. A DERSO ,Jr.
�nCItlz.n
D - In 1987 omething
w m in from th Detroit Public
School Le gu (PSL) Football Pro
gram; it om thing th t w n
important piece for the development
of young men who w nted to play
v rsity foot 11; it w the junior var-
ity football program for ninth and
tenth graders. There were many
re ons for discontinuing the pro
gram: Lac of interest, lac of funds
and the problem of cheduling
games.
But oflast year that all changed.
According to a few co ches in the
Detroit PSL, the junior varsity pro
gram is able ing and is helping
many football program in the city'
high chool .
"I'm very happy they've brought
back the program," aid Denby var-
ity coach Don Stuckey. "It has
doubled my program from 35 to 70
kids. I feel that bringing back N
football is a tep in the right direc
tion."
"The program at our school has
been pretty good," explained James
"Butch" Lepard, the head N football
coach at Southwe tern. "We had to
make a lot of changes th e past two
easons. In fact, schools in general
throughout the ci ty made a lot of
chang ."
I'M GlAD THE P L brought it
back," responded Benny Moore, the
head JV coach at m. "It's
helping the varsity, but most of all it'
getting our kids off the street."
All three coaches point out that the
ninth and tenth graders bad no place
to play except the varsity and the
Detroit Police Athletic League, but
still even they had their disad
vantages for orne, if not many young
men.
"PAL was good for some kids,"
Moore explained. "But PAL didn't
help tho e kids who were over 1&0
pounds. They can't even play, that's
when N comes in and helps out."
•
d veloped concentration in the cl
room which m tter grad .
"The young ters who weren't into
nything ere fin lly gettin into
om thing," Lep rd ide "Thi pro
gram keep the e kid off th treet,
e pecially h re in Southwest Detroit
where we have a erio an prob
lem. Any kid who participat in our
program i too tired to run round in
th treets, believe m . You have to
have a 2.00 minimum OP A to play or
you don't play trs simple that.
The major ide i grade and th
major incentive i to wor hard so
th kids can graduate from high
chool."
Lepard, whose team fini hed with
a 3-1 record thi pa t � on and
ranked fourth in the city behind
powerhouses Ford, King, and Cass
Tech, feel that teaching th kid how
to play and giving them chance to
play is more important than wins,
los es and ties.
"Nobody like to 10 e," Lepard ex
plained. "You can't blame the kids
or the coaches for that, but my
preference is to get a bunch of ninth
and tenth graders from nothing and
start from scratch and work with them
until they become a team."
"OUR GOAL AT Southwestern
C is determination and dedication and
working hard as you can. I run my
program on these five fine points:
"This level of football introduces Fundamentals, the game of football,
kids to a certain level of football," explain and teach at the arne time so
explained Stuckey. "A kid who's the kids can understand what they're
f hrrtan will have more of a feeling doing, no pre-ttl donna and the
of uccess which keep them from the teach them that the linemen are the
direction of the treets. heart of the game, Without linemen
"Our record in the past two eason you can't win.
(2-2) is .500, but it helps develop Kids come and thing that running
players for our program." backs, . quarterbacks, tight ends,
comer backs, and linebackers are the
"THERE WERE A LOT of kids most important people on the team
because of what sports shows, com
mentators and announcers say on
T.V. Football is won on the line,
because linemen are in on every play.
They must know well the plays;
they're the brains of the operations.
If you don't have a line you can't
win."
But there are still some problems.
hooting for winning
Coach James Lepard (center, in yellow sweater) chats,with the team on the sidelines.
"Some chools like ours were fall
ing behind," Lepard explained.
"Unlike some schools like King,
HelU')' Ford and " who Q PAL
teams to fall back on and feed on,
some schools didn't even have these
advantages. The overall quality of
orne PSL teams was so bad, it made
the entire league look ridiculous."
"Many kids who would've played
JV football went to other sports be
cause there wasn't a JV football pro
'gram to get into. You had a 9th
grader who would join a varsity team
in high school, but he wouldn't get in
to play because he wasn't big enough
or tough enough to play or didn't
know what was going on."
"THE YOUNG FRESHMAN or
even sophomore had no equal to play
against and if he did play in a varsity
e, be ould t killed. Very fe
kids in our area had the funds or the
access to PAL team to play on."
"If you didn't have enough ex
perience to play-you had to ride the
bench," Stuckey said. "As a fresh
man you had to learn the skills as you
went on because most of the em
phasis was on varsity."
Stuckey, Moore and Lepard all
agree that the emphasis of JV football
is to develop kids for. the varsity and
to develop the player as a whole and
to turn them away from the streets
which are far more influential and
dangerous than just a few years ago.
itan roundballer
By HARRY M. ANDERSON, JR.
As his fifth year at the reins on the
University of Detroit Men's Basket
ball Team, head coach Ricky
Byrdsong is looking with COnfidence,
optimism and hope about this year in
improving last season's 12-17 and
1-9 Midwestern City Conference
(MCC) record. '
"This squad has the bes t talent I've
seen during the past five seasons,"
Byrdsong aid. "We're optimistic for
a great year. Tony Tolbert (St. Mar
tin DePorres) will give us a great deal
of coring for us."
Last season the Titans were 11-7
against non-MCC opponents. How
ever, against their competition in the
MCCthe results were a disappointing
effort.
"When we get into conference
play the size factor caught up with
," Byrdsong said. "It was difficult
for us to match up with guy who are
6'9" to 6'10". Non-conference wise
we didn't have any difficulty, but in
the MCC the towering height of our
opponents were wearing us down and
getting us tired."
