By: Scott Bentley | Birmingham-Bloomfield Eagle | Published April 20, 2026
BEVERLY HILLS — Detroit Country Day School had a ceremony April 10 to induct its third Athletics Hall of Fame class.
The class was composed of 11 individual athletes and two teams that made an impact at the school during their time as student-athletes.
“Our athletic program is part of the mission. It’s not an extra curricular, it’s a co-curricular thing,” said Ross Cooper, one of Detroit Country Day Schools’ athletic directors. “It’s a special event for our athletic department as a whole, but then it’s also a really big alumni event that brings people back.”
Glenn Alexander (’77, hockey), Ted Pulling (’85, wrestling), Neal Newman (’87, cross country/track and field), Mike Clark (’91, soccer), Chris Frescoln ’93, lacrosse), Katherine Hanks Loveland (’99, basketball/soccer), Kim Wilburn (’02, basketball), Madison Williams Gerish (’10, basketball), Aerial Powers (’12, basketball), Gene Jurkiewicz (coach, track/cross country) and George Browne (coach, track) made up the individuals and were joined by the 1945 men’s basketball team and the 1986 football team to round out the class.
“The 1945-46 men’s basketball program was our first program that reached a state level achievement,” Cooper said. “They went 11-3 and made the state finals. … At that point, that senior class had about 10 kids in it, and that team was made up of seven or eight guys that were most of the junior and senior class.”
Neil Brown, who hit a game winner in overtime to send Country Day to the state finals that season, attended the ceremony at 98 years old.
“I came to a school that had 16 people. That’s all we had. … One of us had to step up and try something new, and one by one you start to build it up,” Brown said. “One of the most important things I learned at Country Day … is that you can do things that you didn’t think you could do.”
Among the individual inductees is also Williams Gerish, who is one of the most prolific high school post players the state of Michigan has ever seen. She was a McDonald’s All-American, the Gatorade Michigan Girls Basketball Player of the Year and one of the highest rated recruits in the country coming out of high school.
At MSU, her life changed after a consistent series of injuries.
“Country Day really helped me strive for excellence in other areas. My life was headed in one direction in athletics; obviously, that’s why I’m sitting here,” Gerish said. “I had a lot of adversity later in life that was very unexpected … so I pursued academics instead, which really fulfilled my life as well.”
Gerish went into medicine at Michigan State, and recently finished the last of her exams and rotations to become a practicing doctor in the metro Detroit area. The impact that a story like Gerish’s can have on future generations of students is an inspiring one.
“Legacy … is really, really important,” Gerish said. “Knowing that you’re not just playing for yourself here, you’re not just playing for your teammates, but you’re playing for those who came before you and those who come after you.”
Detroit Country Day has one of the most storied athletic programs in Michigan, and now the school has a Hall of Fame to showcase it. This is just the third class, but the ceremonies every year are already important to the community.
Ultimately, the biggest impact the Hall of Fame has is on future generations.
“(The inductees) can have an impact on our current student-athletes. They each have a story. They had a pathway. They had the rigor of the academic and navigated the athletic piece,” Cooper said. “At the heart of it, it was always going to be a celebration that involved our current student-athletes.”
For more information, visit www.dcds.edu/athletics/hall-of-fame.