With apologies to those I've kept in the dark (that's you, M.L.), here's the skinny on the trivia question I offered for five free books at my signing this past Thursday at the Bloomfield Hills Barnes & Noble.

Question No. 1: What metro Detroit high school did Al Fracassa coach at before assuming the football fortunes at Birmingham Brother Rice?

Fracassa was also the coach for the Knights of Royal Oak's Shrine High School in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Surprised? With Jim Manilla at Royal Oak High in the late 50s, and his stable of assistants that included 'Pin' Ryan, 'Ivy' Loftin, Paul Temerian and Frank Joranko, Royal Oak was a football hotspot during the high school sock-hop era.

In '62, Fracassa's Knights were 6-1-1. They tallied wins over notables like Detroit Holy Redeemer (15-0), Redford St, Mary's (19-0) and a 27-6 win over newly-opened Birmingham Groves. Shrine tied Detroit Servite in a 20-point stalemate for both teams. The only loss for Shrine was a 25-6 setback to Grosse Pointe St. Ambrose, which leads us to the conclusion of Question No. 2.

Question No. 2: What metro Detroit high school did George Perles lead before his days with the Pittsburgh Steelers and later, the Michigan State Spartans?

Perles was head coach at Grosse Pointe's St. Ambrose High. In '62, Perles and his Cavaliers went a perfect 9-0 in marching to the Catholic League championship and Goodfellows Game title. In that Goodfellows Game, St. Ambrose blanked the 8-0 Cardinals of Detroit Cooley, 19-0, on the floor of Tiger Stadium. It was the second-straight domination at 'The Corner' that day, because hours earlier, the Detroit Lions manhandled the previously-undefeated Green Bay Packers 26-14 in the now-famous Thanksgiving Day Massacre. The Lions sacked Hall-Of-Fame quarterback Bart Starr 11 times before the Cavaliers sacked Cooley's state championship dreams.

The state's Associated Press poll rewarded St. Ambrose, which closed in the spring of 1972, with the No. 3 ranking in the final Class B poll of '62. Also of note in Class B that year was West Bloomfield (7-0-1), which earned the 6th position, followed by Dearborn Divine Child (8th / 8-0) and Clawson High's Trojans, 10th with a record of 7-1.

Despite the loss, Detroit Cooley was awarded the No. 4 slot in the Class A poll in '62. Frank Joranko's Ferndale Eagles were sixth with the identical 8-1 record Ferndale High achieved this season. Hamtramck's Cosmos were 9th with a 7-1 slate and Seaholm was 10th at 8-1. Ann Arbor's Pioneer was the state champion in Class A for 1962.

The Fabulous Falcons! Perhaps the best story to emerge from the 2008 high school football season statewide might be the Farmington High Falcons. On September 12, Farmington was humiliated in a 63-0 loss to Rochester Adams High School, the Falcons' 15th-consecutive loss dating back to a 7-0 loss to Royal Oak's Ravens, coached by Terry Powers, on Oct 13, 2006.

I can't state for certain if it's ever happened before, because I don't have the time to go through the records of nearly 800 high schools, some closed many years ago, dating back to 1975, but I would imagine the list of schools who have lost 15 consecutive games in any stretch of seasons and found enough wins in any season to a) break the streak and b) make the playoffs is a short one.

In fact, if I were a betting man, and I'm not, I would say it's probably never happened before.

To pen a story that details 15 straight losses, capped by a 63-0 loss, followed by six-straight wins, including the school's first win over Farmington Hills Harrison in 31 seasons and a win over rival North Farmington to earn a state playoff berth, would probably get most Hollywood script writers laughed into the circular file.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction but no matter what happens to the Falcons in the playoffs, Farmington's revival is one of the great stories of Michigan's 2008-09 scholastic year.

It's official -- I've been tendered a contract from Arcadia Publishing to write a follow-up to the football book from this fall. The title, not suprisingly, will be called Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries.

There are a couple significant changes since Martin Luther King Day of this year, when offer and acceptance of the football book contract came and went in the blink of an eye. First, I'm now represented by an agent, Terry Whalin of The Whalin Literary Agency. Terry handles a couple of different, unrelated projects for me, served as an excellent contributor for the blogging panel I moderated in NYC this past April ( check out Terry's blog at The Writing Life) and therefore is a natural fit to represent me for this title, too.

