Editor's Note: Content updated at 5:00pm on December 28 to correct references to Butch Jones, mistakenly identified as Butch Davis.

DETROIT -- The catcalls, snickers and jokes remain, but if accepting a bid to the Motor City Bowl means Central Michigan University is playing football every year after Christmas, CMU coach Butch Jones welcomes all barbs.

Jones guided the Chippewas on Friday night in a hard-fought 24-21 loss to Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in front of 41,399 at Ford Field. The Owl win was the 12th edition of the annual game, which has more than earned its' keep in 12 years of successful pairings. The Rose Bowl it's not, but the Motor City Bowl (MCB) is no Cherry Bowl, the ill-fated game that managed just two turns in the mid 1980s in the Pontiac Silverdome. In 1984 Michigan State helped bring around 70,000 into the 'Dome for the inagural game but the Spartans dropped a 10-6 decision. The next year the game was broke before kickoff and Cherry Bowl unceremoniously fell from the vine of college football bowl games.

MCB immediately struck an alliance between two neighboring conferences, the Mid-American Conference and the Big Ten. Aside from revenue giant sports football and basketball, the two conferences are competitive in many sports, the rare upset on the gridiron or hardwood notwithstanding. But Motor City Bowl has helped the MAC -- a bowl-starved conference -- attain a footing among major college football's elite, and perhaps no school or coach has been a better beneficiary than CMU and Jones.

Jones has succeeded former CMU coach Brian Kelly's success without missing a beat, in part because the Chippewas have made the Motor City Bowl a three-year tradition that means more than simply playing a football game on Boxing Day. In short, it allows the Chippewas to be a major player within recruiting circles that encompass metro Detroit's talent-rich, three-county footprint. "Without a doubt, the access created by playing a bowl game in our backyard, so to speak, is priceless," Jones said. "Our staff made a commitment to recruiting Michigan, and our success is predicated on how well we recruit Michigan. Playing in the Motor City Bowl has made such a huge difference in our program's success in recent years."

To wit, the Chippewas boast 16 players from the tri-county area, including seven from Oakland County. Three players hail from Lake Orion, a runner-up in this year's MHSAA Division 1 football finals. There's four players from Detroit's proper and three from Warren's De LaSalle High, making CMU's roster one stocked from all corners of Michigan and fortified with a large bounty from metro Detroit. Playing in the Motor City Bowl three straight years has contributed to Central's success on signing day.

Like Florida Atlantic, a school with hardly an ounce of name recognition in major college football just a handful of years ago, the Chippewas are a rare story that few schools could even hope to emulate today. In the early 1970s, Central Michigan and fellow in-state rival Eastern Michigan University were powerhouse NAIA schools who made the leap from small-time Christian athletics to Division-I status. While Eastern struggled in the late 70s and early 80s, Central Michigan flourished and thrived under a former Oakland County coach, Herb Deromedi. When Roy Kramer left CMU in the late 1970s, the former Royal Oak High grad and Kimball High coach began a 20-year reign in Mt.Pleasant that landed him in the college football hall-of-fame.

However, a not-so-rare story followed Deromedi's departure. The Chippewas struggled to regain that winning form. After Kelly quickly made CMU successful again, he was poached just as quickly by Cincinnati. Enter Jones, with an already strong acumen for recruiting and chalkboard strategy. Add CMU's trifecta of bowl appearances in Detroit and the Chippewas have re-chartered their path for annual success.

"We're very proud to represent our conference and our state in Detroit," Jones said."If being successful means coming to the Motor City Bowl three straight years, I'll take that success every day of the week as opposed to staying home for the holidays."

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, due August of 2009 from Arcadia Publishing.

Author's Note: This is an Extra! edition of the two-part series 53 Years Later, A Rivalry Revealed, detailing the story of one seemingly innocuous high school football game played between two communities with little in common on October 14, 1955.

ROYAL OAK -- 53 years ago Royal Oak was the place to move to. It had a movie theater with a brightly-lit marquee and the Farmer's Market was the place to be on Saturday morning. A Friday night win got a player a free Saturday trim at the barber shop. Fish 'n chip dinner at the local diner and phone numbers that began with LI or MI exchanges. Woodward Avenue was best cruised with a four-seat Bel Air or convertible Thunderbird by kids fashioned in letter sweaters and crew cuts.

In 1955, Royal Oak was teeming with families forged from the post-World War II baby boomers. The city's school board approved a second high school, the uproar over its name a Royal Oak argument second to none. It was determined that Royal Oak High would be renamed for Congressman George A. Dondero and be called the Oaks, and the new school would be christened for School Board President Clarence M. Kimball under the theme of Knights. Royal Oak's annual Thanksgiving Day tilt with Birmingham would be replaced by the Oak Stump Game between Kimball and Dondero.

