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Football Saturcla Sep tember
19,20 09
TWO TOWNS
From page 5B
years in me."
At first, nostalgia seems to domi-
nate these Pee-Wee memories. But
Shaw and Roundtree's six years with
the, organization were far from kid
stuff. The coaches told Shaw's father,
Michael, that the only way the six-
year-old Shaw could start playing
for them was if his parents bought
him his own football equipment -
the team didn't have enough money
to provide for one more player.
Their league games were played
about an hour south, in the Cincin-
nati area. They traveled to games as
far away as Panama City, Fla., and
Atlanta, when the team competed
for national championships. Most
of the kids had never seen the beach
before, so Coach Carter showed
them the white, sandy beaches and
clear water.
Home games were daylong affairs
on Saturdays. Locals who had no
kids or relatives on the teams would
still stop by the games and pay to see
the Flames play. The crowd filled
both sidelines of the pot-holed field
as if the people were watching a Fri-
day night high school game in the
next suburb over.
"Around here, Pee-
Wee is like religious."
"Around here, Pee-Wee is like reli-
gious," Michael Shaw, Mike's father,
said. "Everybody takes it pretty
seriously and wants to go to a Super
Bowl and win a championship."
"To me, they were like profession-
als," said Sheila Roundtree, Roy's
mother.
They might as well have been,
with the intensity of their seasons.
Shaw and Roundtree played on sep-
arate teams, since Roundtree, eight
months older than Shaw, played one
age group ahead. They practiced
every weekday duringthe lastchalfof
summer and three days a week once
school started. Back then, the team
played in the coveted league Super
Bowl game for five straight years,
twice coming away with the golden
football trophy.
The kids learned how to play
physically and aggressively, with a
tenacity that allowed even the tiny
Roundtree to hit guys one-and-a-
half times his size while playing
offensive and defensive tackle. They
learned from their coaches that tim-
idness was unacceptable and tough-
ness was mandatory.
Shaw found that out when he was
about nine years old. On a routine
carry, askid from the other team ran
up to Shaw, wrenched the ball out of
his hands and ran to the other end
zone for a touchdown. Shaw started
to cry as his coach gave him an ear-
ful.
"Why'd you let him do that?"
the coach yelled. "You owe me two
touchdowns for that."
The Flames were losing at the
half. Shaw, done crying, suddenly
marched into the halftime huddle.
"They're gonna start paying for
all this dirt they did to us in the
first half," he angrily told his team.
"They're gonna pay. They're gonna
pay."
And Shaw meant it. He scored
four touchdowns in the second half
to help the Flames win the game,
leaving his parents and coaches to
marvel at how he turned his anger
into successful revenge.
"Football is not a powderpuff
sport," the 19-year-old Mike Shaw
now says, "and the coaches made
us tougher because they were on us.
They were hard. They got us ready."
TROTWOOD, OHIO -_
Listening to Maurice Douglasss
talk about the high school athletes
he coaches, you would almost think'
they were lazy.
"They live in this fake world
where their parents normally have
really good jobs and they have par-
ents who have been to college and
things like that, so they don't know
how to really work," said Douglass,
gesturing to his players as he stood
on the sideline of the Trotwood-
Madison High School practice field.
"They've never had to work for any-
thing."
That's why Coach Doug sees it as
his job to educate these kids, hold-
ing "in-school suspensions" where
he can teach them about issues they
haven't yet run into while living in'
this middle-class suburb.
"We're talking about girls today,"
he says, switching into lecture mode
as if he's talking to one of his play-
ers. "You want the girl that's in
the back of the classroom but she's
got a four-point average. We don't
want girls that have one-point aver-
ages but a great body. 'Cause she just
going to take your money in the end,
you know? So we want the girl who
doesn't look like the diamond right
now. She looks like a lump of coal.
But if we fine-tune her, she'll turn
into a diamond."
He's seenenoughofthereal world
to tell his kids how off-the-field
issues like girls, drugs or alcohol
can influence a young athlete. After
graduating from Trotwood High
School in 1982, Douglass played
defensive back at Kentucky and then
went on to play 11 NFL seasons with
the Chicago Bears and New York
Giants. And when that was all over,
They live in this fake world where their parents
normally have really good jobs and they have
parents who have been to college and things like
that, so they don't know how to really work."
he came back to where he started.
