Winning Ways
Tom Saylor is no stranger to setting records
Who says the coronavirus era made us all a little crazy? Not the hundreds of people who lined up at 4:15 in the morning in May 2022 at Tom’s Donuts Original, located in Angola, Indiana—the self-styled “Donut Capital of the World.” Cabin fever or not, it just made sense to join the community and help set a world record: 8,558 fresh doughnuts sold in eight hours, as recognized by Guinness World Records.
For Tom Saylor (BS64), founder of the 53-year-old business, setting records and celebrating community is just a way of life. Many of the locals waiting for the Lake James Chocolate Fudge Bavarian Crème or the classic Sprinkled Yeast Ring remember Tom as a former high school football coach who once held the national record for the longest consecutive win streak.
Doughnuts and football have been part of Tom’s story from the start.
Tom Saylor (BS64) has set records in the world of sports and business.
Discovering his career path
Tom first found his place through high school sports, earning 16 varsity letters during four years at Deerfield High School in rural southern Michigan. Tom’s mentors, especially basketball coach Dave Hinkle, provided discipline and structure. Hinkle took Tom and other members of the team under his wing, even employing them in his doughnut business each summer.
“I loved it,” Tom says of making and selling doughnuts with Hinkle and his teammates. In addition to bonding with his peers and developing a sense of discipline and purpose, “It was creative. I wasn’t a good student, but this felt like something I was good at.”
Although Tom didn’t yet realize that doughnuts would be a long-term part of his life, the time spent with Hinkle and Deerfield football coach Pat Connors solidified his career path in athletics.
“[Hinkle and Connors] seemed to be the greatest people in the world, and I wanted to be like them,” Tom says. But it was more than mere hero worship. “I was born to be a coach, a leader.”
After earning his degree in physical education from Eastern, Tom landed his first job with some help from Hinkle: teaching and coaching middle school football in Hudson, Michigan. After going undefeated, Tom moved up with his team to coach at the junior varsity level.
In the summer of 1966, Hudson’s head varsity coach got sick just before the season opener. With no time for a broad coaching search, the athletic director asked for volunteers. Tom was the only one who raised a hand. The football team was important to Hudson’s identity, and the tradition ran deep.
“Everyone knew that a lot of stress came with that job,” Tom says. “You MUST turn out a good team. You MUST win.”
In 25 seasons as a high school football coach, Saylor compiled a 174-54-1 record.
Setting records—nationally and internationally
In Tom’s first two seasons, the Hudson Tigers went 5-2-1 and 8-1. When the team lost its first game of the 1968 campaign, Tom threatened to bench his upperclassmen in favor of the sophomores who were working harder. The threat worked—the team started winning and didn’t stop for a long time.
From 1968 to 1975, the Tigers won 72 straight games, which was a national record for 22 years and is still the state record. After Hudson lost to Ishpeming in the 1975 state title game, Tom admits to having a sense of relief: “It was an out-of-control merry-go-round, and we couldn’t get off.”
Throughout this magical football run, Tom spent his summers making doughnuts, first with Hinkle at nearby Devils Lake. In 1970, he bought Hinkle’s other business—a doughnut trailer set between two lakes near Angola. Tom’s Donuts was born.
Now it was Tom’s turn to become the coach-mentor, bringing players from his team along to start their summer days by making doughnuts at 4 a.m. They’d return in the afternoon to make more. The business thrived thanks to a great location, delicious doughnuts, and the increasing fame of its owner.
In 1977, Tom left Hudson to become the head coach at Angola High School, allowing him to be closer to his business and to finally jump off the Hudson football merry-go-round.
“The streak was over,” Tom says. “Everything else I did would be compared to it, and anything less would be disappointing.”
He continued his winning ways at Angola, becoming its all-time winningest coach with a 71-49 record over nine seasons. At the same time, he grew Tom’s Donuts from a seasonal lakeside trailer into a year-round enterprise with multiple locations and merchandise.
At 81, Tom is now retired from coaching and doughnuts. His sons Todd and Shane lead Tom’s Donuts Original and were the driving force behind the Guinness World Record. (Todd, who is also an author and motivational speaker, is making a film about his father’s story.) But since Tom lives just a mile from the original store, he often pops in to chat with his legion of doughnut and football devotees.
After Tom retired from the doughnut business, his sons Shane and Todd (right) took over daily operations.
Tom remains grateful to those who took a chance on him early on, including Eastern Michigan University, and recalls a letter that President Eugene Elliott sent him after a semester of low grades.
“He said, ‘Saylor, row your boat harder. You’ll come back, but you’ve got to get your grades up.’ So I did.”
Tom never played varsity sports at Eastern. But he thrived on intramural competition in everything from horseshoes to ping-pong while serving as president of Sigma Tau Gamma.
“Eastern Michigan University means a lot to me,” he says. “They stuck with me, and my time there remains very special.”
By Amy Spooner
Photos by Cara Jones