A pair of former Calvin Knights were inducted into the Grand Rapids Sports Hall of Fame this fall: Mike “Mickey” Phelps ’70 and Steve Honderd ’93. Phelps and Honderd join Mark Veenstra ’77 as Calvin men’s basketball alumni in the Grand Rapids Sports Hall of Fame.
This past February, Phelps and Honderd were both selected to Calvin’s “All-Time Starting Five” as part of the festivities celebrating the 200th Calvin-Hope men’s basketball game.
Phelps was first a standout basketball and baseball player at Grand Rapids Christian High School and Calvin and later a Hall of Fame high school basketball coach.
The quick and crafty guard accumulated 1,365 points over his three-year varsity career. He holds the third-highest single game scoring total in Calvin men’s basketball history with 53 points in a 1968 game against Concordia College of Illinois.
Phelps later led the Calvin men’s basketball team to MIAA titles in 1969 and 1970, receiving the MIAA’s Most Valuable Player award as a senior. A standout shortstop on the baseball diamond, he received MIAA Most Valuable Player honors in that sport in 1970, becoming the only player in league history to receive MIAA MVP honors in both basketball and baseball.
After graduating from Calvin, Phelps moved into a distinguished teaching and coaching career that spanned nearly 40 years. He spent the first 17 years at East Kentwood High School and the final 21 at Holland Christian High School, where he also served for 17 years as the school’s athletic director. Phelps was later inducted into both the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan and Michigan High School Coaches Association halls of fame. In total, he won 568 games in 35 seasons as a high school basketball coach. His 568-239 overall record currently places him 12th all-time in Michigan boys basketball coaching wins. He was never whistled for a technical foul.
“It feels wonderful,” Phelps said of the Hall of Fame honor. “I’m very grateful, surprised, and excited about it. When you coach as long as I have you have a lot of players, coaches, and fans of the teams you played for and coached who have all participated in what you have done. You have probably touched a few of them, and that’s rewarding. I was fortunate to coach some great players and meet people along the way who changed my life, so I feel they are part of this, too.”
Honderd first starred in basketball at Grand Rapids Christian and then led Calvin’s basketball team to the 1992 Division III national championship. He had the first, second, and fifth top scoring seasons for Calvin during his career, was named Division III Player of the Year in 1993, and was the Final Four MVP in 1992. Honderd is the all-time career scoring leader in Calvin men’s basketball history with 2,649 points. He also holds the Calvin single-game scoring record with 61 points in a 1993 Calvin victory over Kalamazoo.
Honderd later played four years of professional basketball in Europe before moving into a business management career in west Michigan. He currently works as a financial manager for J.R. Automation in Holland.
“It is a great honor,” Honderd said about his Hall of Fame nod. “Growing up as a Grand Rapids kid was wonderful, and I see all these names on the wall, and they were household names growing up. To be included in that is really great, and to go in with this class, especially Coach Phelps and Jack Doles (sports director for a local television station), two people I’ve known for a very long time, makes it very special to me.”