When Douglass began coaching
at Trotwood in 2001, he made it a
priority to transform the football
program. He worked for hours after
the team's practices so that he could
painstakingly patch together and
send out highlight tapes of his play-
ers, answer stacks of mail from col-
lege recruiters and take his athletes
on college tours. The offers started
rolling in, and so did the transfer
students - Trotwood-Madison had
one of the highest incomingtransfer
rates in the state as athletes flocked
him to play ball.
The results were obvious. Doug-
lass estimates Trotwood sent 97 kids
to play college football in sevenyears,
35 of them to Division-1 schools.
It was general knowledge around
Trotwood that if the kids took care
of their grades, Coach Doug would
help them get into college.
Meanwhile, Shaw was enrolled
in Archbishop Alter High School,
the private Catholic school that his
father, aunts and uncles had attend-
ed. It was big on tradition, and its
coaching was more by-the-book and
regimented than Douglass's laid-
back mentoring style. Shaw was a
star on the football team, and Alter
lost in the Ohio state championship
game by just one point when Shaw
was a junior. But as Shaw faced his
last high school season, he had yet
to receive even one college scholar-
ship offer. He felt like he was being
sold short.
Roundtree was attending Bel-
montHighSchool inthe city. During
the 2004-05 school year, when he
was a freshman, Belmont was classi-
fied as an "academic emergency" by
the state of Ohio. Over a quarter of
the students were considered to be
"students with disabilities", and the
school average on standardized tests
was over 50 percent lower than the
state benchmarks. The academics
were dismal and the football team
was just mediocre.
Both started looking around for a
better place to play ball. Roundtree
reached out, naturally, to his old
quarterback from the Flames - one
of his best friends, Domonick Britt,
the Trotwood-Madison quarter-
back who was already ge ting atten-
tion from Cincinnati and Jackson
State. Douglass was also interested
in Roundtree's ability, so the wide
receiver decided to make the jump.
Shaw looked at two other schools
besides Trotwood-Madison but
ultimately joined Roundtree and
Britt a few months later, in the sec-
ond semester of his junior year. The
Flames were together again, and
the scholarships started coming in
almost too fast to be true. Within
a month and a half of transferring,
Shaw had already received offers
from schools like Clemson and
Nebraska.
"To this day, I don'tget it," Shaw's
father, Michael,said. "I'mlike,'What
the - ? You haven't even stepped on
the field yet!' I don't know what the
difference is. I couldn't tell you. But
it's like night and day."
Shaw verbally committed to Penn
State and Roundtree to Purdue. But
on Signing Day, both had second
thoughts. While Shaw and his par-
ents were inside Douglass's office
late that morning, agonizing over
signing with the tradition-rich,
Joe Paterno-led Nittany Lions or a
Michigan team with a new, excit-
ing coach but an uncertain future,
Roundtree sidled past the office
wearing a maize-and-blue hat.
"Roy's going to Michigan!" Shaw
told his parents, shocked. He chose
the Wolverines a few hours later.
The two joined their Trotwood-
Madison teammate Brandon
Moore, who had never wavered
from his original commitment to
Michigan a year before he signed.
Roundtree likes to joke now
that he played a big part in Shaw's
last-second decision, but the wide
receiver's own last-minute college
switch ended up generating the
largest buzz. It prompted slighted
Purdue coach Joe Tiller to infa-
mously comment that Rodriguez
was a "guy in a wizard hat sell-
ing snake oil," luring players like
Roundtree from places they had
originally committed.
But Coach Douglass was con-
victed of peddling some snake oil
of his own just as the boys were
poised to graduate from high
school. Neighboring high school
players and coaches accused Trot-
wood-Madison of illegally recruit-
ing their best athletes. The Dayton
Meadowdale High School coach
accused Douglass of improperly
recruiting Shaw in particular, tell-
ing the Dayton Daily News in 2007
that the idea that Shaw would have
decided on his own to leave the suc-
cessful Alter team for Trotwood-
Madison was "off-the-wall stuff".
The Ohio High School Athletic
Association investigated the alle-
gations and found that Douglass
and his staff had persuaded stu-
dents to switch teams, and that
some of the transferred students
had never actually moved into the
district. Douglass was suspended
from coaching for three weeks in
2008, and his offensive coordina-
tor stepped down. The program
received two years' probation.
