All-Stars shine, sign

The Michigan High School Football Coaches Association released its All-Star roster last month, and gridders form the C & G Newspapers’ coverage area dominated the East roster.

Of the East’s 44 players from Macomb, Oakland, Wayne, Monroe, St. Clair, Lapeer, Sanilac, Huron and Tuscola counties, 16 are from schools in our coverage area.

The July 11 game at Spartan Stadium will be the last time for fans to catch these players in a high school game before they make good on their Feb. 4 National Letters of Intent signing ceremonies and kick off their college careers.

The Macomb Area Conferences alone had seven players garner spots.

Red Division co-MVP Mike Laamanen, who signed with Wayne State University, was tabbed as a defensive lineman, linebackers Dan Sawicki (Clinton Township Clintondale), Kurtis Showers (Madison Heights Madison) and defensive back KyeRell Williams (Clinton Township Chippewa Valley) will accompany him.

Offensively, Utica Eisenhower’s Tyler Copacia, who signed a letter with Grand Valley State, was named one of two quarterbacks, along with Taylor Truman’s Ryan Hargraves.

Copacia and Hargraves will have Chad Allemon (Marine City High) at receiver and Warren Fitzgerald’s C. J. Carroll, an All-County 215-pound wrestler, at fullback.

Lake Orion’s Tyler Benson and Beverly Hills Detroit Country Day’s Tim McLean, both of whom led the blocking for their state runner-up rushing attacks, will serve as the centers for the East.

Rochester Adams’ Cody Wilson, another Central Michigan commitment, will be a defensive back for the East.

The Oakland Activities Association will handle all the East’s kicking duties and bring its total of players in the game to four, with Troy’s Kevin Muma, a Michigan State University commit, placekicking and Rochester Stoney Creek’s Eric Fisher, a 6-foot-7-inch, 243-pound lineman prospect who signed with Central Michigan, punting.

Including MacLean, private schools from our area accounted for six spots on the East roaster.

Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Gabe Charette will be on the defensive line, while Birmingham Brother Rice’s Zach Cherocci will play guard on the same offensive line as Warren De La Salle tight end Dan Sorgi.

Adding electricity to the East backfield are Royal Oak Shrine Catholic’s Anthony Cade and future Central Michigan back Zurlon Tipton of Sterling Heights Parkway Christian.

A couple notable names absent from this year’s All-Star rosters were Ohio State recruit Reid Fragel (Grosse Pointe South) and Holland Christian quarterback A. J. Westendorp.

What’s interesting about the omission of Westendorp and Fragel is that teams are allowed at most one representative in the game, but neither South nor Holland Christian had a player named to the rosters.

There could be any number of very sound reasons these two are not part of the game, and I'm not trying to place blame on anyone, but they will be missed

Fragel would have offered flexibility to the East squad with his ability to play tight end, offensive tackle or defensive end.

Westendorp would have given the game a boost of star power with the kind of athleticism that saw him lead his prep team to a Division 4 state title while rewriting the offensive record books for the title game before committing to Central Michigan.

Among royalty

Hopefully those in the real wrestling community will allow me a quick foray into the world of make believe.

I was able to attend he WWE's Royal Rumble Jan. 25 at Joe Louis Arena, and there might be no spectacle that brings the same type of entertainment as professional "wrestling."

It's not just how huge the mountains of humanity they call "superstars" are in real life, it's more the way in which these Yetis interact with the crowds. The way the WWE faithful are part of the show with their signs and chants is something you have to see to believe. Their addition to the festivities is just as much a fixture as folding chairs and exposed turnbuckles in a no disqualification match.

A couple of my personal highlights were the way John Cena and Rob Van Dam of Battle Creek galvanized the crowd.

With simultaneous chants for and against the WWE Champion, Cena is a one-man European soccer match. And when RVD came down the ramp to join the Rumble, the local boy's ovation was as great, if not greater, than any superstar this side of the Undertaker.

So while moonsaults from atop ladders through tables may not require quite the same technical expertise as a cradle into a pin, can there really be that much wrong with anything that can bring as much excitement and joy to a city like Detroit as did the WWE.

Just can't stay away

Few things have made me feel as old as when I walked into De La Salle's gym and saw 2008 Warren Woods Tower grad Kyle Lowry working as a coach with the Pilots.

Then I walked into St. Clair Shores Lakeview Jan. 21 and coach Steve Nicholl told me he had two new assistants, Mike Hissong and Jake Fisher.

It took me a minute to remember why the name Jake Fisher was familiar, but soon enough I realized Jake Fisher was Jacob Fisher, the Huskies' 2005-06 Division 2 145-pound state runner-up that I had covered.

