Fast Break with Bret Bakita

We here at IHeartmedia have teamed up with Van Andel Arena to bring back the Jam at the Van event that hasn't taken place since 2010, and we are making it even bigger and better with 8 teams, 4 games and featuring some of the top players from all over the state of Michigan!!! GR Catholic Central head coach - TJ Meerman had the idea of trying to revitalize this event after his Cougars' team played...

It got cancelled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is back in West Michigan again for 2021....the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give is coming to town this week to beautiful and newly renovated Blythefield Country Club and featuring some of the best female golfers in the world!!! Now in its seventh year as a tournament stop, we thought it only fitting to sit down with Executive Direc...

From an assistant coach under Wes Cummings when Davenport University started their baseball program, to now a season during the COVID-19 pandemic that saw the Panthers win their first-ever GLIAC regular season and tournament championships and advance to the NCAA Div. II Midwest Regional, D-U head coach - Kevin Tidey has seen a lot of changes to his very successful program in his now decade as the...

American Dunes Golf Club, a Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course project that benefits Folds of Honor and used to be formerly the Grand Haven Golf Club, had its grand opening earlier this month to rave reviews in Grand Haven, Michigan! The vision and mission of this unique golf course started over 3 years ago with a conversation between Lt Col Dan Rooney, the CEO and founder of Folds of Honor and a...

This spring I am teaming up with the downtown YMCA and the Whitecaps Community Foundation to revitalize the Give-A-Glove campaign and give the gift of baseball to over 500 kids in the inner city of Grand Rapids! Ted Rasberry was a former Negro League player and owner back in the mid-1900s who played an intrical part in the history of professional baseball in Grand Rapids! Hear how you can help and...

For the last 2 decades in the state of Michigan, there has been one man who has risen to the top of the leaderboard when it comes to covering the approximately $4 Billion industry that is the game of golf in Michigan! His name is Bill Hobson, and 22 years ago his idea came to life on the radio with the now defunct Buick Open as his title sponsor for a statewide golf show! This summer he will be br...

Just over 7 years ago, the Grand Rapids Drive franchise of the then NBA D-League, now G-League, became a reality in West Michigan thanks to the work hard and never give up attitude of 2 young professionals who were former college roomates! Steve Jbara and Wes Weir convinced NBA executives and the Detroit Pistons organization to give them a shot, and then they were able to purchase the Springfield...

A former Hudsonville High School standout athlete in his own right, Casey Glass earlier this month followed in his father's coaching footsteps and led the Eagles girls varsity basketball program to its first state championship in school history!!! But their state title quest really started a year ago, when Hudsonville's season abruptly ended the day that they were supposed to play for a regional c...

From a coach's son to a state championship coach himself, listen to the story of TJ Meerman and the Meerman family, and growing up with high school sports in the small community of Coopersville, to playing Div. I college basketball at Central Michigan University, and now just a couple of weeks ago, leading the Grand Rapids Catholic Central boys basketball team to a perfect (20-0) season and the Di...

Van Andel Arena has now existed as a pillar of the new downtown Grand Rapids for 25 years, and the man in charge of it and also booking the great entertainment and sporting events to take place in it, is Rich MacKeigan - General Manager of Van Andel Arena and DeVos Place for ASM Global. Over its history, Van Andel Arena has played host to everything from Garth Brooks and Elton John concerts to Flo...

From a state championship and back to back 50+ goal seasons in high school at East Kentwood for the Falcons hockey team to playing for Team USA and over 1,000 games in his NHL career and everything in between, current Grand Rapids Griffins assistant coach - Mike Knuble sat down with me to talk about his incredible career and journey with the game of hockey and how it has brought him back to Grand...

From a school that no one knew much about or even exactly where it was, to a boys basketball state power in Class D, producing players like Chris Kaman, who played in the NBA, to Bryan Foltice and Brandon Voorhees! Mark Keeler has coached the boys varsity basketball team at Wyoming Tri-Unity Christian for now 34 seasons and counting and has produced 4x Class D state titles and 4x more state-runner...