But by then, Roundtree and Shaw
were gone, preparing with Moore
for a new life in Ann Arbor.
It didn't take long for their new
team to have problems, too. Com-
pared to their past football families,
the Wolverines were more imper-
sonal and their flaws much more
exposed. Some of Shaw, Roundtree
and Moore's new teammates didn't
buy into Rich Rodriguez's vision
of the brand-new spread offense.
Roundtree and Moore were red-
shirted. Shaw scored the Wolver-
ines' first touchdown in their first
game of the year, but struggled
with the rest of the team during the
remainder of the 3-9 season.
As the Michigan "family" started
to fall apart, Coach Douglass called
the three every couple of weeks to
tell them to keep their heads up -
and, in typical big-brother fashion,
to makesure they didn't get mixed
up in things they shouldn't.
"'How's school going? How are
you dealing with being a scout team
guy?' " Douglass said, recounting a
typical conversation."That freshman
year, that redshirt year was a tough
year for those guys. And then Mike,
him getting a chance to play and him
fumbling the ball a couple times, his
self-esteem was getting low."
In that unfamiliar situation, play-
ing for a losingteam in a town three
and a half hours north of home, high
school teammates Shaw, Roundtree
and Moore stuck with what they
knew - each other. They signed
an apartment lease together for
sophomore year because they knew
exactly what they were getting
themselves into.
The night before this year's spring
game, the first chance for Round-
tree to showcase his talent in front
of a large audience in Ann Arbor, he
told Shaw that he really wanted to
come out strong the next day. Shaw
told him, "You can doit. We've been
doing it since first grade."
Thenextday,infrontoftheo,000
spring-game watchers, Roundtree
scored two touchdowns. Sure, it
was only the spring game. But one
of those routes he ran was the exact
same he had run in Trotwood-Mad-
ison's spread offense. Coach Doug
was in attendance and immediately
recognized Roundtree's play.
A juke to the inside, past the safe-
ty, running in the end zone to catch a
50-yard bomb..
He had been taught well.
Breakdown: Blue just too powerful for EMU
By RUTH LINCOLN
and ANDY REID
Daily Sports Editors
It may be easy to overlook East-
ern Michigan. But if the last two
weeks have taught us anything,
it's tough to bounce back from an
early-season marquee matchup.
After a close loss to Miami, Flor-
ida State limped to a 19-9 snoozer
against an FCS school last week-
end. Oklahoma State beat Georgia
in one of the Pokes' biggest wins
ever - only to be embarrassed by
high-powered Houston the next
week. And Colorado, after a heart-
breaking loss to rival Colorado
State, was run out of Toledo by the
Rockets.
Now, it's Michigan's turn.
Following the biggest win of the
Rich Rodriguez era, the Wolver-
ines have to refocus this weekend
to hold off an Eastern Michigan
squad led by former Michigan
defensive coordinator Ron Eng-
lish.
With a young roster and depth
concerns at some key areas, let's
see if the Wolverines have itin
them to avoid an upset and build
on their early-season momentum.
MICHIGAN PASSING OFFENSE
VS. EASTERN MICHIGAN
PASSING DEFENSE
A quick look at the Eagles' sea-
son stat sheet raises a huge red
flag for freshman quarterback
Tate Forcier. Washtenaw County's
other Division-I football team
is giving up just 83 yards a game
through the air, good for fifth in
the NCAA.
Wait - hold your horses.
First off, Eastern's first game
was against the triple-option
attack of Army, who compiled a
dismal eight yards passing. Not
because the Eagles were such
defensive stalwarts, but because
the Academy attempted just five
throws.
And last week, the Eagles faced
Northwestern quarterback Mike
Kafka, who relies much more on
his dangerous legs than his subpar
arm.
Forcier can use his legs to
manipulate the passing attack, and
his collection of lightning-fast,
talented receivers will present a
whole new ballgame. Expect the
Eagles' overrated passing 'D' stats
to be exposed ina big way.
Edge: Michigan
MICHIGAN RUSHING OFFENSE
VS. EASTERN MICHIGAN
RUSHING DEFENSE
The Eagles have allowed almost
500 yards rushing through two
games. Now they're lining up
against Brandon Minor. And Car-
los Brown. And Mike Shaw. And
Vincent Smith, Denard Robinson
and Forcier.
