Jim Shinn
2023 Sandra Sagear Wall of Courage Honoree
It felt like Jim Shinn and I had always been friends. We grew up on Ann Street. We spent our free time building and painting model cars and trucks. There were shelves and shelves of trucks. We rode our bikes around town, stopped at D & C, had paper drives, grabbing some food in Old Village. Mr. Shinn, Jim’s dad, drove us the Denski Dump. What a great place. Plymouth was a great place to grow up and a great place to make friends.
Jim was a diver, on the Plymouth High School swim team. Part of his training was on the trampoline. In March after school of his senior year, he had an accident on the trampoline. He jumped and fell on his neck. We were still friends and was there to help him when he needed.
We were still friends and I was there to help when needed, as were other friends.
Jim faced obstacles that I can’t imagine. He preserved and he did things his way. There were changes he couldn’t have anticipated, but he would tackle every obstacle. Wheelchairs and special ramps. Denny’s Service adapted a van for him.
In 1973, his career began coaching Salem boys and girls divers. The Michigan Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association inducted Jim into its Hall of Fame in 1991.
With adaptive equipment and drive, he added “Artist: to his resume. His work was amazing and so was he.
Jim was independent, but he knew that he needed daily assistance, … and he took it. He had to be lifted, but he had to trust. The more he trusted.
Jim and I were always friends and he is still with me.
Submitted by Mark La Pointe, Jim’s friend
Drawing by Jim Shinn
Submitted by Martha Shinn, Jim’s sister
Drawing by Jim Shinn
Submitted by Martha Shinn, Jim’s sister
Submitted by Martha Shinn, Jim’s sister
Jim, you will be missed.
You were an incredible man of character. While you accomplished much in life, it was your heart full of kindness that was appreciated most. You never offered an unkind word. Your patience was beyond compare. And, your inspiration struck a chord in the hearts of those who hungered for an example of hope.
Thank you Jim for your example of a positive outlook under the most trying of circumstances along with your grace, kindness, and most of all your faith and love for others. You touched the lives of many simply because they saw you smile when you said ‘howdy’ as you rolled on by.
It is awesome to know that you are now free of the chair – that’s gotta feel great! When I was younger, the chair seemed so heavy and limiting. As time passed, and your adventures expanded, that same chair became your ticket to greater levels of independence and adventurous wanderings which, of course, brought more worries for mom.
Until we meet again, we will all miss you, your yellow chair and those obnoxiously overly bright t-shirts rolling down the streets of Plymouth. Yes, you indeed, will be missed.
As for me, Cheers to my big brother Jim! The race is done. Enjoy eternity! May the Lord richly bless you for a job well done. In the meantime, I’ll think of you daily and remember the many lessons in life that you taught me. Mostly by quiet examples of courage and patience. Thank you for being a wonderful role model.
On another note, cheers too, to anyone who offered Jim a helping hand when needed over the years. You made a person’s life much easier with even the simplest acts of kindness. Thank-you to all.
Finally, and most importantly, our gratitude to our Lord Jesus Christ. We are tremendously grateful for Jim’s peaceful departure, ultimate destination and meeting you. Thank you for answering Jim’s prayer, and ours too, for peace. Thank-you for mercy.
Jim, it is time now to wish you a very good night. I love you.
Submitted by Tom Shinn
MISCA Hall of Fame coach Shinn was friend, mentor
Tim Smith
Hometownlife
Jim Shinn labored to breathe in his final days, but friends always lit the spark of life in him. Not even 46 years confined to a wheelchair after a horrible trampoline accident during his senior year at original Plymouth High School snuffed out the longtime diving coach’s love of people. Consider lifelong friend Mark LaPointe, who grew up with Shinn on Ann Street in Plymouth during the 1950s and 1960s and maintained a warm connection through the ensuing decades
Just a few days before the 63-year-old Shinn passed away April 7 from respiratory complications, LaPointe visited his old buddy and took a lunch order. “Jim was always nostalgic about Plymouth,” said LaPointe, the longtime Central Middle School coach and gym teacher. “He used to love to go to Daly’s Drive-In. … Jim loved the Daly burger, onion rings and a cherry Coke.”
LaPointe brought the lunch to Shinn’s home (which he shared with devoted caregiver and companion, Annette Kraus) and the former teammates on the informal “Ann Street Lions” neighborhood football team chowed down and reminisced. “He stayed the same, even though he knew his time on this earth was short,” said LaPointe, adding that Shinn was permitted to leave St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor last month in order to live out his remaining days under the watch of Livonia-based Angela Hospice. “He had a lot of complications because of the fact he was so long as a quad and things start to break down.
“Essentially, he passed away due to respiratory complications. He couldn’t breathe.”
What a legacy
LaPointe also lifted Shinn’s spirits by unfurling a blue-and-white banner — introducing what will be the Jim Shinn Diving Well at Salem High School. Later this year, the banner will be placed on a wall inside the school’s natatorium.“He knew about the banner and that we were going to name the diving well, and finally he was able to see the banner,” LaPointe said. “We took it to the house when he got home, opened it up and showed it to him. He showed some emotion, and Jim never did show a lot of emotion outwardly.
