OT: Belleville Football Investigation
https://www.freep.com/story/sports/high-school/2022/10/26/michigan-high…
It appears as though Belleville football is under investigation for "undue influence" violations.
According to a football player who ended up at Detroit King, Coach Crowell made overtures to him about playing at Belleville. Plus, Coach Crowell also allegedly picked up the player and took him to summer practices.
Making initial contact with a player is a violation of the undue influence rule. Providing transportation is apparently an even more serious violation.
The MHSAA and Belleville's AD are both conducting investigations.
Thought this was relevant due to Belleville typically having D1 players and Michigan recruits/commits on its roster.
I know we have many HS football coaches and parents on the blog, so also thought maybe someone would have some insight on the situation.
My apologies if the link doesn't work correctly. Yes, my user name checks out...in this case.
October 26th, 2022 at 8:22 PM ^
OLSM had a baseball team last year that could have made the College World Series
October 26th, 2022 at 8:32 PM ^
OLSM is a complete joke. They house kids on campus now.
October 26th, 2022 at 8:43 PM ^
Well, their actual baseball definitely ain’t a joke.
I took in a Rice-OLSM game 3.5 years ago. OLSM didn’t look like they were playing the same sport. The gap was the size of a canyon.
October 26th, 2022 at 8:52 PM ^
You mean you have to play for Petry’s Hit Dogs teams in the summer then to continue to be on the team attend OLSM? Yes their baseball is very good but up until this past season they stayed D2 and refused to play up a division.
October 27th, 2022 at 12:42 PM ^
Have any of the recent Hit Dogs teams reached the level of the Leto/Lipsey team?
October 26th, 2022 at 9:31 PM ^
You guys are cracking me up. It's school of choice in Michigan, and it's always been that way for private schools. You are all making the wrong argument. This is a total different situation.
October 27th, 2022 at 9:54 AM ^
Private schools invented it no doubt and get away with it all the time. As a former coach in this state having to recruit your own students all the time is nauseating.
October 26th, 2022 at 9:06 PM ^
No kidding… while we’re at it, can we look at CC’s hockey program? Just sayin’ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
October 26th, 2022 at 9:27 PM ^
You left out Detroit Country Day. You can also add GR West Catholic to the list. I know an assistant coach there that I work with. He even admitted to me that they do. I was like ok at least you admit it.
October 26th, 2022 at 7:53 PM ^
West Bloomfield.
October 26th, 2022 at 7:59 PM ^
Yes huge cheaters!
October 26th, 2022 at 8:19 PM ^
Crowell is a crook and always has been even when he was at Cass Tech. Belleville, West Bloomfield, River Rouge, and others on the Eastside are so blatantly cheating and recruiting. When I coached basketball in Detroit one of my players’ father was on Belleville’s staff and his “job” was to transport the Detroit area kids to and from school. While at least you can say that these kids are going to a better run school than a lot of the local schools, it still is blatantly against the rules.
When I left my last job to go to where I am now on two occasions lost players to recruiting. One was a 300 lb sophomore nose who dominated in the district finals to a team that ended up winning the state championship. One of their coaches found this player on Instagram and come January he was there.
The most recent was 2 years ago when our staff left our previous school (we all were offered positions at the schools we taught at) and a coach from a division opponent in Macomb County reached out and landed the 3 best sophomores. None of those kids moved and they had to forfeit 3 games last year because of it. The kids played the whole year, and are all there this year playing as well. In both cases, the kids were going to schools that vastly underperformed academically compared to the one they left.
And don’t even get me started on the corrupt nature of youth football and PAL (it rivals the dirtiness of AAU).
October 26th, 2022 at 8:24 PM ^
Had to work an athletics-related event in Detroit with the PAL. They make Tony Soprano (me) look clean.
October 26th, 2022 at 8:30 PM ^
1."Undue influence" is a ridiculously vague term....2.MHSAA has been inconstent in how they define that term.3.'Recruiting' is much more common than you may think,especially in basketball..4.Im reminded of Perry Watson at SW.He almost got Terry Mills..5.I coached basketball way back in 70's thru early 90's at a prominent Class A H.S.This stuff went on then and seems to be worse today.
October 26th, 2022 at 8:44 PM ^
I used to play flag football at HVS Canton and kids were talking about getting recruited to play at Belleville. This was probably more than 5 years ago.
October 26th, 2022 at 9:33 PM ^
Belleville won their 1st state championship last yr, so I don't consider that a premiere program.
October 26th, 2022 at 9:58 PM ^
As a Belleville alum, I now know what it feels like to be from the SEC. If you ain’t rubbing, you ain’t racing.
October 27th, 2022 at 7:59 AM ^
Having kids who played them this season, they are a phenomenal football team coached by a bunch of jerks. The killed us, and absolutely should have. But they committed 6 personal foul penalties along the way. On the second play of the game, our QB threw an interception and as the DB returned the ball, he was waving at our sidelines. That got them a penalty that set them back 80 yards' upon which they scored two plays later.
Not to mention they had Underwood out there lobbing bombs midway through the 4th quarter up 6 touchdowns. They were great and our team stunk. But you can be a good team AND not be showboating idiots.
October 27th, 2022 at 10:28 AM ^
^^^This.
October 27th, 2022 at 11:33 AM ^
They have to out talent everyone because their coaching is hilarious. It’s why it took forever to win a state championship with clearly more talent than everyone. They got out coached a ton!
And our boy Bellamy got out coached all the time too