Freshman Tate Forcier has surprised everyone - except himself, apparently - with his quick 2-0 start as Michigan's starting quarterback.
That's a bundle of rushingweap-
ons to handle for s team that hasn't
shown the slightest ability to slow
down the ground game thus far
this season.
What makes things worse
for the Eagles is that they were
completely baffled by Army's
option attack, letting the Knights
accumulate 300 rushing yards.
Although there are a lot of big dif-
ferences between a triple option
like Army's and the spread option
that Rodriguez employs, the basic
concepts are the same.
Michigan is going to score a lot
For cornerbacks Donovan War-
ren and Boubacar Cissoko, the
thought of covering Eagles' wide
receiver Jacory Stone should bring
a sign of relief.
Sure, Stone has been Schmitt's
favorite target for the good portion
of their four years together. And 15
catches for 158 yards through two
contests isn't bad either. But after
covering Michael Floyd and Golden
Tate last week, Stone and company
will seem like gravy for Warren
and Cissoko.
Edge: Michigan
of points - throug
the ground.
MICHIGAN PASS
VS. EASTERN
PASSINGC
He's not the ferc
er Jimmy Clausen
quarterback Andy
carry a similar "I
sign.
The senior has a
set the national re
for single-game p
when he put up 58c
igan. His 2,644 yar
downs last season
think Eastern woi
better team.
h the air and on MICHIGAN RUSHING DEFENSE
VS. EASTERN MICHIGAN
Edge: Michigan RUSHING OFFENSE
Junior running back Dwayne
SING DEFENSE Priest put up a career-bestl127 rush-
MICHIGAN ing yards on 17 carries last week
DFFENSE in Evanston. Priest might take off
ocious Rottweil- once or twice, but don't expect any
was, but Eagles' breakout, jaw-dropping Eastern
Schmitt could Michigan runs.
Beware of Dog" .The Michigan defense needs to
redeem itself after allowing 154
tireless arm and rushingyards onthe ground against
'cord last season Notre Dame last week. The Eagles
ass completions look like the perfect rebound team.
on Central Mich- Despite returning four full-time
'ds and 15 touch- starters, the Eagles' offensive line
would make you leaves much to be desired. Want
uld have been a proof? Against Air Force, Schmitt
was sacked six times. And that was
to a Falcons team'
Jack Paulson, who<
last season.
Defensive end B
must -be livid he
anyone yet. This
week.
SPECIAL'
Yeah, Zoltan N
punted by Tate Fo
Yeah, Michigan mi
goal (from a toughe
might expect, I mi
But the special t
fold better than la
despite one bad p
Irish, is still one of
in the country. Ar
competition in the
the placekicker sit
itself out.
It's the return g
such dramatic lea
transforming from
gest weakness to a1
"Last year, we
catch the kick from
ber," Rodriguez s
happy to catch a kic
it seemed like."
Darryl Stonum
just catch the ball
against Notre- Dar
93-yard kick retut
randon Graham INTANGIBLES:
hasn't flattened The Wolverines have a chance to
should be his match their win total from a season
ago. And in a year when so many
Edge: Michigan expected them to be "down," isn't
that enough to play for?
TEAMS Last week's win against Notre
Aesko was out- Dame redeemed the Wolverines in
ircier last week. ways, but to match last year's win
ssed a short field total just 14 days into the 2009 sea-
er angle than you son would be numerically satisfy-
ght add). ing.
eams unit is ten- The Eagles are coming off a tight
st year's. Mesko, three-point loss in Evanston, which
unt against the could be deemed as some sort of
the best punters moral victory given their dreadful
nd with healthy past. But can the Eagles play that
e kicking game, well for two straight games? For
uation will work a mediocre MAC team to nearly
upset two Big Ten ' contenders,
sie that's made there has to be something funny
ps and bounds, in the Washtenaw County water
the team's big- supply.
huge strength. Play-by-play man Matt Shep-
couldn't even herd is in the booth for the Eagles
what I remem- this fall. You may remember Shep-
aid. ."We were herd's deep baritone as the voice of
ck and fall down, Michigan basketball. Advantage?
Only if you're lame enough to go to
definitely didn't tomorrow's game.
1 and fall down Edge: Michigan
which graduated
added nine sacks
down in the second quarter.
Edge: Michigan
me, racing to a
rn for a touch-
Score: Michigan wins 34-7