The other change is two-fold. I was a never-published author nine months ago. Since then I've been published, the football book has been successful (a couple hiccups aside), my blog is syndicated and I'm better prepared for what to expect, having done it once before on a truncated time table. I wrote the football book in 45 days. Yes, that's 45 days to write 18,000-20,000 words, come up with 200 original images and lay it out, too. This time I'll have 135 days to finish the title and won't have to worry about a divorce attorney knocking on my front door.

I'm also thrilled to be working with Arcadia again. America is chock full of interesting history and metro Detroit is home to so much of the rich fabric that blankets our country's past. Thankfully Arcadia is a publisher dedicated to telling that story.

Fordson-Southgate Anderson: Mick McCabe wrote a nice piece in this morning's Freep about the Fordson-Anderson game last night that gave the Tractors the Mega Red Championship with a 36-21 win. Plenty of the Tractor tradition and a nice quote of Charlie Jestice, too.

Upcoming Events: I'll be at the Barnes & Noble in Bloomfield Hills on Telegraph Road at 6pm on Thursday, October 23rd. On Saturday, December 13th, I'll be at the Border's Express inside Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi from 2-4pm. Come check it out!

Talking Turkey & Helping The Kids: My football book, Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, will be on sale at Ford Field during the MHSAA's championship rounds of the 2008 football tournament. Three dollars (that's $3 to you and me) of every book sold will benefit Officials For Kids, the charitable arm of the MHSAA's corp of registered officials.

You can find the book at the MHSAA's vendor, Lighthouse Sportswear, who travel down from Grand Ledge. Thanks to John Johnson, Communications Director of the MHSAA and Tim Pendell, Senior Director of Community Affiars for the Detroit Lions.

Show your holiday spirit (the book makes a great gift, Mom!) and do something for those who need you the most. I harken to the phrase of rally used to promote the defunct Goodfellows Game played between the Catholic League and Detroit Public School League champions on Thanksgiving Day at Tiger Stadium.

No Child Forgotten. Watch some great football, buy a book and help the cause.

Not A Hater: I earned some healthy feedback from Thursday's post and most of it came from those who think I dislike Royal Oak HS. Far from it. I simply offered the opinion that time, money and a lot of sweat-equity was poured into an unknown brand for reasons I'm not certain best served the Royal Oak school district. Kimball was a known brand. You never had to ask a Kimball team to hit, never had to ask them to work and therefore had a level of expectation that many schools strive for.

If you think that's far-fetched, consider sending your daughter to Birmingham Marian. If she wants to play basketball, you're dealing with a known brand. The same goes for Brother Rice football and Al Fracassa, Troy Athens soccer and Tim Storch and Clarkston basketball and Dan Fife.

Today, when the rubber meets the road, there's just two years of history to draw on instead of 50 years of tradition that was well-publicized on the Kimball walls, vanquished to memory in 2006 at the hands of sandblasters and bulldozers.

Unfortunately for the Royal Oak faithful, the Ravens dropped another not-so-close contest last night to Birmingham Groves, 49-12. The game was the 146th time that a Royal Oak public school (RO Acrons, Kimball, Dondero, RO Ravens) faced a Birmingham public school (Birmingham Maples, Seaholm, Groves). It was just an opinion offered about Royal Oak's recent football struggles. From all accounts the Ravens have played hard, but unfortunately, simply playing hard doesn't win football games.

~ T. C. Cameron is a three-sport referee and writer who is scheduled to produce Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries for publication in 2009 from Arcadia Publishing.

Today I had the opportunity to talk with former Hazel Park and Birmingham Seaholm football coach Chuck Skinner. I was on the trail of setting up a Birmingham signing event when I caught up with Coach Skinner. It turns out he actually purchased Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries two days ago from a Barnes & Noble after a former player called to let him know he's now famous because of my book.

I'm kidding.

