Cass Tech football players walk to practice on Sept. 27, 2016. Due to the field at the high school being grass the football team must was close to a mile to another field to practice.
The school day at Detroit Cass Tech is over and the football players stream out a back entrance, heading to the nearby football field. They enter the locker room, grab their pads and are off.
Many of the upperclassmen head for cars. They stow their pads in the trunk, jump in and drive away.
Most of the underclassmen take their pads and begin “The Walk.”
Where are they all going?
They are going to practice, walking in groups of four or five.
This is Cass Tech’s version of the Green Mile.
Because Cass Tech’s football field is a grass field and not an artificial surface that most schools have, daily practice on that field is not recommended.
If Cass practiced there every day the grass would be long gone by now and the unbeaten and No. 1 ranked in Division 1 Technicians would be hosting unbeaten and No. 2 in Division 2 Detroit King Saturday at noon in the biggest game in the state . . . on a dirt field.
It seems absurd that a program like Cass Tech, which has won two state championships and has advanced to at least the Division 1 semifinals the last six years, plays on such a poor field.
Cass Tech football players walk to practice on Sept. 27, 2016. Due to the field at the high school being grass the football team must was close to a mile to another field to practice.
That is why the Cass players, equipment in hand, leave the school, turn left on Ledyard and turn right on Third.
“I knew we didn’t practice at Cass Tech,” said senior receiver/defensive back Donovan Peoples-Jones, the top player in the state. “I knew the practice field was somewhere. I thought it was on the other side of the school. I was kind of unhappy when I had to walk over here.”
There are a couple of vacant lots the players cut across to reach Temple, where they turn left and walk to the intersection of Grand River and Temple.
This is where things get tricky.
In addition to Grand River, there are entrance and exit ramps to the Lodge Freeway in the vicinity. Sure, there are traffic lights, but since when do teenage boys pay attention to traffic lights?
Players scamper across the street – you might call it their speed work – and suddenly they are on Grand River, in front of the Motor City Casino.
For the record, none of the players try to get in a quick hand of black jack or two before practice.
Sophomore receiver Kyron McKinnie was a sight trying to cross Grand River. In addition to carrying his shoulder pads, he had his backpack and carried a gym bag with more of his equipment.
“I thought it was kind of crazy at first,” he said. “I thought we practiced at Cass. I just got through it. It doesn’t bother me much.”
The coaches don’t walk with the players because the ones who are on staff at Cass use their cars to bring over equipment like blocking shields, cones and water.
Some players head down Temple, others walk a block on Grand River and turn left on Brooklyn, which turns into Elm.
The Temple route is a relatively new way players take to get to practice. Players go that way when they discovered the Temple-Trumbull Market, which has become a pit stop for some of them.
“Every time they go to practice down at the field, some of them stop,” said Sharky Katty, who runs the store. “They get candy, Gatorade. Most of the time they’re buying something cold because they need it. They’re all good kids. I don’t have any problem with them.”
Stopping at the market can have consequences if the players spent too much time there.
“A lot of times guys get in trouble,” said senior defensive end Zach Morton, who has committed to Syracuse. “They’d stop at the store and if they got here too late they’d have to run.”
The players walk down Elm or Temple, cross busy Trumbull, which can take some time as cars whiz by.
Cass Tech football player, Desean Boyd, 16, left and Donovan Parker, 17, right, get dressed before the start of practice on Sept. 27, 2016.
The last busy street is Rosa Parks and once they cross that they have arrived – some 22 minutes later – at their destination: Burton International Academy, an elementary school at Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Drive, which is just over a mile from Cass Tech.
Behind the school is a big field and most of the grass is ridiculously long. But that doesn’t complicate practice.
The field has a pair of old fashioned goalposts right out of the 1960s, and the part of the field Cass uses for practice hasn’t seen grass in some time.
For several years now it has been Cass Tech’s home through summer conditioning, preseason practices in August – which meant a booming business for the Temple-Trumbull Market – and most regular season practices.
