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Michigan Center High School athlete Kole Sova (33) attempts to drive past a Hanover-Horton High School player during a game this past winter. Photo by Jeff Steers, JTV Sports.

By Jeff Steers
JTV Sports

Structure.

That word keeps coming up during conversations with Michigan Center High School athlete Kole Sova.

He liked going to the gym every day because it gave his day structure and kept his mind off of other things.

Math is his favorite subject because Sova likes working with numbers. He misses the structure of going to school, practice, and everything that goes with attending high school.

And finally, Sova plans to become an engineer – maybe building some structures in the future.

There hasn’t been much structure in life for Sova or thousands of high school seniors recently. School was postponed for three weeks in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In early April, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer closed schools for good for the remainder of the calendar year. A couple of days later the Michigan High School Athletic Association ended the spring season before it even began.

“The Thursday everything was shut down was my first baseball practice of the season,” Sova said. “I figured they would push the season back a couple of weeks.”

But that didn’t happen and Sova lost his senior season in baseball.

“It helped me to understand that health is the most important thing in my eyes,” Sova said. “It really hit me hearing about referee Kerry Lehman dying from the coronavirus.”

But sports are only half of the story for Sova. He tied for first at MCHS for the class of 2020 with a grade point average of 4.294 on a 4.0 scale. He earned additional credits taking AP classes and being dual enrolled at Jackson College.

“School always came first for me,” Sova said. “During school hours, I concentrated on getting my work done.

“I was grinding out the work while others were talking … I didn’t want to take it home.”

Despite playing football, basketball and baseball, Sova exceled at MCHS. He tested out of pre-algebra in seventh grade and moved up to algebra. Sova was also in a race to be the top student in his class.

“Teachers at Michigan Center were so supportive,” Sova said. “That helped me a lot in school.”

Sova plans to attend Jackson College for two years and then transfer to Michigan State University or Grand Valley State University to study engineering.

“It would be great to be able to work with mathematics every day,” Sova said about his future. “It is going to be tough not playing sports next fall.”

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