MUSKEGON TWP. - When a team is trying to turn the page after a bad season, it helps to be led by someone with a deep love for the program and a fire in his gut to go out a winner.
Someone exactly like senior Cal Millis, who is extremely passionate about Reeths-Puffer football. He made that very clear with his intense play over the past two seasons.
He got the chance to put those feelings into words over the summer, when it was time for “senior speeches” at an out-of-town team camp.
He was no more than a few seconds into his remarks when he was overcome with emotion.
“I just kind of realized, I have given everything I’ve had for this team, and it’s just crazy that’s it’s already starting to come to an end,” Millis said, explaining how he got so choked up.
R-P senior Cal Millis
His remarks brought the entire room – the coaches and the other players – to the brink of tears, according to R-P head coach Cody Kater.
“It was really touching,” Kater said. “He really kind of broke down what football means to all of us. I wish I could have recorded it for younger guys. This is what Reeths-Puffer football is all about.”
Millis doesn’t remember exactly what he said during his speech – it came straight from the heart – but if you ask him to talk about his football journey, he’s more than happy to oblige.
He talks about how he grew up in a football family, very much wanted to play before he was old enough, and ended up on an R-P youth league team a little early.
“I remember a coach snuck me in and allowed me to play,” Millis said. “I was too young, but he said I was older than I was.”
He talks about never missing a Reeths-Puffer varsity home game when he was a youngster, and dreaming of the day when he could wear the uniform. 
Millis makes a solo tackle against Byron Center last season.
“We were those kids who were always playing football on the hill (by the stadium) during the games, just waiting for our time to come,” he said.
Millis talks about his grandfather, who never missed his R-P games and the chance to support him, his brother and their teammates.
He said his grandpa was more like a father, and it hurt a lot when he passed away.
“He was just always there,” Millis said. ”We were always super close. He taught me how to tie my shoes, and how to hunt and fish. He loved football, and he loved to watch me and my brother do our best. It really hurt to look up from the sideline and not see him there.
“He’s the reason I suit up - for my grandpa, and for my mom.”
He talks about how most of his closest friends are the teammates he met on his way up through the R-P program, and how much he’s loved working and competing with them all these years.
Millis displays his emotions on defense last year.
“There’s nothing anybody can do to me or say to me that could break the bond that I have with my football brothers,” Millis said.
He talks about the positive influence that Kater, and assistant coaches like Gary Niklasch and Paul Siembida, have had on his life.
“They have helped me through a lot and helped me grow a lot,” he said. “When I was a freshman I was kind of a knucklehead. I didn’t take a lot of things very seriously, but they helped me become a young man.”
Now, with his final season kicking off on Thursday night when the Rockets host Forest Hills Central, Millis talks about how much it means to be part of something bigger than himself, and how that motivates him to push even harder for the good of the team.
“R-P football has given me purpose, knowing we can all band together and go fight for one goal,” he said. “There is no other place I would rather be.”
Pulling double duty
As it turns out, Millis will get to spend almost every moment of his senior season right in the middle of the action, because he has suddenly become a two-way player.
For the past two years he was mostly on defense, playing linebacker in the footsteps of his older brother, Caiden Bolduc, a former All-State linebacker for the Rockets.
He got to play one season of varsity with his brother, when he was a sophomore. Last year he developed into a standout in his own right and earned All-Conference honors as a junior.
Now he’s about to add the duty of starting running back, a job that opened up when Bryce Muskovin, last year’s starter, transferred to another school.
It’s a role he’s familiar with, because he was a running back through all of his years of football, until he was called up to varsity as a sophomore.
Millis finds running room during a preseason scrimmage.
All-Stater Brody Johnson was the running back at the time, and Muskovin was there last year, but now Millis has the chance to return to a role he always loved.
“I was a running back my whole life,” he said. “In my eighth grade year I would just run downhill, get three yards every time until we scored, and we would just win games by beating the clock. It was the same when I played JV. Then I was called up in my sophomore year, and there was Brody Johnson, so offense stopped being a thing for me.”
Millis loves the idea of playing both offense and defense, because he wants to impact games as much as possible.
“I can have a bigger influence over what happens,” he said. “It’s my last year of high school football, and I don’t want to let anybody down. It’s a big year for me.”
Millis got his first live action as a varsity running back last week at Holland West Ottawa, when the Rockets scrimmaged several teams.
Millis gets ready to run over a would-be tackler.
He said he clicked right away with R-P’s offensive linemen, who are all old friends. Most of the linemen, like Millis, are new to their positions at the varsity level, but he said nobody watching would have guessed that.
“We did really good,” Millis said. “Our line was pancaking people darn near every play, and every time I got the ball it took five people to take me down. It felt like home. I love offense.”
Millis is taking his new responsibilities very seriously, and plans to run the ball with every ounce of energy in his body.
“Back when Brody Johnson ran the ball, nothing was going to stop him, because he cared about his teammates,” he said. “I feel the same way about this group, and I’m not going to let anybody get in my way.”
'We’re just going to have to show everybody'
Millis, a team co-captain this year, gets a little angry when he talks about last season, when the Rockets posted a disappointing 2-7 record after two straight playoff seasons.
He thinks the team lacked player leadership, discipline, cohesion, and the willingness to work hard enough in practice to win on Friday nights.
“It was horrible,” Millis said. “Nobody was on the same page. I remember that Forest Hills Northern game, which we had to win to even have a chance for the playoffs, then we had guys going and getting into fights with their players, knowing they would get a 15-yard penalty.
“It sucked losing. I have never experienced something like that after working so hard.”
Millis celebrates a tackle against Grand Rapids Union.
Millis takes exception when someone suggests that the Rockets will struggle again this season.
“What really makes me mad is that some people from our own school think we’re not going to win,” he said. “I was at a soccer game, and somebody said that we were going to be 2-7 again, at best. I just walked away. That stuff just hurts. They have no idea what we went through this summer to get ready. We’re just going to have to show everybody.”
Millis said the Rockets have worked extremely hard through a series of tough summer camps, including a brand new one right at the high school.
The players slept on mattresses in classrooms for several days, were not allowed to have cell phones, and had a grueling schedule that started around 6 a.m., included a long series of rotating practices and meetings, and ended around 11 p.m.
Millis breaks away from an ankle tackle.
He said there were even a few surprise workouts, when the coaches woke the players around 3 a.m. and told them to hit the field.
The entire team embraced that kind of work, far more than last year, according to Millis.
“It’s like night and day,” he said. “Everyone has worked so hard. I am so proud of all these guys for going through everything we’ve been through. We do what we have to do to make it so we can win. We’re all focused on the same goal. I can be working my butt off in practice, and the person next to me will be pushing me to work even harder.”
He said his teammates have the kind of toughness it will take to get through a challenging schedule. He mentioned a fellow senior, offensive linemen Gus Pulos-Siegel, who had a painful finger injury during the recent scrimmage, but didn’t let that slow him down.
“I looked down and his finger was just gushing blood, but he just kept on going,” Millis said. “He was still pancaking people and throwing them around. That’s a leader. That’s the type of guy I want on my team.
“We’re going to go out and show how tough and determined we are. We are going to show everyone that we’re nothing like what we were last year. We’re going to show (other teams) that we’re going to punch them in the mouth for four quarters and there’s nothing they can do about it.
“We’re excited to get going. We’ve been waiting.”