High school principals set spirited tone for Bay City Western vs. Bay City Central football rivalry – MLive.com

Bay City Central principal Tim Marciniak and Bay City Western principal Judy Cox are wagering their school will prevail in Friday's annual showdown. (Lee Thompson | MLive.com)

Judy Cox is in her first year as principal at Bay City Western. (Lee Thompson | MLive.com)
BAY CITY – As Bay City Western High School principal, Judy Cox wants to set an example for how to represent the school with class, dignity and pride.
And she surely hopes she won’t have to do it while wearing a wolf’s head hat.
But anything can happen in the Bay City Western vs. Bay City Central football rivalry.
With the crosstown foes ready for their annual Week 9 clash at 7 p.m. Friday at Central’s Elmer Engel Stadium, Cox and BCC principal Tim Marciniak are taking the lead in making school spirit part of the learning process.
“We’re working with the kids to say ‘Let’s beat them on the field, let’s beat them with spirit and let’s keep it fun,’” said Cox, in her first year at the helm at Western. “It’s a way to engage the kids. High school can be stressful and we want them to have fun.”
As part of an effort to emphasize the positive aspects of the rivalry, both principals are taking visible roles in the big-game festivities. Not only are they reintroducing the time-forgotten Firefighter’s Trumpet traveling trophy, but they are playing with the bands at halftime – and making a little wager on the side.

Tim Marciniak is the ninth-year principal at Bay City Central. (Lee Thompson | MLive.com)
The principal from the losing school is serving lunch at the winning school Monday – an event that could get as exciting as the game.
“Mrs. Cox will be wearing my Central wolf hat and dishing out something – hopefully corn – here on Monday,” said Marciniak, confident that his school can build on its 27-11 record in the series that began in 1974.
Likewise, Cox is getting reassurances from her football players that Western can bring home a victory for the fourth straight year.
“They’re telling me ‘No worries. We’ll be in the cafeteria on Monday with Mr. Marciniak, watching him serve lunch,’” she said.
The competing principals – both graduates of Bay City All Saints — already find themselves on tenuous ground at home because of their allegiances. Marciniak’s daughter, Madison, attends Western and is a member of the cross country and track teams. Cox has two brothers, Phil and G.J. Zanotti, who are football coaches at Central.
So both fully understand how a game between two teams with 2-6 records can escalate in importance. But they want to keep it civil.
In recent years as a prelude to the Western vs. Central game, football fields have been vandalized, parking lots have been trashed and other pranks have threatened to steer the rivalry down a negative path. The principals agreed that their involvement can help create positive tones – perhaps excluding their halftime performances on the cowbells.
“We build relationships with the students – that’s what we do — and this adds to it,” said Marciniak, in his ninth year at Central. “We know the game is serious and it’s a great rivalry, but we can have fun with it, too.
“You hope something like this raises everybody’s spirit.”

The Firefighter's Trumpet goes to the winner of the Western vs. Central football game. (Lee Thompson | MLive.com)
Toward that end, the two schools are rejuvenating the Firefighter’s Trumpet, which will be presented to the winning coach by the losing principal after Friday’s game.
The 3-foot high trophy was introduced in 1990 as a complement to the Fireman’s Bell that was awarded to the winner of the Central vs. T.L. Handy game, which ended with Handy’s closing that year.
But the popularity of the trophy never took hold and, some time after the 2003 results were engraved on the base, the Trumpet was lost and forgotten.
“Western won in 2004, so my guess is they didn’t ask for it and we never gave it up,” Central coach Morley Fraser said. “So it was hiding in our trophy case.”
Fraser said he found the dust-covered Trumpet in the back corner of a display case behind some old photos.
“You see all those rivalries in the Big Ten, where they’re always playing for the Paul Bunyan trophy or something like that, and it’s a lot of fun,” Marciniak said. “In a season where both teams are struggling, they still have something to point toward.”
The game culminates of week of spirit at both schools. Western featured a pajama day, hat day and a camp out leading up to Friday’s pep assembly. Central hosted a vote for the homecoming king and queen of faculty members prior to its Friday pep rally.
And Monday brings another day of school spirit, when one principal has a debt to pay and a lunch to serve.
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