great Michigan Daily article on Cass Tech/U-M players

Submitted by QuarterbackU on

Great feature article from Stephen Nesbitt at the Daily on the Cass Tech football program and the challenges the kids there face...really good read, Stephen's a senior editor, and I'm sure we can look forward for more to come from him!

http://michigandaily.com/sports/out-corridor-how-cass-tech-using-football-save-young-men-inner-city

An excerpt from the opening:

Twenty rows up in the home grandstand, overlooking the players, a thin green pad lies on the landing outside the press box. An interlocking ‘CT’ in bold white font marks the center of the square pad; dozens of identical pads line the fences behind both endzones.

Dragged up the stands, this padded square, manufactured for the players’ safety, has a new calling as a makeshift mattress. A purple sleeping bag lies partially unzipped at the end of the mattress, likely vacated quickly.

A small white pillow has been discarded, placed to the left of the mattress. The cord of a purple rape whistle stretches out from underneath the pillow. A black coat covers a small pile of clothes in the corner.

The stadium has been someone’s home during the hot summer months in Detroit. The higher you go, the safer you are. So the stadium’s top row has become a safe haven, a sanctuary.

This is life for residents of the Cass Corridor — one of the nation’s most notoriously dangerous districts, known for its guns, drugs and casinos. Detroit's violent crime rate is the second highest in the United States. The Corridor has the worst in the city.

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NOLA Wolverine

September 9th, 2011 at 12:10 PM ^

There probably hasn't been a Cass Tech team ever that could compete with that Harrison squad. Just another instance of a PSL school getting bombed on the big stage. Maybe if they could do a 2 on 2 matchup Cass could get  a win against HHS.

EDIT: To relate back to the OP, in an area like that it would be asking a lot for them to compete against equal talent with the giant gap in resources and complete lack of depth due to the way the area is. Glad some can get out to here, but it certainly isn't enough/ 

Joined: 09/01/2009

MGoPoints: 7308

Lookatthatspee…

September 9th, 2011 at 2:25 PM ^

sorry if this has already been covered elsewhere, but anybody know what booboo has been up to lately?  he's made some poor decisions but i just feel bad for the kid.  one bad thing after another snowballed into these mistakes that landed him in jail.  just to think, exactly two years ago he was tasked with coverin michael floyd

Joined: 09/08/2010

MGoPoints: 163

BlueHills

September 9th, 2011 at 4:00 PM ^

I graduated from Cass Tech. It's always been a "magnet" school, admitting kids from all over the city. Very, very few students live in the Cass Corridor. As far as Detroit goes, it has always been the premier high school. It invites the kids with the highest 8th grade test scores to join the Science and Arts program.

When I went there, the school had 35 curricula, everything from Science and Arts to Chemistry to Automotive to Air Conditioning Repair. 

The idea that it's a school for the most underprivileged kids living in the Cass Corridor is wrong. Also, the Cass Corridor is home to lots of Wayne State students, as WSU is in the Cass Corridor, which extends from Grand River, where very few people live, all the way to Grand Boulevard. There's lots of variety in the people who live in the area.

Certainly it has always had a few dangerous blocks. But going to Cass isn't dangerous.

This article is some student's romantic idea of what life must be like in Detroit, but it's not for real.

Joined: 10/31/2010

MGoPoints: 7466