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in
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Jewish Star

At Catholic Central

STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

J

Jackson Ross

TOP LEFT: Jackson
Ross, right, is a
Division 1 All-State
wrestler.
TOP RIGHT: Jackson
Ross added a Star of
David to his football
uniform.

26

ackson Ross stepped into the
unknown nearly four years
ago when he began attending
Novi Detroit Catholic Central High
School.
He loved the school, but he was
aware being a Jewish student at an
all-boys Catholic school could pres-
ent a myriad of challenges.
As he approaches the end of his
senior year, Ross looks back and says,
“going to Catholic Central was one of
the best decisions I’ve ever made.”
This is more than a reflection of
his success on the football field and
wrestling mat for the Shamrocks.
He has a 3.9 grade point average
and is considering being a student-
athlete at an Ivy League university.
He’s a student body leader and men-
tor at Catholic Central. He’s also a
finalist for a Michigan High School
Athletic Association Class A Scholar-
Athlete Award.
What could have been an uncom-
fortable time in his life has instead
turned into a time of personal
growth and inclusion.

February 16 • 2017

jn

“The people at Catholic Central
have allowed Jackson to be who he
is and helped him grow into the per-
son he is today,” said Sanford Ross,
Jackson’s father.
Athletic Director Aaron Babicz
said he respects Jackson because of
his personality and values.
“Jackson has never been shy about
his faith,” Babicz said.
Ross played football with a Star of
David drawn with a black Sharpie on
tape on his left wrist.
“There are crosses everywhere on
our uniform, so I decided to add a
Star of David to my uniform,” he said.
There are other interesting stories
of the melding of religions during
Ross’ time at Catholic Central.
The Brighton resident won an
award from the school’s theol-
ogy department for his academic
achievements in his freshman year.
Then he had a talk with a priest.
“[He] told me if you substitute God
for Jesus on many of the things we
both believe in, there isn’t much dif-
ference between us,” Ross said.

Another priest baked kugel made
from his own recipe for Ross to try
during Chanukah.
Ross missed an important wres-
tling tournament last month at
Catholic Central so he could attend
his brother’s bar mitzvah at Temple
Israel. Ross also had a bar mitzvah at
the West Bloomfield synagogue.
A 6-foot-3, 240-pounder, Ross was
a three-year starter at tight end and
defensive end on the perennial pow-
erhouse Catholic Central football
team who earned All-State honor-
able mention accolades as a senior.
After the Shamrocks lost to
Detroit Cass Tech last fall in the
Division 1 state championship game
at Ford Field in Detroit, Ross, a team
captain, led his teammates through
the handshake line.
“The pain of that moment felt
crushing. The disappointment pal-
pable,” he wrote in his essay for the
MHSAA’s Scholar-Athlete Award. He
also wrote about the importance of
being gracious in defeat.
“The heart of high school athletics

is competition, but its soul is sports-
manship,” he wrote.
Ross finished in sixth place at 215
pounds last year at the Division 1
individual wrestling state tourna-
ment, making him an All-State wres-
tler. He hopes to return to the state
tournament this season.
So how did he end up at Catholic
Central? One of his youth football
coaches suggested he give the school
a look, and he shadowed a Catholic
Central student for a day. Next came
a school tour with his family.
Though he wanted to go to the
school because he thought it was “a
special place,” the decision to enroll
wasn’t made until the last minute.
“At first, my parents thought I was
joking when I said I was very inter-
ested in Catholic Central,” he said.
“We wondered what Jackson
would encounter there. Would they
try to convert him? We had con-
cerns,” Sanford said. “But everyone
has learned from each other and
we’d have no hesitation to make the
same decision.”
Babicz said about 35 percent of
Catholic Central’s 1,050 students
aren’t Catholic.
“There is a misconception we
might try to convert kids who
aren’t Catholic. That’s certainly not
the case, but we are a faith-based
school,” he said.
Jackson said he’s not aware of
another Jewish student at Catholic
Central, but there is a Jewish teacher.
There are three children in
the Ross family. Danielle, 21, is a
Brighton High School and Michigan
State University graduate. Andrew,
13, is a seventh-grader at Scranton
Middle School in Brighton. •

Send sports news to stevestein502004@
yahoo.com.