But seriously, Chuck Skinner, the toughest screw to ever march the sideline of Maple Field at Seaholm. The coach who went to college at Eastern Michigan University, who played football for Hurons with former Royal Oak High assistant coach and longtime Royal Oak Kimball head coach Paul Temerian. The man who is responsible for former Central Michigan University football coach Herb Deromedi being enshrined in the Collegiate Football Hall Of Fame in South Bend, Indiana.

Huh?

OK, it's a stretch, and I fear that Skinner told me the story better than I'm going to tell you, but here goes. It was 1976 and Seaholm is working on it's fourth coach in eight seasons (or so it seemed) when a handful of applicants applied for the position at Seaholm. It went to Skinner, and therefore Deromedi stayed at Central Michigan University as assistant coach under Roy Kramer for the 1977 season instead of returning home to South Oakland County. Skinner turned Seaholm into the biggest league rival of Ferndale, Kimball and Hazel Park overnight. Deromedi? He was left in the dust when Kramer went to Vanderbilt University, and went on to become a Top 10 coach in the history of Division - I football for winning percentage, all because Skinner got the job at Seaholm 30 years ago.

Coach Skinner had plenty of good stories to recant, like his 1974 Vikings, the top-ranked team in the state according to the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) paper playoff. The '74 season was a test run for a football tournament that became official in 1975.

"I had the No. 1 ranking in '74 in the Free Press and AP until Week No. 8 of that season, when for no good reason, Birmingham Brother Rice went ahead of us. We crushed Center Line 42-0 on Friday. Rice played Madison Heights Bishop Foley the next night (Saturday). Foley had Fracassa's son at quarterback and my son playing in the backfield, so what happens? His own kid throws five picks and Rice won 35-0 to steal the state championship from us," Skinner remembers with a laugh.

Football was really important back then with huge crowds and larger-than-life memories of the games, but it wasn't a live-or-die situation, either. Today what would be the outrage if an undefeated, top-ranked team didn't win the state title, much less didn't make the playoffs? In '74 The Vikings shutout seven of their nine opponents by a 214-25 margin while Rice tallied a 270-48 point differential. Among the victims of that Hazel Park campaign was a 6-0 whitewash of Lake Orion (6-3, Oakland-A North champions), a 20-0 triumph over Royal Oak Dondero (6-3, Metro Suburban Athletic Association champion) and an 8-0 shutout of Southeastern Michigan Association rival Royal Oak Kimball (7-2 in '74, 2nd SMA).

A different era to be sure. So were the rivalries, as Skinner remembers heartily.

"Pin Ryan was the coach at Kimball in the 1960s, and he hated to lose -- you couldn't even joke about it with him," Skinner recalls. "So competitive he was, but one week, Kimball gave up 40 points (most likely Kimball's 38-27 loss to Birmingham Seaholm on September 20, 1963), which never happened to them back then. Now back then, we would swap film with our opponent from the last week, and we (Hazel Park) were getting ready to play at Kimball. I called Ryan at his house and asked, 'Is this the Kimball defensive coordinator?' He was still so mad he could barely speak.

"Well, a few years later, we're playing Dondero and we botch three punts, and the Oaks pick up all three and take them in for touchdowns -- we got walloped. The next day, sure enough, the phone rings, I pick it up and I hear, 'Is this the Hazel Park special teams coach?'

"He got me back good."

Today Skinner spends summers up north on or around the golf course and remains in Oakland County during the cold season. The stories of motivating his Maples and Vikings, the championship tilts involving Dondero, Kimball, Ferndale, Hazel Park and Seaholm remain his fondest memories.

"You know, when I was at Hazel Park, we would play Dondero in the second game of the season every year, and if they won the game, his players would carry (head coach Ivy Loftin) off the field on their shoulders singing 'Happy Birthday'," Skinner said. "So 10 years later, I'm playing Dondero in the second-to-last game of the season before we would play Groves and they would get Kimball, and if he beat me there, they would carry him off the field singing 'Happy Birthday' and I couldn't figure it out.

"That was (Dondero assistant coach) Fred Fuhr, who told all those Dondero players to win the game for Ivy Loftin because it was his birthday, against two different schools six weeks apart on the schedule for over 10 years and not one Royal Oak kid ever figured it out!"

Like so many other coaches, life has slowed for Skinner, but the fire remains.

