It doesn’t get much more “small town” than Beaverton, Michigan. The population of this little berg, nestled in the southwest corner of Gladwin County, is a little over 1,000.
There are plenty of places for residents of Beaverton to go for entertainment, but the place to be – especially between the months of December and March – is at the high school, crammed into the Roy F. Johnston Gymnasium for an exciting brand of basketball, which has been coached for nearly five decades by a true basketball legend.
Roy Johnston.
“Everybody in the region, if not the state, and beyond, knows who Roy is,” said Ryan Roberts, who is Beaverton High School’s director of athletics. “If they haven’t seen him, they’ve at least heard of him.”
Johnston has been the boys’ varsity basketball coach at Beaverton since 1974. He’s currently in his 43rd year of coaching at the school and, as one might imagine, that kind of longevity means records are likely to be broken along the way.
“The most important stat that we have is the one that’s on the scoreboard at the end of the night,” said Johnston, who has spent most of the 2016-17 season on a countdown toward a major milestone – becoming the winningest boys’ basketball coach in Michigan high school history.
During his 43 years at Beaverton, Roy Johnston has only known winning. His teams have averaged 16 wins per season, in addition to winning 20 league, 15 district and five regional championships.
On Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2017, Johnston stood at 728 total wins, tying him for the most ever alongside River Rouge legend Lofton Greene. All his Beavers had to do that evening was continue their unbeaten march through the Jack Pine Conference, knock off visiting Farwell, and he’d have the record.
That’s exactly what happened.
The Beavers beat Farwell, 61-24, giving Roy Johnston his 729th career win, eclipsing Greene’s mark that had stood since 1984.
“I’ve been fortunate,” said Johnston, after the historic victory. “To have my grandson, Carter [Johnston] on the team when it happened is extra special.”
To go along with his new state record in wins, Johnston has also strung together an impressive string of consecutive games coached.
He’s coached more than 1,000 straight games since 1974.
“Since I started coaching at Beaverton, I have not missed a single game because of illness or anything else,” Johnston said, proudly. “I don’t care how sick I am, I’m going to get to every game because I don’t want anybody to think that this team, or any team I’ve had, can win without me.”
“I tell everybody that I plan to coach until I’m 80 years old,” said Johnston.
That means every win going forward for Roy Johnston becomes a new piece of Michigan high school basketball history.
“To do the same thing for 43 years, you’ve got to enjoy what you do,” added Johnston. “I really like doing this.”