When head coach Thomas Wilcher began coaching at Cass as an assistant 28 years ago, the old school had a 50-yard field it used some days, but most of the time the players were bused to Belle Isle for practice.
“That wasn’t a good idea,” Wilcher said. “It was just quicker for us to get over here versus the bus. Sometimes you would have to wait for it to get here. It would come after its routes. It saved on money, too.”
Freshman Anderson Shamily pulled his equipment out of the trunk of the car driven by his mother, Octavia, who was happy to drive the equipment to practice, but not her son.
“I make him walk,” she said proudly. “He wanted to try this out so he’s going to get the full effect. I allow him to put his stuff in here and then I drive it over. Sometimes I’ll drive some of the other kids’ stuff here.”
Cass Tech football player, Donovan Peoples-Jones checks his reflection in his Jeep window before the start of practice on Sept. 27, 2016.
Senior Jordan Lewis is a transfer from Sterling Heights Stevenson and he thought his new teammates were kidding him when they told him they walked to practice.
“It shocked me, honestly, it did shock me,” he said. “But I got through it. They said everyone has to do it so if it was natural to them, I’ve got to adapt at some time.”
To a man, every player said the walk brought the players closer together.
“It’s a little bit of a bonding experience,” Peoples-Jones said. “If you’re walking for a mile you’re going to bond somehow. You’re talking, laughing, joking along the way.”
They also said it is something they use to set themselves apart from the other schools in the state, most of which have only to walk a few feet to get to practice.
“It’s really nothing for real, but it’s preparation,” said McKinnie. “It humbles us more, this walking. It’s more determination to get to practice because we know we’ve got to be here at a certain time.”
While most of the freshmen and the sophomores have walked, there have been exceptions.
“I only walked two or three times my freshman year,” said senior Rodney Hall. “I knew a lot of the seniors and I was the backup quarterback so they gave me a ride. They were real cool. I was a lucky one.”
Some of the upperclassmen with cars go out of their way to give rides to the underclassmen.
“Now that I’m a senior, I try to help out the freshman when I can as far as giving them rides,” said defensive end Desean Boyd, who has committed to Eastern Michigan. “I don’t think it’s cheating. I remember being a freshman. I just wanted somebody to help me out, so I try to help them out.”
Cass Tech football player, Zaire Faulkner, 17, gets taped by Coach Blakely before the start of practice on Sept. 27, 2016.
The Cass players are grateful for the recent cool weather. Don’t forget, if they walked to practice, they have to walk back after practice, which is another mile.
“It was tiring walking back to Cass after you were done with practice,” Boyd said. “But every freshman has to struggle until they get their car or find a ride.”
There is room at Cass for a practice field. The site of the old school is vacant, but the ground would require major work before a team could practice there. The obvious fix would be instillation of an artificial surface, which would be a dream come true for Wilcher.
But Wilcher is a realist.
“We keep talking about it, but it costs so much money,” Wilcher said. “Right now, money goes toward books and other stuff, which is what we need to spend money on.”
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Walking to and from practice is a considerable inconvenience on several fronts. Practicing at Burton International also cuts into Wilcher’s study table time for players who don’t have a class in the eighth period.
“It’s difficult, but you can’t look at the obstacles in front of you,” he said. “You have to look at the things you can do with what you have and the resources you do have. You can’t think about things that can set you back.
“You have to learn to adapt. That’s what we’re doing. We’re adapting.”
The practices at Burton become a bigger problem late in the season when Daylight Savings Time is gone, causing it to get dark in the middle of practice. That means Cass has to practice on its game field and by the time playoffs roll around, actual grass on the field is scarce.
“We tear up the field and we just say that’s it and we go for it,” Wilcher said, laughing. “It is what it is. It’s called home field advantage, baby.”
Although no one actually likes to walk to practice, the players take it as a rite of passage. It has become something of an initiation into the Cass program.
“It’s what the greats did here,” said Peoples-Jones, who now drives to practice. “It’s just really a cycle. You come in and you do what everyone does and you set yourself apart by working hard.”
Contact Mick McCabe: 313-223-4744 or mmccabe@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1