There’s something to be said for a sense of timing when you coach as many seasons as Rochester Adams fixture Fran Scislowicz has.
That’s 60 seasons with the Highlanders, to be exact.
Now synonymous with Adams softball, Scislowicz seems to have executed a well-timed retirement from his post, a plan that began several years ago and seems to have already aged rather well.
“You don’t want to stay that extra year where maybe the game has passed you by, but the flip side is, I’m enjoying the heck out of it, and it’s been a marvelous career,” said Scislowicz, whose seniors this year were the last group of freshmen that he told he’d see through entirely.
He didn’t know that three years ago that plot would fall into place quite so well, but from an on-field perspective, it appears to be an appropriate moment. Adams won twice as many games (22) as it lost this past spring, and whether it’s an internal candidate or not that follows in his footsteps, Scislowicz will be subbing out with a relatively full cupboard.
“I was told a long time ago, leave it better than when you found it,” Scislowicz said. “Our team, we have four all-league players coming back, our catcher and pitching staff. So it’s designed for the next person to have success. And sometimes you see coaches take it to where (you say), ‘I know why he quit now.’ But people are asking me the opposite, ‘Why not one more year?’ It felt comfortable now. It was totally my decision. That’s what I really wanted to do, turn it over, and move onto the next phase of my life, per say.”
Other reasons, as they tend to be for coaches with such longevity, tie to family matters, which led Scislowicz to Rochester in the first place.
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The Bishop Foley grad (1975) was an all-state three-sport athlete, and Walt Wyniemko, the football coach there (and for a time, also at Clarkston), is someone who Scislowicz viewed as not only a father figure who kept him on the straight and narrow, but someone who was also a physical education coach that led a path that Scislowicz thought he could follow. He and Ken, Fran's brother who was his baseball coach in high school, were early inspirations. “I got the best of both worlds (with them),” he said.
After graduating from University of Detroit Mercy, Scislowicz wore all the hats at St. Hugo in Bloomfield Hills. “I taught, coached football, baseball, basketball, was the AD, drove the bus, and made $10,500," he said. "At 22 years old, to have those keys, work 60-80 hours (for that much), how good was life? I was living large (laughs)."
He stayed there for seven years until the decision was made with his wife to have her stay home as they started a family together, and the opportunity with the Rochester School District provided that in 1987. He started coaching varsity football and basketball as an assistant, and in spring of ‘88, he was approached to become varsity softball coach the week before the start of the season.
Scislowicz recalled, “I said that I’ve never coached girls or softball, and they said, ‘That’s alright, you can come in for the year and see what happens.’ The first year went OK, and I stayed 37 years. They never said the pinch-hit was over. We had a lot of success early, and I was blessed with so many talented young players.”
Before long, he was leading teams deep into the postseason. In the middle of those 300-plus wins over 23 years (1991-2014) coaching Highlanders girls basketball, he led Adams to a Final Four in 1993, then helped guide the softball team that shared over a handful of common players to the semifinals in ‘94.
"It was special," Scislowicz said of those teams. "The first five or six years, once I figured out what was going on, (the girls on those teams) are some of my closest friends now. Those girls are close to 50, and now they'll come to games, come to the dugout. We'll call, see each other. It was a special bond (with them). They were so competitive and driven.”
Later a basketball standout at Oakland and Saginaw Valley State (as well as a head coach at Lake Superior State), Jamie Pewinski played for Scislowicz as part of both those mid-90s teams that made the semis.
"I’d say both our teams probably weren't the most talented teams he ever had, but we were a really tight group with good leaders," said Pewinski, who complimented her coach's preparedness in an era before film and scouting was quite as advanced. "He led us, but he let the leaders lead, and we built off that momentum and had an awesome experience. He was big on making you a team. I think that’s why we were so successful.
She continued, "Over the years, we grow a little bit, but he's been able to really stay in touch and celebrate things you're doing in your life, and not just massive accomplishments ... He's motivating us, not as athletes anymore, but as people, which is what I think he was trying to do all along. We've taken a lot of those lessons into our career paths and have been trying to instill those into others. He's always there."
Jason Rapp arrived at Adams as a baseball coach coinciding with the same time as those aforementioned deep runs, and soon after became the athletic director there, a job he held until 2020. “Fran was one of those people you could lean on as a new AD,” Rapp said. “He was an experienced coach and someone who gave you good advice, knew how the district works and knew what to expect. He was someone I could lean on.”
He saw the progression over time of Scislowicz, who increasingly became more focused on prioritizing faith, family and academics as core values alongside the wins, which also continued to pile up – Fran picked up No. 800 in softball this spring, becoming part of an exclusive club that counts less than 25 other members in it in state history.
“Fran definitely did evolve as a coach,” Rapp said. “He was always competitive, but he gained greater perspective as the years went on. One of the most telling things in my experience was, whether he’d been doing it for 20, 25 or 30 years – now 37 years – Fran would always be looking for innovations, new ways to teach his respective sport. He’d have new fundraising ideas, new ways to communicate with the kids or involve parents. He was always trying to do his best for the program. He just wasn’t resting on his laurels. He was always trying to make the best for the kids, and he gained a greater perspective on what was important.
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“Fran’s similar to a lot of coaches Adams has had over the years in that he’s professional, highly competitive, has perspective, and just gets it … he’s been a pillar of continuity and strength for the whole department.”
Recently, Fran's son taught his grandson to say 'papa coach’ when he’d have to leave for softball games, and that feeling of not being there as his grandson – named Stanley after his older brother who was killed at a young age in a hit-and-run car accident – awoke from slumber had become increasingly more difficult.
"When it got to the degree that I wanted to be there ... God has wired a grandfather's heart (differently),” Scislowicz said. “It's an emotional part of me I never knew I had deep inside."
In May, the sunset on his last season coincided with the birth of two more grandkids, one each from his son and daughter, which truly made the retirement timing a home run for the MHSSCA Hall of Famer.
“That was a piece of the puzzle,” Scislowicz said. “It’s been a great journey and I loved every minute, but there’s a second half of the second half. Thirty-seven years isn’t a blink of an eye.”
The last question remaining: can Scislowicz, who’s been around a field since picking up a bat at age 7, stay away from the game after all this time?
Fran said there's a running gag already about a T-ball league in Ortonville for three-year-olds regarding him walking the neighborhood recruiting a team involving his grandson to coach next spring.
“It’s that little competitive edge,” Scislowicz said laughing. “I’ll probably help coach, but not recruiting.”
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