Content updated at 9:28am on September 16, 2008

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, available at Barnes & Noble, Border's Books and The Varsity Shop in Birmingham, Michigan

(Photo courtesy Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries/Gary Caskey)

Writing a book about high school football was an eye-opening experience on many fronts. It's created a small buzz within the prep football community, and everyone seems to have an opinion. I've tentatively decided to file that under the "all news is good news' category.

Yesterday I was yakking on the phone with Marc Secontine, owner of The Varsity Shop in downtown Birmingham, Michigan. Secontine's father, Vince, was the coach of the Birmingham High School Maples in the 1950s. For those that don't know, Birmingham High became Birmingham Seaholm. Secontine's also related to Birmingham Brother Rice football coach Al Fracassa.

Here's where the story gets good. Fracassa and I bumped into each other while I was walking out and he was waling into Eastern Michigan University's Rynearson Stadium. Naturally I shared the book with Coach Fracassa. His wife saw the copy I handed to Al and bought a copy for Secontine and had Al sign it for Marc. Little did she know that Secontine had purchased 20 copies from Arcadia Publishing directly to sell in his store.

The Varsity Shop has produced a table banner that will be making it's debut soon at a number of signings. It's this kind of enthusiasm for the book that warms my heart and tells me that, no matter the opinion of my book or my ability as a writer (or official for the matter), high school football is an important part of the community spirit in metro Detroit.

Library Event Nets Coach & Stories: This past Wednesday in Royal Oak I was fortunate to host a signing at Royal Oak's Public Library. Among the attendees were former Royal Oak Kimball HS/Royal Oak HS coach Terry Powers. Among his comments from Wednesday:

"We had good kids to pull from in Royal Oak, and I never had to ask my kids at Kimball to hit. That's one of the things about our teams that makes me proud. Win or lose you knew you had played Kimball."

Powers also talked about being hired at Kimball as it relates to the old Kimball-Dondero rivalry and what it was like to follow a legend.

"When I was hired the program was down, but it was made clear to me, 'That's the game you win, that Dondero game', and there was no two ways about it. I remember hearing the story about (Coach) Paul Temerian saying he was going to retire at the end of the 1982 season, but Dondero beat Kimball 35-0 (in the Silverdome). After the game he told Chuck Jones that he would coach another year -- that's a rivalry, making you stay another year so you don't go out like that against a rival."

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, available at retailers everywhere.

If I said Brad Cochran fundamentally changed the Michigan High School Athletic Association and switched sports 30 years before the MHSAA was forced to do so under the weight of a federal judgment, you might expect a more detailed story.

Let me explain. And no, Cochran doesn't live in Grand Rapids.

I spent last Saturday at West Bloomfield High School, watching Birmingham Brother Rice advance to the Division I regional this weekend at Birmingham Seaholm. During the final I spent some time talking with longtime Birmingham Groves baseball coach and teacher Jim Crosby along the left field foul line. We talked about the many years Crosby and longtime assistant Phil Roy have coached at Groves. Later, as we recalled the MHSAA's transfer rules were born when Cochran's parents enrolled their son at Rice for the 1980 season, Crosby's eyes lit up.

"Did you know Brad Cochran was a cross country runner at Royal Oak Dondero when he was a freshman?" Crosby asked with equal part smirk and smile. I was already surprised when Crosby told me he had been a cross country coach at Groves, but a high school freshman running five miles races and starting at defensive back in the Big Ten a handful of years later? Brad Cochran was All-Big Ten at the University of Michigan, earned All-American honors and was the 3rd round pick in the 1986 National Football League draft of the Oakland Raiders.

Are you kidding me?

When you think of names from the running circuit of south Oakland County, you think of guys like Birmingham's Kermit Ambrose. Hazel Park's Jack Broughton and Dan Lutkus come to mind quickly, and Dick Zulch, too. Trust me, I was shocked, and I like to think I know a little prep football history. Most kids who run cross country have as much chance of becoming Big Ten football heroes as the kid playing tuba in the marching band has at becoming the next Tom Brady or Broadway Joe Namath.

I ought to know -- I was a skinny track guy in high school.

