'Lots of clowns:' Legendary Detroit sports writer rips area school's football coach hire

‘Lots of clowns:’ Legendary Detroit sports writer rips area school’s football coach hire

Posted by author February 9, 2025 Sports

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First, a little bit about Mick McCabe. He’s an absolute legend in the Detroit high school athletics community after working for the past 54 years at the Detroit Free Press, mostly covering high school sports. He recently stepped back from working there full time, but still writes for them a ton.

He was elected to the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 2014, and when he writes, people take what he is saying seriously – because he knows his stuff.

And last week he wrote an opinion piece about Detroit-area River Rouge High School’s hiring of Jermain Crowell as its new football coach.

I’ll do my best to quickly summarize what McCabe wrote. But its safe to say he came strong in this one, and I strongly encourage everyone to read it. It’s linked here.

In short, McCabe thinks River Rouge made a big mistake. In fact, in his first sentence, he warns the school that “the circus is coming to town.”

For context, Crowell had earned an 84-10 record in eight years as head coach at Belleville High School and led that team to the Division 1 state championship in 2021. But for the past two years, he has been serving a suspension from the Michigan High School Athletic Association for various violations of the undue influence rule.

River Rouge believes Crowell has taken responsibility for his mistakes. McCabe isn’t so sure.

“For years, Crowell maintained his innocence and denied he ever broke any rules, but now he has ‘owned’ all of the violations?” McCabe wrote.

McCabe also questioned the district hiring Crowell as its Trauma Informed Practitioner.

According to McCabe, the MHSAA is also worried about the hiring and will be watching River Rouge closely.

The column ends as eloquently as it began – “Bring in the clowns.”

For the record, all the opinions are McCabe’s and not my own. Although I worked briefly at the Free Press, including with McCabe, I don’t know Crowell or anyone at River Rouge.

But I do enjoy reading Mick McCabe – especially when he has a strong opinion. And this column was a good one.