38 | DECEMBER 30 • 2021 

M

ark Schwartz spot-
ted a need in the 
Oakland County 
youth sports scene, and he did 
something about it.
He’s continued to do it, pow-
ering through a pandemic that 
shut down his idea for several 
months and continues to cause 
headaches.
Schwartz is the founder and 
general manager of the 2-year-
old Bloomfield Bulls boys bas-
ketball travel program.
The Bloomfield Hills resident 
is proud of what the Bulls have 
done in their infancy.
“I’m very happy with how 
everything has gone so far,
” he 
said. “I feel we’re one of the best-
kept secrets around here in travel 
basketball.
”
Schwartz has been a travel 
baseball coach for several years. 
He decided to put his expertise 
in that area to work and form a 
travel basketball organization.
“There aren’t a lot of options 
for young guys in the Oakland 
County area to play high-level, 
competitive basketball,
” he said. 
“My goal in forming the Bulls 
was to put together a travel 
basketball organization that had 
good coaching and good com-
munication with the families.
”
The Bulls have two sixth-grade 
teams and hope to have two 
eighth-grade teams playing this 
winter in the Big Cat Basketball 
of Michigan league, and in tour-
naments.
It’s the most teams they’ve put 
on the floor in a season.
Schwartz feels one of the Bulls’ 
biggest assets is their coach. He’s 
36-year-old former University 
of Michigan basketball star and 
ex-professional basketball player 
Dion Harris.
“I wanted to put a team in the 
Big Cat league in fall 2019, so I 
conducted a national search for a 
coach,
” Schwartz said.
Job interviews were done in 
the late summer. Schwartz said 
he knew he had his guy when he 
spoke with Harris.

“Hiring Dion as our coach was 
a slam dunk,
” Schwartz said. “It’s 
funny ... I didn’t realize it was 
THAT Dion Harris I was inter-
viewing, the guy I watched play 
at U-M, until I was doing my 
interview with him.
“Dion is one of the kindest, 
most humble people I’ve met 
through sports. He’s been great 
with the kids. Besides being a 
very knowledgeable coach, he’s 
had countless conversations with 
the kids about what it’s like to be 
a student-athlete.
”
A 6-foot-3 guard, Harris was 
the 2003 Mr. Basketball in the 
state when he was a senior at 
Detroit Redford High School. 
He was the first Public School 
League player to win the presti-
gious award since 1995.
He also made the Parade All-
America second team in 2003.
His four-year U-M career was 

equally as outstanding.
He played in 131 career games 
for the Wolverines (No. 6 all-
time), starting 97, and he scored 
1,599 career points (No. 13 all-
time). His 398 career assists are 
No. 8 all-time and 135 steals are 
No. 9 all-time.
The Bulls started modestly, 
with a 13U team in spring 2019 
that won its division champi-
onship in the Kenny Goldman 
Basketball League at the Jewish 
Community Center in West 
Bloomfield.
The team was coached by 
then-Birmingham Groves High 
School basketball player Grant 
Blau.
“That team in the Kenny 
Goldman league gave us our 
footing. Then we took the sum-
mer off,
” Schwartz said.
The Bulls had an eighth-grade 
team in the Big Cat league in fall 

2019 and winter 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit 
in March 2020 and shut down 
the league “when our team was 
showing great improvement,
” 
Schwartz said.
A year later, when league play 
resumed, the Bulls had a sev-
enth-grade team in a short Big 
Cat winter season and the spring 
season. Each team tied for its 
division title.
This past summer, the Bulls 
offered basketball training for 
grades 5-10 at the Beverly Hills 
Academy, the Bulls’ home base.
Schwartz hired assistant 
coaches before the fall season: 
Tony Davis and Fred Wright-
Jones.
Wright-Jones has taken a high 
school coaching job, Schwartz 
said, so another assistant coach is 
being sought for the Bulls.
The Bulls had two eighth-
grade teams and a grades 9-10 
junior varsity team in the Big Cat 
fall league.
Big Cat league games are 
played at South Lyon and South 
Lyon East high schools, and Novi 
High School and Novi Middle 
School.
So who is Mark Schwartz out-
side of basketball?
He’s a clinical psychologist 
who works with pre-teens 
through senior citizens but 
mainly with patients ages 10-25 
on an outpatient basis at his 
office in downtown Birmingham.
His sons Benjamin, 15, and 
Jonathan, 13, each has played for 
the Bulls.
Benjamin, a sophomore at 
Frankel Jewish Academy, is on 
the boys basketball team there. 
Jonathan, an eighth-grader at 
Detroit Country Day, also is on 
his school team.
Schwartz and his wife, Rachel 
Kukes Schwartz, also have a 
daughter Julia, 11, a fifth-grader 
at Country Day.
Interested in more information 
about the Bulls? Send an email 
to info@bloomfieldbulls.com or 
go to the organization’s website, 
www.bloomfieldbulls.com. 

Bulls Charge 
Through the 
Pandemic

SPORTS

Ex-Michigan star is the coach 
for founder Mark Schwartz’s 
travel basketball organization.

From left are Bloomfield Bulls founder and general manager Mark 
Schwartz, coach Dion Harris and assistant coach Tony Davis.

MARK SCHWARTZ

STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

