Preps!
The reason Pontiac Notre Dame Prep is no longer a member of the Detroit Catholic League is that it refused to play a crossover football game against Birmingham Brother Rice.
School officials cited the safety of its players as the reason for not playing Rice, and in this age of concussion awareness, everyone understands safety issues.
Brother Rice, an all-boys school, has 625 students, which translates to 1,250 students for Michigan High School Athletic Association classification purposes.
Notre Dame Prep, a co-ed school, has 749 students, so officials thought it was unfair and unsafe to play a school so much bigger (and better) than itself. They were so adamantly opposed to this, they forced every other sport the school offers to fend for itself when it comes to scheduling as an independent, since the consequences were that no sport could compete for a league championship.
All of this because of one football game.
Week 6 Michigan high school football schedule
In defending its decision in January, ND Prep assistant principal Maureen Radulski told the Free Press: “It’s not just the playing up, it’s the playing down, too. It’s about not just our kids, it’s about all the kids. We would never go and do this to another program that they wanted us to go and play a crossover the other way.”
That sounds convincing – until you realize that last week ND Prep drilled Detroit Public Safety Academy, 35-0, to improve to 4-1. Public School Academy has only 194 students, 555 fewer than ND Prep.
But didn’t Radulski say ND Prep would never do that to another school?
When asked to explain Monday, Radulski offered to transfer the caller to other school officials, refusing to comment.
Andrew Guest, the school’s interim president, tried to justify the game against Public Safety Academy, which in its first year of competition.
“It’s different in that it’s not a forced crossover game,” he said. “We’re not forcing a smaller program to play a larger program and that was originally our objection. In this particular case, the Safety Academy contacted us and was very desperate for a game. We had an opening and thought it would be better to play someone than have a bye week in the schedule. They dressed 21 athletes for the game, I think we dressed (a little over) 30.”
Seriously? That argument doesn’t hold water. Either you are concerned over safety issues for all students or you aren’t.
Mick McCabe’s Week 5 high school football rankings
ND Prep’s stance not to play Rice becomes even stranger by glancing at the rest of its schedule this fall. It is playing Bloomfield Hills, which has 1,831 students, as well as Rochester (1,632) and Birmingham Seaholm (1,356), all with larger enrollments than Rice.
“I think there’s two things you’ve got to look at,” Guest said. “The size of the school and the quality and size of their football team.”
In other words, since Bloomfield Hills was 1-8, 2-7 and 3-6 the last three seasons and Rochester – which beat ND Prep in overtime – is coming off consecutive 1-8 seasons, they make perfect opponents for ND Prep.
The main point is that the quality and size of ND Prep’s program compared to Public Safety Academy is significantly greater than the quality and size of Rice’s program compared to ND Prep’s.
By the way, Detroit Loyola, with 133 boys, honored the Catholic League’s schedule and played Orchard Lake St. Mary’s, which has 520 boys.
Do ND Prep officials think Loyola isn’t concerned with the safety of its players?
Contact Mick McCabe: 313-223-4744 or mmccabe@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1