Theodore Kearly

Ted was born in 1932, in Alpena, to Marie (VanSipe) and Charles Kearly. Charles would die young leaving a nine-year-old Ted home with widow Marie while Ted’s older brothers, Ken and Don, were fighting in World War II.

Marie ran a tiny country store in Spratt, Michigan, near Alpena, and Ted would help his mother with all things on the farm and in the store while his brothers were away. Don sent home money so that his mother could purchase a horse for Ted, which he named Star because of his white patch between his eyes.

A consortium of Detroit businessmen, who had built a hunting club nearby in Spratt, hired pre-teen Ted to be a caretaker of their place while they were not there. Ted would ride Star (with a shotgun!) and oversee the cabin and its land. It was then that his lifelong love of cowboys, westerns, and hunting began.

At the age of 14, while riding the bus from the outlying farms into Alpena High School, Ted met his future wife, Helen. He maneuvered his seat so Helen would have to sit by him. He asked her to a baseball game — to watch him play. He always said he got the prettiest girl at Alpena High. They married at 18, the fall after graduating from high school, and were married 73 years until Helen’s death in 2024.

After graduating high school in 1950, Ted began working at the local cement plant, which was a large employer in Alpena. When drafted during the Korean War in 1952, Ted and Helen were stationed at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Ted was chosen as a physical fitness trainer, a move which changed his life’s trajectory. Playing on the base’s baseball team with many college (and some soon to be pro) athletes, they encouraged Ted to go to college after his service. To even try out for the baseball and football teams.

Taking their advice, and having the GI bill available, Ted went on to Michigan State University where his football coach at Alpena, Bob Devaney, was now an assistant coach. He made the football and baseball teams his freshman year, then chose to solely play baseball moving forward. He won the Biggie Munn award for the team’s highest batting average his senior year. (Coincidentally, three of his grandchildren had student jobs at Munn Ice Arena while attending MSU some 60 years later.) Ted and Helen began their family at MSU and also decided to pursue a profession in football coaching.

He got his first job as a coach at tiny Woodland High School, where their second child was born. And then on to Cheboygan High school, where the kids he coached would, many of them, soon be drafted in the Vietnam war. Their third and fourth children were born in Cheboygan. At Cheboygan, he revitalized the town’s football program, including an undefeated season.

In 1966, Ted made the move to college coaching, becoming an assistant football coach at Winona (Minnesota) University. After only one season there, he had the good fortune to meet Bill Lucier, Michigan Tech’s head football coach, at a coaching clinic. Bill offered him a job as his assistant at Tech, and he and Helen brought their four kids to the Copper Country. When seeing the size of the snowbanks and Helen’s reaction, Ted said, “Don’t worry, we’ll probably only be here two or three years.”

They remained residents of the Copper Country the rest of their lives.

Ted became the head coach at Tech in 1969 and coached the football Huskies for four seasons before being named Athletic Director and head of the Physical Education Department. He remained AD until 1993 and professor in the PE department until his retirement in 1999.

After retiring, Ted and Helen began spending part of their winters in Las Vegas. Having learned poker in the Army and continuing it through all his stops, he dabbled with playing in poker tournaments, big and small, in Las Vegas.

Dabbling paid off as Ted placed second in a World Poker Tour event in 2007 with a payday of $1.2 million. A portion of his winnings were donated to worthy projects including new turf for the MTU football field and a new roof for the Hancock United Methodist Church.

He passed on his love of cards, hunting and fishing to his grandchildren, teaching his eldest poker at the age of seven. (“Maybe that was a mistake,” he once kidded.)

Also in retirement, he and Helen bought hunting property near Covington, and, with help, he built a cabin and created his own Spratt Club, becoming a caretaker of land once more. No Star to ride while surveying the property this time, but an ATV instead. He hunted every fall with his sons and grandchildren, and the whole family was involved in deer camp.

Accolades, there were many. Ted was inducted into the Alpena High School Sports Hall of Fame, the Cheboygan High School Sports Hall of Fame, Michigan Tech’s Sports Hall of Fame, The Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame, and was given Distinguished Service awards by the Western Collegiate Hockey Association and the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. In 2019, Ted, along with his son Tom, was further honored by having Tech’s football facility named Kearly Stadium.

Achievements, there were many of those as well. Ted’s football teams at Tech went 29-7 in his four years as head coach, winning three Northern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles, including a perfect 6-0-0 conference season in 1972. He is still the winningest coach (by percentage) in the program’s history. Under his leadership as the athletic director at Tech, he guided the start of women’s athletics, the Student Development Complex was conceived and built, and several varsity sports were added. A national championship in hockey was won in 1975, he founded the MTU Sports Hall of Fame, and saved the football program when the budget was cut by 76% in 1980.

But beyond those accolades and achievements, Ted was most proud of the relationships built with those around him. The high school team he coached in Cheboygan over 60 years ago made a point to have Ted video call into their reunion. The well-wishes and thank yous were plentiful from those he coached 50 years earlier during the 2022 MTU football reunion. Many of the coaches who coached for Ted are still in touch with him.

Ted was quietly a man of deep faith. He read from the Bible every night before bed, and believed in tithing. His faith sustained him in innumerable ways.

Ted is preceded in death by his wife of 73 years, Helen; his mother and father, Marie and Charles Kearly; his brothers and sisters-in-law, Ken (Dora) Kearly, and Don (Muriel) Kearly.

Ted is survived by his children, Tom (Patti), Tim (Gwen), Tyler and Tammy; grandchildren, Jacob (Alex) Kearly, Kyle (DJ) Kearly, Kendyl Kearly, Tyler Andrew Kearly, Tanner (Lauren) Kearly and Taylor (Adam) Epstein; great-grandchildren, Ethan (Jake’s), Noelle (Tanner’s) and Lucas (Taylor’s).

Service will be Monday, June 30, at the Hancock United Methodist Church at 11 a.m. with visitation for an hour before services. Burial will be at Lakeside Cemetery in Hancock. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Ted’s name to the Michigan Tech Football Fund. The link to that fund is: https://give.mtu.edu/project/34975/donate.

The O’Neill-Dennis Funeral Home of Hancock is assisting with the arrangements. To leave online condolences, please go to www.oneilldenisfh.com.