Par for the Course

Michael and Debbie Onushco take a big swing at scholarships for Washburn students

(from left to right) Jim Wempe, ba ’74, Ronnie McHenry, bba ’17, Michael Onushco, ba ’74 and Jim Yadon, bba ’77 at the Topeka Country Club. Photo by Jeremy Wangler

From Bell Tower - 2023
By Brad Porter

Michael Onushco, ba ’74, has made a profession out of recreation.

Raised in a Bowling Center and on the Golf Course

His father, a single parent, was a civilian engineer for the United State Air Force whose job took him to Louisiana, Kansas (where Michael was born), Florida, and Georgia. While his father’s job took them places, it was his passion for recreation that really made an impression on young Michael. It was a rare weekend when you wouldn’t find Michael’s father on the golf course or at the bowling lanes, and always, young Michael was in tow.

“It was a great way to grow up,” Onushco remembered. And Michael picked up a thing or two along the way – by the time he was in middle school, he was competing in junior golf tournaments and even won a state bowling championship.

His father was reposted back to Forbes Field and Topeka in 1967, and Michael became a student at Washburn Rural, where he was a three-year letterer in golf, and in 1970 qualified as the Kansas representative to the All-America Youth Bowling Championship in Washington, D.C. (he finished 6th). For college, he chose the University of Houston, a Division I golf powerhouse. However, once he got there he realized fairly quickly that his playing options would be a bit more limited at the #1 golf school in the country than they had been at Washburn Rural.

“I went and talked with their golf coach, who was nice enough, but it became very apparent that my chances of getting on the team were slim to none,” Onushco recalled. He did qualify and bowl for the University of Houston bowling team, but still, he missed being a part of a golf team.

His first summer back from college, Onushco scratched his golf itch by competing in the 1971 Topeka match play city championship, finishing second. That caught the attention of legendary coach and member of the Washburn Athletics Hall of Fame Glen Cafer. A year later, Cafer ran into Onushco again, this time while he was taking golf as a summer course for PE credits at Washburn. That’s when Cafer started pitching him on coming back to Topeka permanently.

“Coach Cafer told me if I came to Washburn, there would be a scholarship and a spot on the team for me,” Onushco recalled. “So, that’s what I did. I’ll always be grateful to Coach Cafer for seeing something in me and changing the course of my life.”

During Onushco’s time, the golf team had success in regional and conference tournaments and placed fourth in the NAIA national championship in 1974.

“I had a phenomenal experience at Washburn and my time there really helped shape me and learn how to navigate through life,” Onushco noted.

Bowling, Awards and Imaging Technology

Onushco’s father had semi-retired to Florida by then, so after graduation, in 1975 Michael and father bought into a bowling center together, the Port Charlotte Bowlerama. Michael also began teaching a bowling class at the local community college, where he met and married his wife Debbie. But it was a small facet of their work at the bowling center that became a big deal.

There’s a certain amount of paraphernalia that comes along with bowling, like trophies. So, in 1976, Michael and Debbie began a small engraving and awards business. They did so at a pivotal time; in the late 70s and 80s, the world of computing, imaging, and printing exploded, with new technologies coming along faster than most people could learn them. Michael and Debbie’s growing expertise made them increasingly in demand. Their awards business morphed into becoming a wholesale sublimation supplier, and by the time the 90s rolled around, the Onushcos had become leading experts in the industry. They were chosen in 1996 as one of the first four inkjet sublimation distributors in the nation, and spun out a company, ACP Technologies, to handle all the demand. Michael was giving digital technology seminars for the awards industry, and Debbie was becoming quite an organizer and accountant for their booming business.

“We got to be in on the ground floor of so many things, in terms of new technologies, making connections all around the world and being early adopters in these neat, burgeoning industries,” Debbie reflected. “It’s been a great ride.”

Giving Back to the Blue on the Green

Recently, Michael and Debbie started winding down some of those business holdings and doing estate planning – though they never had children, their wide and varied careers left them with a lot of assets to sort through. After making sure their families were taken care of, they were left to decide what to do with the remainder. It was Debbie who picked up some mail Michael had received from Washburn Athletics and, thinking of the key crossroads that Coach Cafer’s offer had been for Michael’s life, said to him “what about leaving something to Washburn golf?”

They became taken with the idea, worked with their attorney on their estate plans, and eventually contacted Washburn out of the blue to let them know that they would be leaving a multi-million-dollar gift to fund scholarships for Washburn Rural High School students attending Washburn, and up to five substantial scholarships for players on the Ichabod golf team.

“The scholarship and support Coach Cafer gave me changed my life,” reflected Michael. “Now that I’m in a position to do so, I want to change someone else’s life in that same way. I am thrilled to do it.”

Only one thing left to do, then. Go golfing!

Homecoming

“Once a Washburn golfer, always a Washburn golfer,” is how Coach Ronnie McHenry, bba ’17, puts it. “When I’m talking to potential players, one thing I talk about is how golf is a lifelong sport; joining the team, you’re really joining a brotherhood forever.”

As if to highlight that point, this September three of the five members of the 1974 Washburn golf team were back in town – Michael Onushco, Jim Wempe, ba ’74, and Jim Yadon, bba ’77 – and they asked McHenry to join them for some rounds. This was a homecoming of sorts for the Onushcos – Michael had not been back since he graduated in 1974, and Debbie had never been to Topeka at all. So they toured campus and took a walk down memory lane. The next day, Michael met up with his old college teammates at the Topeka Country Club to play a few rounds with Coach McHenry.

As they played, they talked about the kinds of things you talk about when you’re golfing with old friends: their memories of their years together, the facilities and support golfers have available to them today versus back then, the impact their time at Washburn had on their lives, the success Coach McHenry was eager to build on in his second year, and the lifelong fraternity of sport and recreation. And, McHenry was able to thank Michael personally for the scholarships he and Debbie would leave behind.

“Scholarships are far and away the most important recruiting tool we have,” McHenry said. “And Mr. Onushco is such a great example of what I tell recruits all the time: it’s more than a sport, it’s a family. And you’ll be a part of that Washburn golf family for the rest of your life.”