Aside from high school athletes that I covered that are now coaches making me feel every one of my 29 years, they show one of the main reasons I enjoy covering wrestling — commitment.

Unlike any other sport, wrestling brings people together who must be of a like, and sometimes skewed, mind.

These folks enjoy literally taking beatings and call it practice. As the Warren Mott team Web site boasts, "Does your sport have blood time?"

Aside from all the perceived oddities that those outside the wrestling world see, those in it see something bigger than themselves and greater then the tough times that come with losing and the rigors of things like cutting weight.

As Warren Woods Tower coach Greg Mayer said of grapplers like Lowry, "Those guys eat, breath and sleep wrestling, and it's why Fisher admitted that even if he wasn't a paid assistant on the Huskies' staff, he would have been in the practice room anyway.

Guys like Lowry and Fisher returned to the sport so soon after their graduation because it means so much to them, and even though it makes me feel old, I'm glad they're doing it and helping to introduce a new generation to a sport they just can't stay away from.

New kids on the mat

Local wrestling teams would be well served to take notice of a brewing storm on Common Road in Warren.

The Warren De La Salle wrestling team, in its fourth season of existence after coach Dennis Parks started the team in 2005-06, has all the makings of what could be a major player in Macomb County.

Much like Pilots football coach Paul Verska changed the face of metro Detroit prep football when he turned the De La Salle gridiron program around, Parks seems poised to make a splash in the wrestling world.

He only has one grappler, junior 130-pounder Adam Masakowski, on his roster that had mat experience before stepping into the Pilots' wrestling room, but his team has already taken home the 2008-09 Warren City Championships and placed second in two other tournaments this year.

Because Parks pulled his team out of the county meet Dec. 20 because of a conflict with De La Salle's final exams schedule, no one will know how the Pilots measure up to the top teams in Macomb County until the Michigan High School Athletic Association team and individual district tournaments Feb. 18 and Feb. 21, respectively, but if the way wrestlers like senior 215-pounder Padriac Berlin attacks opponents is any indication, the Pilots could pull off a number of perceived upsets in districts and possibly regional tournaments.

Parks has enlisted the help of recent Warren Woods Tower grad Kyle Lowry as an assistant coach, a move that could be very shrewd.

As the Pilots fight to prove themselves in a crowded wrestling county, they could be very comparable to the Tower teams on which Lowry, his twin brother, Kenny, and current Old Dominion grappler and two-time state runner-up Brennan Brumley starred.

After all, just as coach Greg Mayer and former coach Pat Threet built the Titans from also-rans to regional champs, Parks has already built the Pilots from never-weres to city champions.

Killer crossovers

Week six on the Macomb Area Conference football slate is a pretty good one, with games like 4-1 Macomb Dakota traveling to 5-0 Grosse Pointe North; Warren Cousino getting reacquainted with former MAC White rival and current MAC Red leader Romeo High; and the MAC's surprise team of the season, Warren Mott, at Clinton Township Chippewa Valley's homecoming.

Week six has rivalries like Madison Heights Lamphere taking on Madison Heights Madison and St. Clair Shores Lake Shore facing St. Clair Shores South Lake. The only people who could complain are sports reporters who have to pick just one game to be at (I chose the North/Dakota showdown).

What's the cause of this excitement — crossovers.

With the MAC switching from a five-division league to six in 2008, it created four weeks for crossover games.

It's not just week six, either. With all six league titles decided heading into the final week of the regular season, week nine could make week six look boring.

In week nine, Utica Stevenson travels to Mott in a possible postseason preview. Chippewa Valley hosts Cousino — one or both teams could be fighting for a playoff berth. Roseville and Eastpointe East Detroit end their year with one of the Eastside's most underrated rivalries. Center Line High hosts Warren Lincoln, and former Macomb Oakland Athletic Conference and Oakland Activities Association foes Madison High and Clawson High meet for the first time since 2003.

Speaking of the OAA, why would a league want to miss out on all this crossover fun?

With the OAA's current format of two eight-team divisions and one nine-team division, the teams lucky enough to be in the OAA Red and White get two crossovers, and those in the Blue have their league schedule account for eight of nine regular-season games.

To say nothing of fan interest, these schedules have teams starting their league play in week one, giving them no time to get rosters in order or account for any of the many inevitable early season roadblocks before competing for a league title.

I propose the OAA follow the MAC's lead (they've already switched from numbered divisions to colors) and move to five, five-team divisions. With five crossovers, the OAA could open it's league slate in week three, have an open date in the middle of the season for rivalries or other crossovers, and still have their final two weeks open for rivalries — games with champions playing other champs in a format like the Catholic League's Prep Bowl. Maybe they could go completely outside the league and play against corresponding champs from a rival league that may or may not have most of its constituency east of Dequindre.