A rivalry was born and dividing lines had been drawn, but in '55, Royal Oak was still a one-school town. From the '55 Royal Oak roster that night was one Darrell Harper, a gifted, fleet-footed halfback who was an consensus All-South Oakland County pick. Harper would go on to be a starter at the University of Michigan and earn three varsity football letters, first under Coach Bennie Oosterbaan and then Chalmers 'Bump' Elliott. Harper played with Michigan greats Ron Kramer and Don Dufek, and was followed to Michigan by Kimball's Wally & John Gabler, Dick Ries and Craig Kirby. Harper later became the head coach for the Chargers of Southfield Lathrup High.

Royal Oak was coached in '55 by Jim Manilla, who won the last five Birmingham - Royal Oak Turkey Day games by a combined count of 105-26. Manilla hung up his whistle & knickers following the '56 campaign to accept the district's athletic director post. His first order of business was appointing two varsity football coaches. Ivy Loftin took of the reins at Dondero, going 151-79-8 in 27 seasons. Prentice 'Pin' Ryan was awarded the job at Kimball, going 48-16-5 in eight seasons. Manilla tabbed Paul Temerian to replace Ryan at Kimball in '65 and Temerian went 131-39-1. Loftin and Temerian, assistants under Manilla in Royal Oak High in '55, retired in 1983, when they were part of the inaugural class of inductees of the Michigan High School Football Coaches Hall Of Fame.

The three coaches (Loftin, Ryan, Temerian) combined to win 26 league titles and earned 12 appearances in the season-ending Associated Press Top 10 poll, but it would be an unheralded halfback and assistant coach who would make the most significant mark in Michigan's sports annals from the Monroe - Royal Oak game on October 14, 1955.

Herb Deromedi.

An Acorn in '55, Deromedi was playing his senior season behind Harper and halfback Ralph Forbes during an 7-2 campaign. Deromedi would accompany Harper to Michigan as a common student, roommates for each other's freshman year. As a U-M senior, Deromedi earned a position under Jack Stovall at Ann Arbor's University High. He followed that with a stint at Bryon High.

In 1964 Deromedi returned to his Royal Oak roots at Kimball as assistant to Ryan with Temerian, who had coached Deromedi in '55 in the same role. After a 7-1-1 mark in '64 that landed Kimball a league title and the AP's 10th spot, Kimball marched to a 9-0 showing in '65, Temerian's first as head coach, and was rewarded with another league title and the state's 4th-place ranking in the AP poll. Deromedi and sister, Sue, then a Kimball cheerleader, are pictured here after Kimball pasted Dondero 33-0 at Kimball Stadium.

Opening with two consecutive losses in '66, Kimball's Knights rallied to a 6-2-1 mark in winning the Southeastern Michigan Association (SMA) crown. That season Deromedi helped Kimball thwart his former school, Dondero, from winning the state championship by tying the No. 1 Oaks (8-0-1 in '66 / 5th AP) in front of 10,000 fans at Cass Field. The '66 game was perhaps the most memorable game of the series. After a potential winning score by Dondero had been called back thanks to an assisting the runner call, Kimball raced to Dondero's eight-yard line when the referee's gun sounded the end of the 14-14 thriller.

The same gunshot that ended Dondero's dream also ended Deromedi's high school coaching career. Roy Kramer, who had spent a night in Grand Rapids at a coaches' clinic talking football and diagramming plays on a blackboard with the young Kimball assistant that summer, was named head football coach at Central Michigan University in 1967. The first person he called to join him was Deromedi. No one knew it then but the young man, who had played behind Harper and Forbes, who never played a down of college football, had earned the break in a career that would lead to making him the dean of the Mid-American Conference (MAC), a conference that arguably owns the best lineage of legendary college football coaches.

After 10 years as faithful assistant, Deromedi was named head coached when Kramer moved on Vanderbilt University as athletic director. Deromedi won three MAC titles and lead the Chippewas to back-to-back victories over Michigan State in 1990 and 1991, the only losses the Spartans have ever suffered in MAC tilts.

Deromedi's Chippewas were an amazing 25-4-1 versus in-state rivals Eastern and Western Michigan. His 110-55-10 record, including 110 wins overall and 90 wins in the competitive MAC are bests for any MAC coach in both categories. The legendary coach followed Monroe's Dick Waters and Royal Oak's Jim Manilla and Pin Ryan when he hung up his whistle and clipboard for CMU's athletic director's post in 1994. Deromedi retired from CMU in 2006 and was inducted into the college football Hall of Fame in 2007 in South Bend, Indiana.

One high school football game between the city high schools of two towns separated by 61 miles. Monroe, almost exclusively rural compared to today and removed from the big city like TV's Mayberry was removed from the real world. Royal Oak, emerging as a suburban nesting spot, with top-down cruisers and car hop service at restaurants and filling stations. Mt. Pleasant, still 20 years from Division-I football, then a sleepy, suitcase college for teachers.

The Monroe - Royal Oak game was played among hundreds of others locally and thousands nationally, but October 14, 1955 produced emerging story lines and leaders who created memories in three separate Michigan communities to last for generations to come.

