notoriety when Hickory makes an improbable run to the Indiana state high school boys basketball crown in the late 1940s, thus carving its name into Indiana sports lore.

The prideful area of Avondale made a similar, unpredicted run to a state crown here in Michigan on Saturday. You won’t find Avondale on state maps, either, yesterday or today, here in Michigan at least.

There’s Avondale Estates, Georgia. There’s an Avondale, Arizona.

Avondale, Michigan? Not really.

HOISTING ITS IDENTITY: Avondale boys soccer coach Dave Muczynski shows off the Division 2 boys soccer state championship trophy. Photo | Larry McKee, www.lmckeephotography.com

One of the most common questions around the state about Avondale over the decades is simply, “where is it?”

It’s not easy to offer up an explanation: It’s between Pontiac and Rochester … and Troy and Bloomfield. A school district within a community … well communities.

“I’ve heard people ask that before. Where is it?” laughed Dave Muczysnki, a teacher at Avondale High School and a coach of three varsity sports. “On (website forum) MLive, people we’re wondering if we were a private school. We’ll we’re far from that. We’re a blue collar school. We’re a public school.”

Again, Avondale is not found on state maps as a town. It isn’t one, like the small, aforementioned Hickory that was so small in Indiana that it didn’t register with Rand McNally, either. Avondale is its own school district, drawing students from parts of Troy, Rochester Hills, Auburn Hills, Bloomfield Township and even a small sliver of Pontiac.

It’s a unique community, sort of, as it does not encompass city limits, and its high school is anything but small. With just over a 1,000 students, it is a Class A school and competes in Division 2 for most sports. Just to leave an understanding, Division 2 is normally small Class A schools and mid-size to large Class B schools for classification purposes for high school tournaments sponsored by the Michigan High School Athletic Association.

Enrollment-wise, Avondale ranks in the top-20 percent of all Michigan high schools in terms of size. It is far from being small.

Avondale, or Auburn Hills Avondale most commonly used by sports journalists, isn’t really tied to one community. It’s tied to several.

The school district encompasses a diverse group of families, although it is widely considered a blue collar area, a point that Muczynski emphasizes time and time again. That’s the one common theme of this somewhat hodge-podge school district, whose borders roam into multiple municipalities.

It’s blue-collar.

These are hard working families, hard-working students and athletes. The teachers are tireless, the coaches not knowing when to stop. It’s not a dot on a road map, but a proud school district wedged in central Oakland County.

It’s Avondale.

It is not littered with mansions and extremely large homes of corporate executives, like some to the other adjacent communities and towns in which Avondale competes against in the Oakland Activities Association or in non-league competition. It’s Avondale, even if many around the state can’t find it looking for such a town on MapQuest or Google.

Perhaps they will now.

Avondale staked claim to something special these past three weeks. It put together a nice run of seven straight wins on the soccer pitch. It all ended at nearby Troy Athens late Saturday afternoon, where the Yelowjackets scratched and pulled and fought for a 2-1, come-from-behind victory over second-ranked Spring Lake, a lakeside community on the state’s west side, on the prep soccer season’s final day. Avondale did it the old fashioned way — it earned it.

Avondale, which fell out of the top10 rankings in early September, claimed the Division 2 state championship in boys soccer — and it was a long time coming for a school that only owns two other team state championships in nearly 100 years of competitive sports.

The other state titles came in Class B, as the school’s boys cross country team won the 1972 title, while the 2002 basketball team captured some state glory with an unpredicted run to the Class B championship. The very next year, a small enrollment spike bumped the school up to Class A.

That basketball squad also embodied Avondale’s blue-collar mentality. That team was unranked without a single starter being listed over 6-foot-2. It didn’t have a bunch of college-bound players headed to high-profile universities. Yet that team put it all together for a magical three-week run, something almost out of a story book or movie.

That is the exactly how this year’s Avondale soccer team rose to glory. Unranked, unheralded and disrespected, but flat out the hardest working team around.

Avondale, which first began its soccer program in 1988, with no junior varsity to join its fledging varsity that first season, has been respected in this area as a quality program for many years, even without much to show for it. On the state level, not so much, as few of its soccer teams have ever escaped what has annually been known as the “district of death,” a grouping of multiple quality programs.

In the past, there have only been a couple of league and district championships to boot for Avondale when it comes to boys soccer. Even this year’s team didn’t win a league, finishing second in the OAA White Division to Farmington. It had only won two districts before this season, as Avondale is nestled in a region of powerhouse soccer teams and hasn’t enjoyed state-wide acclaim to put itself on at least the state’s soccer map consistently.

Many of the Yellowjackets’ neighbors have won state championships, been to the Final Four with regularity, or have been making long tournament runs for many years. Troy, Troy Athens, Rochester Adams, Rochester, Bloomfield Hills Lahser, etc., have all won at least one state title in soccer, some several. Farmington, Birmingham Seaholm, Birmingham Groves and Clarkston have all had at least one state runner-up soccer team.

Avondale has stood on the sidelines during the final week of the tournament…until know.

This year’s squad didn’t have a roster full of high-level club players. In fact, three of the varsity players don’t play club soccer at all. There’s not a bunch of kids found on rosters in the Olympic Developmental Program or the Vardar Academy or Michigan Wolves Academy. Instead, this team has athletes — fast, quick, skilled and hard-working to the core.

They have track athletes, basketball and baseball players mixed in with a couple of year-round soccer players, all running around on the pitch coming at opposing teams a million miles a minute. They have a work ethic few can rival.

It’s Avondale, blue collar through-and-through.

Even the school’s head boys soccer coach, the aforementioned Dave Muczynski, also coaches girls soccer and girls basketball at Avondale. Three varsity sports per year in an era of specialization and year-round commitments is not any easy task. Dave’s wife, Tammy, is always on the sideline keeping stats and lending a helping hand. Together, they are always involved, teaching and coaching and leading young men and women. They embody what this unique community, school district, area is all about. That’s how they all roll in the area known as Avondale.

It’s blue collar.

It’s home to a state champion.

It’s Avondale.

That home may not be one large city or one small town. It is parts and slivers of several.

Each week, those who live in the Avondale district will go back to work, rolling up their sleeves with their hard-working mentality. Today, they will be able to acknowledge and boast something very special to help claim some identity.

That may not be recognition with Rand McNally … or Google … or Map Quest … or the thousands around the state who often wonder the million dollar question … where is Avondale?

It is home to state championship team.

It’s blue collar.

It’s Avondale.

That’s all the identity they need.

(Daniel Stickradt is Senior Editor of the AdaVan Media Group’s www.northoaklandsports.com and a veteran sports journalist of 18 years. He can be reached at dan.stickradt@northoaklandsports.com or follow on Twitter @LocalSportsFans.)

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