Brian Morehouse just finished up his 25th season as the head coach of the Hope College women's basketball team, but once again, his #1 nationally ranked team did not get a chance to play for a Div. III National Championship because the tournament was cancelled! However, Coach Morehouse couldn't be more proud of this year's squad and his 9 seniors that had a Senior Day at Hope to always remember. I...

It is almost now 50 years old and you have visited it without even maybe knowing it, but if you adventure in a little bit deeper, you will realize how vital local sports teams and their athletes, coaches and organizations have been in making up the fabric of the Grand Rapids area and community! From the just under 170 inductees that are now housed inside Van Andel Arena, to how the public can nomi...

The MSU-U-M Rivalry on the hardcourt will play out twice this week coming up with the crazy COVID 19 rescheduling, and I thought that it would be interesting to hear from a guy who played in that rivalry over the years, and also, get his perspective on this year's edition of those squads and the Big Ten conference in general, who hasn't had a team win a men's basketball national championship since...

Starting with the "West Michigan Race Reflections Show" on 1340 AM - WBBL in the mid-1990s to now the main booth voice of NASCAR racing for MRN Radio, the story of Jeff Striegle from Grand Rapids is an amazing one that I was lucky enough to be able to ride along on and watch from a good friend's perspective! Jeff is an amazing broadcasting talent, that I like to take a little credit for because I...

This episode I had a chance to sit down with the head coaches of each one of our GLIAC Conference schools in the West Michigan area...GVSU, Ferris State and Davenport and talk about this year's recruiting classes for football and the local prospects that they were able to sign! The brand of Div. II football in the GLIAC Conference, which is predominantly now made up of Michigan-based schools, is s...

This episode is near and dear to my heart because Ray Bentley was a boyhood hero of mine that I loved to watch play as a kid back in his CMU days at Kelly-Shorts Stadium in Mt. Pleasant! And now, to be able to call him a good friend and mentor, who I got to co-host a radio show in Grand Rapids with, is truly a blessing to me and my media career!! Ray was a standout player at Hudsonville High Schoo...

In the fall of 1992, Pat Collins, senior QB for Montague High School under head coach Ken Diamond, helped lead the Wildcats all the way to the Class CC state championship game where they suffered their only loss of the season to Detroit St. Martin DePorres (12-7). As Pat went on to college and got married and started to think about what he wanted to do with his life, that loss always was there lin...

Earlier this month, Cornerstone University announced that they are adding a men's wrestling program next year as their 20th varsity sport! West Michigan features some of the best high school programs in the state of Michigan, which seems like a natural fit for creating a local collegiate program, and the funding is there from private donations. Also, I talked to Aaron about the local small college...

He was the first ever Mr. Basketball from West Michigan with a standout senior season back in 1988 that led his South Christian team to the Class B State title! As a McDonald's All-American, Steigenga could have gone anywhere in the country to play, but finally decided on MSU over North Carolina and playing for Jud Heathcote. In 1990, playing with the likes of Steve Smith and Mike Peplowski, Steig...

After 4 seasons as the head football coach at Kalamazoo Loy Norrix, Derek Pennington wanted to move to West Michigan and take over a program in the OK-Conference. He took over a Zeeland East program that was (1-26) the 3 previous seasons before he arrived, and made it a powerhouse over the next 13 years...having 12 winning seasons, 10 playoff appearances, 4 conference championships, 2 district tit...

In this episode, Bob chats with me about his 41-year career in hockey that started as a kid in Jacksonville, Florida, and then brought him to Grand Rapids where he has been behind the mic calling Griffins games for 20 seasons now! In that time, he has called both of Grand Rapids' Calder Cup championship series wins, and even got his own NHL call-up to Detroit to broadcast games on radio & TV for t...

With the early signing period happening this week for high school football players around the country making their choices of where they want to play football in college, I thought it was time to catch up with West Michigan's own Josh Helmholdt, who has spent most of his professional career writing about and covering college football and recruiting for Rivals.com! Hear some of the names that Josh...

For this episode, I decided to double dip with 2 guests, as I am joined by Mona Shores head football coach - Matt Koziak and his star senior and recently named M-Live High School Football Player of the Year in the State of Michigan, Brady Rose! We talk about everything from last year's state championship team, to beating Muskegon this year, Brady being named the M-Live Player of the Year, and what...