(Picture courtesy 1965 Royal Oak Kimball High School Lancer yearbook)

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

Author's Note: This is the second part of a two-part series on the stories behind the names of the men who played in the Monroe - Royal Oak high school football game on October 14th, 1955, won by Royal Oak's Acorns 34-6. A newly-added 'bonus' to the series comes out Saturday morning!

MONROE -- Few, if any four-page game programs at all, from the high school SockHop era come with as many decorated story lines as Monroe's encounter with the visiting Royal Oak High Acorns in October of 1955. Certainly few games as one-sided as this one contain as many colorful characters on both sides of the gridiron. Monroe's sideline is filled with homespun stories of favorite sons, hometown coaches and one Eugene 'Red' Davis, a man so revered in Monroe his memory eternally fills the hearts of so many Trojan faithful. Royal Oak, by contrast, is a tale of established leaders, a lineage of sweet fruit from the wide-branched tree of success. They young men and boys that played under them went on to be the foundation of one town's success and one college's rise to prominence.

The only player to score for Monroe that night? Richard 'Bud' Jeric, No. 46, who ran in from four yards out after Royal Oak fumbled and Monroe recovered at the Acorn 32-yard line. It took 10 plays for the Trojans to score in the 3rd quarter, already trailing 21-0. Jeric went on to play at Western Michigan University and would return in the late 1960s to become Monroe's varsity football coach. One of his players was a young man named John Ray, now better known as Dr. John F. Ray, Monroe Athletic Director. Also playing for Monroe that night was Ron Gruber, No. 48, who's family owned Gruber Grocery Store, later sold to Food Towne Stores. Harry Herkimer, No. 50, was a tackle in '55 and now owns Herkimer Radio, a store specializing in two-way and short cell equipment.

Monroe's Athletic Director in '55 was Dick Waters, also the Monroe varsity track coach, for whom the Dick Waters Relays are named for. Monroe also named the school's pool for Waters, who ironically, couldn't swim. Head coach for the Trojans in '55 was Cleo Winchell, who was also a high school math teacher. It would be safe to assume Winchell enjoyed X's and O's no matter if they were of the algebraic or off-tackle variety, before and after the day's final school bell. Winchell passed away in the final days of 2007. Paul Wilder was also an assistant football coach and served as the school's baseball coach for many years later on, including when Ray played for the Trojans. Wilder passed away five years ago.

And then there was Eugene 'Red' Davis, listed as an assistant coach in the '55 program but clearly a man who was an icon in the Monroe athletic annuls for many years after his coaching days ended. Ole' Red Davis enjoyed a pipe from time to time, and was never at a loss for a few feet of homespun yarn. When he wasn't on the gridiron, he was the Trojan varsity baseball coach and served as the school's athletic director for many years, including the years Ray attended Monroe, from 1967-1970.

Ray recalls the Grosse Pointe football game of 1954, when Monroe traveled up to what is now Grosse Pointe South and came up on the short end of a hard-fought 12-7 decision. After the game, the Grosse Pointe students decided it was time to mix it up with the downtrodden visitors from Monroe, until Red Davis entered the fray. "He came up on this ruckus and said, 'Now listen here, I can't take all ya' on at once, but I'll take on every one of ya' one at a time -- now who wants to go first?' That was the end of that right then and there," Ray recalls with a chuckle.

One of the players Davis coached on his baseball teams was Dean Duffey, who in '55 was voted Monroe's Most Valuable Player in that spring campaign. Exactly 50 years later, Duffey's son, Dustin, would follow in his father's footsteps, earning the honor of Monroe's Most Valuable Player.

Monroe is all about its' favorite sons, but like any school, there are those who have left Monroe to fill other positions at other schools. One such name that comes to mind is Charlie Jestice, a native son of Oklahoma and Monroe assistant coach, who applied for the head coaching position but didn't get it. John Ray offered his opinion: "Maybe it was his country-western drawl that some had trouble understanding, but he left Monroe and took the job at Dearborn Fordson and hated Monroe for the rest of his life," Ray told me today. "I do know he was inducted in an Oklahoma Hall-Of-Fame recently that he and (former Fordson head coach) Jeff Stergalas attended together." Obviously the seeds of the Fordson-Monroe rivalry have been well-planted over the years. When Monroe's football job opened this past fall, it was rumored Stergalas could become Monroe's new leader, which would have stoked the game's flame even more.

One man who left the Trojan fold from the '55 Royal Oak - Monroe game was Trojan assistant football coach Vince Sigren. Two years after the Acorns thumped Monroe in '55, Sigren was named varsity basketball coach at the newly-opened Royal Oak Kimball, stocked with half of the players that had been Acorns two years earlier. Sigren would hold the Kimball post for seven years, going 40-71 with a district title in 1961 before ceding control of Kimball to Dave Gunther before the start of the 1964-65 season.

One of Sigren's players in the 1959-60 campaign? A junior named John Scott Cameron, who also played for Prentice 'Pin' Ryan in football.

The author knows Cameron by a different name: Dad.

BONUS: Check back in two days for the Royal Oak side of the story, including how two assistant coaches became bitter rivals and how the last man standing became a Central Michigan University legend.

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