TO COUNTERACT THIS
PROBLEM the U of 0 went out and
added depth to strengthen their in
side game. The Titans signed 6'8"
Patrick Lacy (King), a junior college
tran fer from Indian Hill Communi ty
Colleg in Iowa. He averaged 20
points and 12 rebounds per game for
Indian Hill. Another player in
Byrdsong' possession is 6'7" Marte
Smith, a junior college transfer from
WestOPalm Beach (Fla.) Community
College. Smith averaged 16 points
and six rebounds as a freshman and
16 points and eight rebounds as a
sophomore.
"We would be able to beat our
opponent with these two new
player ." Byrdsong said. "With
Tony's (Tolbert) presence on the
perimeter will give us the opportunity
to open up the middle."
One �dvan�ge that Byrdsong has
is the amount of local talent from
Detroit's Public and Catholic
Schools. fie aid that the signing of
Michael Lovelace (Southwestern)
and Dwayne Kelley (Bishop Bor
gess) have helped spur the interest
among talented kids who play basket
ball in the PSL and the Catholic
League.
"We are loaded with the talent
from the PSL and the Catholic
League," Byrdsong said. "The first
group of kids we. signed were
Lovelace and Kelley. Things worked
out so well that other PSL and
Catholic League kids took notice and
started to come into our program.
Lovelace (13.7 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 44
steals, 22 blocks and 44 assists) and
Kelley (14.0 ppg, 54 steals, 77 as
sists,) have started since they've been
here."
"WE BEGAN TO ATTRACT
talent like Michael Hamilton (South
western), Emanuel Bibb (Denby),
Kareern Hailey (Ca Tech) and Her
man Jenkins (U of D High). Most of
our roster have been kids from the
PSL and the Catholic Schools in the
City."
One of the opponent on this
year's Titan schedule is Wayne State,
the team' old cro -town rival from
years past. Byrdsong i looking for
ward to it.
"The players from our squad and
WSU developed friendships with
each other," Byrdsong said. "So the
kids decided they wanted to pay a
'scheduled game this year. I got
together with Ron Hammye (WSU
Coach) and decided to play this
game."
til believe that the WSU-U of D
game will be a competitive contest.
They did lose a couple of players to
graduation and another to eligibility,
but it will be a hard fought inner-ctty
game. It will get the people of Detroit
enthused about what's out there for
our two chools because most people
have forgotten how competitive a
good inner-city game can be in a col
lege environment."
Byrdsong explained that most
fans know li ttle or anything about the
Midwestern City Conference which
is compromised of schools from
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Pennsyl
vania. He said that the MCC is a lot .
better than most people think.
"THE MCC IS VERY competi
tive and a lot better than people think
it is," Byrdsong explained. "La t
year the top two teams in our con
ference, Xavier (Ohio) and
Evansville (Indiana), went to the
NCAA National Tournament while
Butler (Indiana) got back on track
and made it to the National Invita
tional Tournament I t year. The
University of Dayton (Ohio) wins an
average of 20 games a year and ell
out all their home games every
season."
As for the Titans outlook?
"We were picked to finish ixth
place out of eight teams this eason, "
Byrdsong said. "I believe we can
who were hanging around on the
. street comers," Moore aid. "This
program has turned a lot of kids
around; it's helped in the classroom
and helped them gain focus on
whether they want to play football or
just go to school. It also develop
concentration, but not just on the
football. The kids have also
"Th re
o motiv ted to win, they nea ome
varsity kids into the g m to et the
win, instead of putting kid in who
needs the experience. This kil the
whole objective, Lepard explained.
" ot only they taught the ld that'
it' 0 ay to che r, but th y're depriv
ing a kid who n d to play to get the
experience befor he reache the var-
ity level."
As for the future of junior varsity
football in th Detroit Public Schools,
there' a chance that more g me will
be added to the chedule and good
possibility for post-season play for
om of the teams.
"WE'VE ONLY PLAYED five
gam a year," Stuckey aid. "We
may chedule even game next year
which is great for kids at this ge who
needs much experience as they can
get. As for playoffs, I hope this
doe n't motivate some coaches to
cheat then develop players."
"We were supposed to have even
games this year," Lepard said. "But
because of the teachers' trike we
were only able to get in four games.
Roy Allen and his staff did an in
credible job to make sure we had
some game in this year."
"Next year Downtown is talking
about a seven game chedule wi th top
four teams having a playoff cham
pionship series. This would be good
for the PSL and the city as long as you
don't have any programs who think
winning is more important than ldds
bo need to pi y� Pl'OIIl)eCton
will be ready."
"When the IV program gets off the
ground with theestablisbment of the
study halls and workout periods for
conditioning, the junior varsity foot
ball program is going to be a better
one. It's not going to happen over
night."
" A lot of us coaches and the league
have invested a lot of money into
junior varsity," Stuckey concluded.
"We must keep this program if we
want to get our dollars worth."
Rickey Byrdsong
finish higher than that. The top two
favorites (Xavier and'Evansville) are
clearly in front, beyond that, it's hard
to find a third-place team right now.
Kelley made the MCC's Second
Team for being the team's leading
corer. Tolbert will probably be our
leading scorer while Ramsey Nicbols
(Benton Harbor) will be a force on the
court."
"To be able to be in the running of
the MCC Title we want to gerout and
run. Conditioning will be our
strategy because most teams don't
condition well. If the teams we face
don't push conditioning it will give
us the advantage 'because fatigue
makes cowards of us all. We want to
run motion and take solid shots and
play good defense. We want defense
to be the key of our program here at
the u of D."