Back in the ‘50s in Bessemer, Mich., they kept the baseball and football fields locked during offseason and when there weren’t organized competitions going on. The kids who called the small Upper Peninsula town (population 2,148) home dug holes under the fence to get in.

The basketball gym was always locked up, too. The kids of Bessemer wore “choppers” — gloves with the fingers cut off — to keep their hands warm when they played outside during winter. While the choppers provided comfort, they hurt dexterity and limited what the children could do with the basketball.

That’s why Michigan women’s basketball coach Kevin Borseth insists he never learned to shoot.

In late February, sitting in the plush maize and blue coaches’ locker room in Crisler Arena, Borseth couldn’t pinpoint exactly how he wound up with a Division I coaching job at a nationally renowned university.

“One thing led to another, and here I am,” he said. “I’d explain that but one thing just kind of led to another.”

“I think there’s a gauge inside of us that says I want to be the best at what I do,” he said. “A long time ago someone gave us a pat on the back because we did something good and we never forgot that.

“It’s like the horse who got the sugar cube. People gravitate towards doing well because they get pats on the back for it. And I don’t think my career is different than anybody else’s is.”

Falling in love with the game
As a third grader, Borseth had his first experience in a big game.

Borseth’s recreational league team split up to scrimmage at halftime of a high school basketball game. The aspiring youngsters had dribbled around chairs to practice fundamentals for their big game.

For the young Borseth, nothing was bigger than that moment.

“It was huge,” he said. “It was the NBA championship.”

That exciting atmosphere helped fuel Borseth’s love for basketball, a sport he continued to play through high school along with baseball and football.

Bessemer High School saw four head football coaches and an unimpressive record during Borseth’s time as quarterback. Pat Gallinagh, an All-American defensive lineman for Michigan State in the 1960s, took over as head coach in Borseth’s senior year.

Trying to get the program back on track, Gallinagh added a Saturday morning practice to the team’s weekly schedule, which already included two-a-days Monday through Friday.

“Just about the whole team boycotted the practice, but Kevin went and talked to all of them and got them back out for the team so the program didn’t disintegrate,” Gallinagh said in a phone interview.

The next fall, Borseth went to Lake Superior State for college, instead of a place like Michigan, where according to Gallinagh, he could have played if he had had consistent coaching throughout high school. But he stayed close to home and played basketball, his favorite sport.

A decade after playing outdoor basketball during frigid Michigan winters as a kid, Borseth graduated and moved back home, where he finally got his hands on the keys to the local gym when he volunteered to watch over the kids playing there.

It was at that gym in Bessemer where Borseth realized his passion for coaching.

With the keys, the gym was his. He would shoot around until the kids that came to practice on Saturday mornings showed up. Then he would give them pointers.

He wanted them to have that same memory he had, when he scrimmaged at the high school game, so he prepared them for their own time in the limelight.

Around the same time, he began working as the assistant football and baseball coach at his alma mater, Bessemer High. Gallinagh recalls Borseth’s ability to yell at his players without making them upset. A few years later, it was clear his tactic was working.

“The two seasons he coached with me we were something like 19 or 20-3, so we had really good years,” Gallinagh said.

While he got his feet wet in football coaching, Borseth was also testing his mettle as a basketball player in a local league. His team traveled regionally to play different teams, one of those at a nearby low-security prison.

When he later lost his job in the homebuilding industry as interest rates soared and his employer was forced to close its doors in 1983, he found a new job at Gogebic Community College in Ironwood, Mich.