2024 Ludington Gus Macker Successful

[XLFD]

Since the last millennium, Gus Macker has been a June staple event in Ludington, engulfing not only Father's Day but also Stearns Beach and the southern part of Northern Lakeshore that borders it.  This year there was a big difference in the event as it went from being effectively ran by the local chamber of commerce to a consortium of local businesses headlined by West Shore Bank, WMOM, and Dr. Andrew Riemer.  The Ludington Torch was able to find time to visit the event over the weekend before it was efficiently dismantled, and we heard some reviews, made some observations. 

Our snapshots could be way off, but it looked as if the transition was mostly seamless, and parts of the event seems to have improved.  The easiest one for us to catch was the detour for M116 (Lakeshore Drive) used for this year.  In the past the detour was poorly situated on North Rath Avenue up to Tinkham and then west to M116.  This unnecessarily sent traffic into conflict with pedestrians using Oriole Field as a place to park, making getting to the event and back its own hazard.

This year, they wisely set the detour all the way back to Washington Street (as seen above).  The chamber in the past was likely swayed by downtown businesses who wanted people to drive through and be swayed into noticing their storefront for potential commerce in their favor.  While reasonable, it did add a lot of additional problems for the people looking to get to M116 destinations the safest and quickest way, so they could make it back later to shop downtown.  

That better way was exemplified by using Washington and taking traffic all the way down to Bryant (as we see above).  Had the construction on West Tinkham not still been underway this year, they may have resorted to the old detour and have conflict with foot traffic and vehicle parking on Rath Avenue, especially on Saturday when all the 700+ five-person teams are still all in contention.   Future Ludington Gus Macker Tournaments should continue to utilize this route for a detour.

As usual, a June storm rolled in on at least one of the days for Macker and added additional complications, but overall, the Macker seems to have dealt with all of the logistical and liaison issues that came up and delivered a product that was as good as, if not better, than the old brand.  And while one would expect friction between sponsors and the various egos involved, any that occurred did not detract from the overall experience, and hopefully will not dissuade them from trying this again in the future if they determine the effort still has merit and that they can maintain or improve on their standards.

A tip of the top hat for this year's Gus Macker Tournament in Ludington.  Please feel free to add your opinion of how it went if you were part of it and whether you have an assist or a different bounce of the ball on what happened downcourt.

[Willy]

I have never cared for the Macker week madness but I do like the idea of routing traffic to Bryant. It does seem to be the obviously safest and easiest route. I also think that switching the date was a very good idea. Now that Caitlin Clark has become an WMBA star I would expect to see an increase in girls teams. She may be the best thing for the sport that has come along since women took up the game. It's sad that many of the WNBA players have treated her so badly. She actually reminds me of Larry Bird.

[XLFD]

Ludington's "June Madness" generally doesn't affect me as I live far enough away from the action, and I often do not see any noticeable difference in firewood sales on Macker weekend than other summer weekends (it is usually one of the worst weekends for sales over the course of the summer for me).  Nevertheless, and even though I am not a big fan of Dr. Riemer or Chris from WMOM, I have received enough firsthand reports and observations to indicate that they did a good job on this Macker, cleaning up a lot of the excesses that we saw back when the chamber of commerce and the city invested a lot of money and energy into it.  Showing again that privately ran events like this can be run better and earn a profit in the process for those taking the risk.  I am more supportive of Macker ran like this than I have ever been before.