“He got a little choked up when he saw it. After I left, he said to Annette ‘That’s fantastic that somebody would do that for me.’” Once that is unveiled, Shinn’s undeniable and indelible legacy will be there for all to take in. For starters, he was a state qualifier in diving in 1968-69 and 1969-70 for the old Plymouth Rocks. His coaching career at then-new Salem began in 1973 and continued until he retired in 2008; he guided boys and girls’ divers from 1975-08 on head coach Chuck Olson’s teams.
The Michigan Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association inducted Shinn into its Hall of Fame in 1991, an honor noted on the new banner. “He just had a good rapport with the divers,” Olson said. “He cared a lot about making them better. He certainly meant a lot to both the girls and boys swim teams for a long period of time.” Among Shinn’s diving students was Joe Rudelic, a 1982 Salem graduate and school record holder in diving. He credited Shinn’s ability to teach and communicate for his own growth in the sport after learning it from scratch as a ninth grader.
Great communicator
Despite Shinn being in a wheelchair, coaching tips and advice always hit the mark with Salem divers such as Rudelic.“You really didn’t even notice that,” Rudelic said. “It was a very strange thing, … but you knew with his experience and his history being a diver himself that he was somebody you could trust. “Once you started talking to him, and just the way he could explain things was probably better than a lot of people who weren’t confined to a chair. … He could sit there and describe to you verbally, he could use his arms and talk about reaching. But to get you to understand what he was trying to transfer in terms of information and guidance, he was able to do that very well.”
Rudelic added that Shinn was a “mentor” more than a coach. “You could talk to him about anything,” Rudelic stressed. “Whether it was diving, whether it was little things happening in your life. You could sit there and talk to him and you’d get an honest opinion.”
What Rudelic said he learned from his high school days was how to maintain an even keel. “One of the biggest things I learned from him was don’t let yourself get too high on the good things, don’t let yourself get low when things don’t work out the way you want to.”
Beating the odds
Starting on March 26, 1970, Shinn had every reason to shut everybody and everything out of his life. Of course, he didn’t. LaPointe last week described the events of that fateful day, when the high school senior slipped on a trampoline and broke his neck.
“It was a Thursday, the day before Good Friday,” LaPointe said. “He was working out after school, in the gym on a trampoline. He was a senior, he had just finished his high school season. The class of ’70. “… He was really working very hard, that was Jim’s M.O. He was just a hard worker.”
Even though the season was over, Shinn wanted to perfect a 2 1/2 somersault. He was sweaty and his legs wet as he attempted to “throw hard and tuck. He slipped on his legs and opened up early and came down on his neck.” Following the accident, doctors told Shinn’s parents and siblings (Tom, John and Martha) they didn’t think he would survive the night.Shinn beat those long odds and continued doing so for just over 46 years.
Many interests
Positive attitude, love of others and Kraus’ friendship had a lot to do with that unexpected longevity. “He was just such a good person that people naturally gravitated to him,” LaPointe said. “His divers loved him.” Rudelic recalled that Shinn “loved to coach but I think he just really liked people. He was a pretty darn good artist too, he used to do some pen and ink drawings.”
Art was just one of several hobbies that helped Shinn stay as active as he could. Some of those interests actually began during childhood.When he was a youngster growing up on Ann Street, he and LaPointe used to play with toy trucks and cars — and often built build AMT Model Cars, entering contests held at Jerry’s Shoe and Hobby Shop in town.
“Jim was a truck nut, a toy nut,” LaPointe noted. “When I walked down the street and met him for the first time, he was playing in the back yard in kind of a sand box thing. Playing with trucks.“I loved trucks and cars and brought my trucks down. A relationship was formed. I’ve known him for 57 years.”
Always strong
That friendship really never wavered, although it was interrupted for a few years when LaPointe went to Ferris State University to play football. Just as near and dear to Shinn’s heart was nature. He and Kraus enjoyed regular trips to Kensington Metropark in recent years.
“He used to sit in his wheelchair at Kensington and chickadees would alight on him,” LaPointe said. “They would just come and fly and sit on his arm, sit on his shoulders. That’s the kind of person he was.” Meanwhile, LaPointe has one more thing he’d like to do to honor his old friend — nominate Shinn for Salem’s new hall of fame which had its first induction class earlier this year.
“He didn’t even know about it and nobody talked to him about it,” LaPointe emphasized. “My intention is to nominate him in the fall, when they open up the nominations for the second class.“He should go in, because he’s a hall of fame coach. He coached for 34 years. He’s a quadriplegic and he coached diving, very successfully. How do you not put somebody like that in?”
Submitted by Rene Litalian, Jim’s friend
Submitted by Rene Litalian, Jim’s friend
THE SHINN FILE
Hometown Life
Who: Jim Shinn, 63, passed away April 7. He was a state qualifier at original Plymouth High School in diving and went on to coach boys and girls diving at Salem High School for more than three decades.
Honors: Shinn is a 1991 inductee of the Michigan Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Later this year, at Salem, the pool’s diving well will be named in his honor.
Family ties: His siblings are Tom (Sandy), John (Donna) and Martha Shinn. The Shinns grew up on Ann Street in Plymouth; at the time of his death, Jim shared a home in Plymouth with his friend and caregiver Annette Kraus.
Memorial: Visitation is 1-7 p.m. Saturday at Vermeulen-Sajewski Funeral Home, 46401 W. Ann Arbor Road in Plymouth. A memorial service will begin at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Submitted by Rene Litalian, Jim’s friend
Submitted by Rene Litalian, Jim’s friend