"It's true. I remember the races we saw him at," Crosby said of his time coaching the harriers. "Brad Cochran was a tall, lanky kid who hadn't filled out. He was about 6'2" without any meat on him. Of course, the next year we saw him on the football field and he had turned into a man among boys. He was filled out and was a natural for football."

The MHSAA's transfer rules were, for many years, nicknamed The Brad Cochran Rule among the media covering prep sports statewide because of Cochran's sudden transfer. It wasn't the first time a Royal Oak kid had spurned the public school. When I cornered John Wangler at last season's Michigan-Michigan State football game media event, I boldly told John, "If you had gone to Kimball instead of Shrine, Paul Temerian would have won three state titles!" Wangler laughed and diplomatically offered, "I would have loved to play for Coach Temerian!"

We then both laughed because Wangler would have thrown the ball about four times a game if he had gone to Kimball, where running the football was the alpha and omega of the playbook. Wangler would have been the greatest prep quarterback to ever hand a football off a million times consecutively - that would have been a shame.

Brad Cochran was different. He could return punts and kicks. He covered opponents like a glove, and was big, fast and strong. Playing under head coach Ivy Loftin, the '78 Dondero team finished a game behind league champion Birmingham Groves at 4-1 in the Metro Suburban Activities Association (MSAA) and 6-3 overall, but the season ended bitterly with a 14-0 setback to Southeastern Michigan Association (SMA) champion Kimball. In '79, with Cochran as a junior captain, Dondero marched to the MSAA title, going 5-0 in league after opening the season with wins over Ferndale and Hazel Park. At 7-0, Dondero was ranked as high as No. 2 in the state and primed to earn their first playoff invite. But the Oaks stumbled in a 14-12 loss at Cass Field to their former Thanksgiving Day rivals, Birmingham Seaholm.

The next week, playing 4-4 Kimball, Cochran hauled in a 23-yard touchdown pass for Dondero's first score on the game's opening possession. That would be Dondero's lone highlight - Kimball trounced the Oaks by three scores, 27-6, in front of an upset-minded rival crowd. This loss specifically drove Cochran's parents to seek out a different option for their son. They were upset that no scouting and no film prep had been put into The Oak Stump game, a game that, if won, could have salvaged the season and possibly still earned Dondero a playoff berth.

The next year Cochran was proudly wearing the orange and black of Brother Rice. With no transfer rules to stop him, Brad Cochran joined future Big Ten players Paul Jokisch and Dave Yarema in taking Rice to a 12-0 slate and the season's Class A title. The Warriors outscored their opponents 345-74. They topped Sterling Heights Stevenson in the quarters 25-13, and defeated Detroit Central's Trailblazers 49-12 in the semifinal. In the Pontiac Silverdome, Yarema found Yokisch for a touchdown late in the 4th quarter to give Rice a 6-0 win over Dearborn Fordson, completing an undefeated, championship season.

In the months to follow the transfer rules were drafted and later enacted. In every MHSAA membership bulletin since, those affiliated with the state's prep association can read the minutes and details of the many requests to waive the transfer regulations, month after month, and often with little success.

Today, Cochran doesn't hate Dondero. He doesn't hate Kimball, either, where his brother, Brett, played football for both George Hanoian and recently-retired Terry Powers. Cochran still gets his hair cut at the Kimball Barber Shop, where Tiger broadcaster Paul Carey visited regularly for nearly 20 years when he lived in Royal Oak.

Thirty years ago, an All-State football player was a cross country runner at a different school. The one-time runner, turned footballer and head-turning transfer, became a state champion, All-American and NFL draft pick. He broke hearts, leaving one big school for another, and changed the high school landscape we live in today.

That was Brad Cochran.

(Photo courtesy of The Oakland Press)

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, due August 25th, 2008 from Arcadia Publishing

Fred Fuhr never asked for glory and he never asked for pity, either. All he asked for was a chance. He got his team to the cusp of success it had enjoyed for several consecutive years and watched a rival ruin it. A year later, his team took it right back.

Fred Fuhr did what some unlucky sole will be asked to do at Clarkston High School when Kurt Richardson steps aside. Believe me when I say there will be a day when Al Fracassa is no longer on the sideline at Birmingham Brother Rice. Basketball coach Al Poynter did it at Berkley when Steve Rhodes said goodbye. Poynter has since landed on his feet successfully at Oxford High School.

