Robert Bobb believes Detroit's big future means a smaller city.
The state-appointed superintendent of Detroit's long-rudderless public school system is lock-step with Detroit Mayor Dave Bing in this belief. Today, Bobb announced plans to close 45 schools. On the endangered list are schools in the city's depleted neighborhoods, while those in still-viable locations were largely spared.
Three prep basketball icons in Detroit annuls will shutter forever under Bobb's plan. Why is this important? Perhaps no major city in America can boast so much big-name professional talent from such a small population base.
Detroit's Cooley, Northwestern and Southwestern are being sent to the chop shop. It's something I think has to happen even though no school closing is ever popular. Pontiac and Royal Oak consolidated their longtime rivals recently. Dozens of beloved Catholic and Detroit public schools have shuttered in the last 20 years. Hell, two weeks ago, Baltimore's Archdiocese announced the closing of Cardinal Gibbons High. That was only the prep home to Babe Ruth. No biggie.
Cooley's Cardinals and Northwestern's Colts were longtime football powers dating back to the post-World War II boom. Those days are long gone, but basketball had remained a galvanizing point of pride at all three schools until recently.
Today, I can't help but remember coach Perry Watson's indestructible Prospectors of the 1980s and early 90s, sans the MHSAA Finals. I vividly recall the bitter rivalry between Southwestern and coach Ben Kelso's Cooley Cardinals. Kelso's charges took three straight Class A crowns from 1987-89, earning the upper hand in the rivalry until Watson's Prospectors, led by Jalen Rose, earned back their pride with back-to-back titles in 1990-91.
And Northwestern was the original bully in Detroit's prep basketball footprint. Dating back to the inception of the Metropolitan League, now the Detroit Public School League, Northwestern has always been one of the premiere programs in the city.
They were rivals to Detroit Miller, as was Cooley, when Will Robinson presided over Miller's Trojans. When Robinson took the reigns at Pershing, Northwestern was the big game for the Doughboys, too. They were the mark for Dick Honig's Mackenzie Stags, Reggie Harding's Eastern Indians and George Gervin's King Crusaders.
In researching my last title, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, I learned coach Sam Bishop was one of the original deans of the PSL and recall the motivation Ferndale took into the 1963 Class A semifinal with Northwestern after Detroit Free Press prep writer Hal Schram (the original Swami) predicted a Northwestern victory. It was Northwestern that took the 1967 city title before the July riots changed Detroit structurally and fundamentally for the worse.
If there was a big win or moment for a rival to be had, it usually came in a hard-fought victory over Northwestern. In 2008 the Colts earned their first PSL title in 30 years but still hold the city record for PSL titles (16).
I'm surprised Northwestern will shutter to be converted into an magnate academy but not saddened by Cooley or Southwestern. Each school's best days were behind them, especially so at Cooley. The physical condition of the building and emotional culture at the school -- much like the neighborhood it occupies opposite the Southfield Freeway -- had long been overrun by gangs. Entire rows of lockers had been tagged with graffiti, vandalized or ripped out altogether and Cooley's long rivalry with Detroit Cody has become dormant.
At Southwestern, where Antoine "The Judge" Joubert ruled before the Fab Five was a household name, sports programs that solidified one of Detroit's toughest and most racially-charged areas has been beaten down for a while now and neighboring Western International enrolls more than half of Southwestern's populous of potential athletes.
Detroit's changing forever and once again, we're humbly reminded the prep scene will never be what it was in the 313.
Regards...
~Chesapeake Bay conservationist T.C. Cameron watched Baltimore's Dunbar Poets win their 12th Maryland state title this past Saturday and pines for Dunbar, DeMatha, Pershing and the top team in either Chicago or New York to play a four-school, three-game tournament.
While some of the history will fade away, just imagine how good some of these PSL teams will be going forward! Could be a string of MHSAA champions from the D.
Posted by: niner | March 17, 2010 at 12:27