Also, aligning a five-of-five format could take into account any number of factors, be they competitive balance or geography.

Here are two of a great many possibilities that might be fun. The first is the "geographic alignment."

OAA White: Rochester Adams, Rochester High, Rochester Stoney Creek, Troy High and Troy Athens.

OAA Red: Lake Orion High, Clarkston High, Farmington Hills Harrison, Farmington High and North Farmington.

OAA Blue: Bloomfield Hills Lahser, Bloomfield Hills Andover, Southfield High, Southfield-Lathrup and West Bloomfield High.


OAA Gold: Royal Oak High, Ferndale High, Berkly High, Birmingham Seaholm and Birmingham Groves.

OAA Silver: Auburn Hills Avondale, Pontiac Northern, Pontiac Central, Hazel Park and Oak Park

Now comes the fun one, the "competitive alignment."

OAA White: Adams, Lake Orion, Clarkston, Harrison and Lathrup.

OAA Red: Lahser, Southfield, Groves, Rochester and Stoney Creek.

OAA Blue: Troy, Athens, West Bloomfield, Seaholm and Oak Park.

OAA Gold: Ferndale, Berkley, Farmington, Pontiac Northern and Royal Oak.

OAA Silver: Pontiac Central, Andover, North Farmington, Hazel Park and Avondale.

The Pointe of rivalries

I covered my first Grosse Pointe North/Grosse Pointe South football game Sept. 5 at North.

I've been to Brother Rice/Catholic Central games, once in Pontiac and once in Hamtramck. Both of those trips were amazing exploits in preps athletics and seemed more like a Big 10 rivalry than a prep showdown.

I've also covered Macomb Dakota and Clinton Township Chippewa Valley, once in the regular season and once in the playoffs, and I could not get over how large of an event these games were. There were more people at those games than many of the Central Michigan University games I went to in college.

This weekend, though, I experienced something a little different from all the other rivalries I've seen, all the North and South fans were literally sitting next to each other.

I sat in the crowd between North and South fans, and I didn't even get a whiff of animosity.

I know there are probably stories of crowds getting out of hand in the past, all schools have a troublemaker or dark day in their history, but this experience was as much fun as I can ever remember seeing such a large group of rival fans have together.

With both sides sharing the same set of bleachers at North, there wasn't even a whisper of foul tempers in a game that was closely contested for over three quarters before the veteran Norsemen wore down a young Blue Devils squad.

Just as was the case with the vast majority of people at the Rice/CC and Chippewa/Dakota games, the GPN and GPS teams acted with as much class on the field as the fans did off it.

In today's age, where we are led to believe community camaraderie and goodwill toward our neighbors have eroded, it's nice to see parents and youths in a community prove all that wrong for a night and actually enjoy something as simple as a high school football game.

Down at 'The Corner'

The seemingly endless "efforts" to save Tiger Stadium have seemingly ended.

Barring a multi-million-dollar miracle before the end of July, Detroit will be a lesser city with the total destruction of the old ball park.

With that in mind, a handful of friends and I went down to The Corner July 14 to soak in the nostalgia.

I snapped some pictures and marvelled at how well-kept the field seemed to be from behind the security fencing. But the best part was being there with my high school friends Doug Belles, Mike Weathers and Dave Luedtke.

They are just a few of the friends who shuffled down to Tiger Stadium in the lean years, when we were in high school and college.

From when we got our driver's licenses in 1995 to the parks closing in 1999, we went to what at the time seemed like too many games and now feels like not enough.

Those years, while we complained about the team, were amazing. It sounds sappy, but I fell in love with baseball in those four years.

I had played Little League, but growing up the Lions and Pistons were my teams. I cared little for the Dead Wings of my youth, and beyond 1987 never really paid much attention to the Tigers.

From seeing the Tigers take on the NL East in the first years of inter-league play with (hot dog) vendors selling fresh, hot "Bobby Bonilla's" as the Tigers played the would-be World Series champion Florida Marlins, I found an experience at the ball park rivaled by few things in the world and grew to appreciate seeing a home-team win.

Those years of 'Fan Stand' tickets and 'Dollar Day' smorgasbords made experiences like seeing Magglio Ordonez's pennant-winning home run all the more exciting. Knowing I was one of the fans who had truly been there when it was the worst made the best times amazing.

Even beyond that, though, the memories I have with friends — like Andy Melitz, who I will forever be grateful to for getting me a ticket to the final game at the Corner — are of the most value.

Whether it was sitting in the bleachers as Mark McGwire shelled the left-field roof in batting practice, or sitting in the right- field overhang to see the eternally-expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays, those memories are where Tiger Stadium will always stand, and there's nothing the Detroit City Council can do about it.