Between his involvement in varsity basketball, the Fly Fishing Squad and The Roar, senior Calvin Hyde is ingrained within the Northview community with all intentions set on embodying the phrase ‘once a Wildcat, always a Wildcat.’
At the end of the 2020/21 school year, Hyde was nominated to be one of three editors of The Roar for the following year. However, when he first joined the newspaper as a sophomore, Hyde wasn’t sure if he truly fit in.
“At first, I didn’t have a great attitude about [The Roar]. I kind of thought that everybody almost tried a little too hard,” Hyde said. “It was full of a ton of kids that were very passionate about journalism, and it deterred me at first … I ended up really liking it.”
It was the people around him that persuaded Hyde to apply to be an editor.
“I never really thought that I wanted to be an editor, but [editors] Olivia [Austin] and Tori [Scovel] really pushed me to apply, and I did, and here I am. I enjoy it. I think people read the pieces, I think I’m good at it,” Hyde said.
Additionally, Hyde holds a people-centered approach to writing articles, several of which have won Michigan Interscholastic Press Association (MIPA) awards. One such article was a heart wrenching follow-up on Deputy Krystal Stuart and her K-9, Axel, entitled ‘Funeral for a friend,’ after Axel had passed away in the line of duty this past fall.
“It was cool, because I met Axel and Deputy Stuart before, and I was invested in their story, and I thought other people would be, too,” Hyde said. “That’s what prompted me to go back and write ‘Funeral for a Friend.’ I think people like hearing stories like that, and I feel like stories like that need to be told.”
The Roar advisor Matt Howe certainly noticed his influence and unique lens into stories.
“Despite often teasing him regarding his turtle paced writing, his finished products never fail to impress and make the reader feel connected to the topic whether they are or not,” Howe said.
Though he didn’t always feel at home within The Roar, Hyde certainly always belonged in the basketball community. He played on the junior varsity team his freshman and sophomore year, but was pulled up to varsity during that second year.
This season, however, was “the bow on top,” according to Hyde. The varsity team, under the leadership of Coach David Chana, made it all the way up to the state semi finals, playing at Michigan State’s Breslin Center.
“To feel it click and see the community come out and support the way they did was just unbelievable,” Hyde said. “You almost feel like a superhero when you see people come out of the stands and share stories about when they were in high school, or when you see kids come up to you, and they want autographs. I’m just a high schooler, you know? But, in that moment, I feel like something more.”
Chana certainly believes that Hyde was instrumental in the team’s success.
“Calvin did many things for our team,” Chana said. “His attention to detail and his drive to get better helped set the standard for our team.”
Simply being one of the top high school basketball teams in the state isn’t the only thing that defined this season for Hyde. He attributes a lot of his personal growth to the team.
“I learned that I’m a stronger person than I think I am,” Hyde said. “Basketball is huge mental game. It’s about being tough and being able to get over the mental blocks that you experience when you play, but I think it’s a lot deeper than that. Chana has a lot of life lessons to share with us, he’s been through a lot. He shares those bits of wisdom with us here and there about being tough. He preached going out to get what you want in life, and you have to be assertive when you want something.”
In the spring of 2020, Hyde decided to take up fly fishing and later joined the Northview Fly Squad. The club has arguably been one of the most influential aspects of his high school career as it gained his interest in his soon-to-be college major, environmental science.
“When you fly fish, you do something called ‘matching the hatch.’ That’s when you either flip over rocks, or you take an aquarium net in the water to find nymphs,” Hyde said. “That’s what the fish are feeding on, basically. You take those bugs you found under rocks or in your net, and you lay them out in your hand, and then you open your fly box. Whichever flies look the most like the bugs you collected are the ones you use, because that’s what the fish are feeding on.”
For the past two years, Hyde and the rest of the Fly Squad have volunteered with a local chapter of Trout Unlimited, a nation-wide conservation group.
“With Fly Squad, we participated in a service project where we planted river monitoring, little computers, basically, in the river,” Hyde said. “We would have to go check on them every couple of weeks. They measure the flow speeds and the salinity and the river temperature.”
This fall, Hyde will be attending Michigan State University (MSU) where he will major in environmental science in hopes of getting a job in environmental consulting. He intends on working “with companies on reducing their carbon footprint” in order to help preserve the environment.
“I just really want to conserve,” Hyde said. “Michigan has a lot of beautiful, natural resources, and I think that’s important. [The Fly Squad] definitely started my passion for that.”
Hyde’s decision to commit to State was no easy one. Originally, he had offers from many Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) schools for basketball, including Calvin, Alma, Albion and Kalamazoo.
Hyde battled between playing basketball at Kalamazoo College, where he’d have to major in economics with an environmental studies focus and MSU, which has his dream degree and Big 10 opportunities.
In the end, passion and family ties won out.
“My grandpa used to work at Michigan State. There’s a golf course not on campus, but it’s where Michigan State golfs,” Hyde said. “He planted probably over a thousand trees on that golf course.”
Hyde truly grew up with MSU and feels very at home on the campus.
“My family is ingrained in the university. My dad didn’t go there, but he spent plenty of time there as a kid, so I ended up going there a lot when I was a kid. I always went to football games when I was little,” Hyde said. “It just felt like a place where I belong.”
Hyde’s basketball career doesn’t end at Michigan State, however. He is looking into joining a club team, where he’d still have the opportunity to travel and play club teams from other universities.
More exciting, however, is the possibility that Hyde may become a manager on State’s varsity basketball team. Apart from manager duties, he would also have the opportunity to play the other Big 10 manager teams prior to the main game. Hyde is currently working with Chana to figure that out, but all of the details are “top secret,” according to Chana.
Hyde is thrilled to experience all MSU has to offer.
“I think that all the things that come with going to a Big 10 University are going to be a lot of fun,” Hyde said. “I would say that I’m a pretty social person and that I like to be where it’s happening. There are a lot of opportunities to meet people, a lot of different people from different places.”
And, of course, there’s the sports.
“I can’t wait to go to a ton of football games and basketball games,” Hyde said.
Many people in Hyde’s life are confident in his capabilities to thrive in life and are excited to see what his future holds.
“Calvin [Hyde] already is an amazing human being. I think Calvin is going to do great things in this crazy world we live in,” Chana said. “I see Calvin in a leadership role of some sort because his compassion and work ethic helps drive any team to be the best they can be.”
Despite going on to big things, Hyde has a love and adoration for the Northview community; he is truly a ‘Northview guy’ through and through.
“I think that I owe quite a bit to this community. I’ve talked about it before, but I just really love it here, and I’m finding it hard to say goodbye at the end, because these people raised me,” Hyde said. “I would like to think that I represent the Northview community wherever I go in life, and I’ll be able to come back here and that I’m still going to have a place here.”