Fred Fuhr followed a legend, the icon of the football program at Royal Oak Dondero High School, a man named Ivy Loftin. That's Fuhr on the right of Ivy Loftin in front of the regal, main doors of Dondero High in 1993, when first published in The Daily Tribune.

Fred Fuhr passed away last week in Jupiter, Florida. He was 69. A small obit in the Tribune, still Royal Oak's unofficial city bible, carried a simple, one-line tribute: Mr. Fuhr was a long-time teacher and coach at Royal Oak Dondero High School.

I guess the North won the Civil War and John Glenn was a pilot, too.

In Fuhr's first season the Oaks went 1-8, but that one win was a 14-0 decision in the Pontiac Silverdome against hated rival Royal Oak Kimball. His second season was a winless 0-9 and the grumblings around 709 North Washington Avenue suggested replacement, not resolve. Fuhr did what any good coach did. He didn't stray from the plan, kept his nose to the stone and kept the faith.

Sound familiar? Isn't that what us sage, old adults impart on our own children? Guess what? It worked, because in 1986, Fuhr's Oaks did what most well-coached teams do. They responded resoundingly. After dropping a 17-0 opener to Ferndale's Eagles, the Oaks blanked Bloomfield Hills Lahser 18-0. The next week Dondero lost 35-6 to West Bloomfield, but responded with three shutouts over Rochester, Birmingham Groves and Southfield Lathrup by a combined count of 63-0. After pasting Rochester Adams 26-6 and surviving Troy Athens, 14-11, the Oaks had captured their first Metro Suburban Activities Association (MSAA) title in five seasons and were poised to earn the school's first invite to the MHSAA football tournament if they won the Oak Stump Game in week nine. The Oaks would certainly 'Kan Kimball' into submission the next week.

It didn't happen. A highly-motivated Kimball team came over to Dondero's Cass Field on a gray, dank November day and ruined Fuhr's coronation by punching the Oaks in the mouth for four quarters in a 14-6 upset. Trailing 14-0, Dondero roared to a fourth-quarter score only to miss the PAT. When they pinned Kimball in the shadows of the train tracks on 3rd and 16, quarterback Mike Siwajek found receiver Danny Holeton for 18 yards. First down, Kimball. A few plays later the clock expired and it was game, set and match, Kimball.

It was then that Fred Fuhr earned his school's respect. He shook hands at midfield. He consoled his team before meeting with reporters. Did he complain, offer excuses or say it was anyone's fault? Nope. He told reporters that the better team had won the game. He explained he had smelled trouble all week, that too many Oaks believed winning would just happen when Kimball came to push.

What did Fred Fuhr do after that game? He went back to work. So did his Oaks.

After another tough, one-possession loss at Cass to Ferndale to open the '87 campaign, Dondero rattled off eight straight wins. They authored an undefeated 7-0 chapter in the MSAA and overwhelmed Kimball in the Silverdome, 27-7. Fuhr would go on to win the MSAA in '91 and went to the playoffs in both '90 and '91. Three league titles, the only two playoff appearances in school history and 33 wins in six seasons after starting 1-17.

Fred Fuhr isn't going to be mentioned with Charlie Jestice, Tom Mach or Al Fracassa as a legendary metro area coach. He wasn't the man who was the one constant, like the lighthouse at the end of the pier standing tall year after year while the never-ending crash of waves passed by, representing one class after another, year after year. Fred Fuhr was the guy that took over at a school and made it his own without you knowing it.

Sometimes the glory, the pity and the headlines go to someone else. Schools open, close and get renamed. Years from now some old codger with more miles in the rearview mirror than a '57 Chevy will sit in a McDonald's -- whatever those look like in another 30 years -- and the word Dondero will be screened on his sweatshirt. By then it might as well say Mars to most people, because Dondero will be something heard of but never really seen with flesh and blood.

Here's to a man who did something great at Dondero, a school that had already seen better days and made it seem like nothing had ever changed.

That was Fred Fuhr.

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, due August 25, 2008 from Arcadia Publishing

(Photo courtesy The Daily Tribune/Craig Gaffield)