Derrick Gragg oversees one of the most successful athletic departments in the Mid-American Conference but what defines Eastern Michigan University, to the frustration of the school's athletic director, is the failures in two sports instead of the success of the many others.

Specifically, football and men's basketball have earned the very definition of futility for the past 10 years in Ypsilanti, with football struggling ever since the ill-fated Huron decision was quietly broached in the fall of 1990. Add an administrative train wreck prior to Gragg taking the reins of athletics and Dr. Susan W. Martin assuming the president's position and you can understand why Eastern's recent football hire was so important.

But did Eastern hire the right person for their long-term future? I'm not saying the man who got the job, Ron English, isn't the right man for right now, nor am I saying he wasn't the most qualified candidate. If anything, Ron English is probably over-qualified, a charismatic man who's on-field success and passion for football supersedes the most fervent coach you could imagine.

But was Michigan State running backs coach Dan Enos the better candidate for the long-term viability of EMU football? Is it possible the right man was passed over because he didn't exude of the aforementioned qualities English possesses while remaining the most viable candidate for long-term success?

Yes, I'll concede that sounds a bit naive, so let me explain.

EMU has been a springboard for too many coaches and athletic administrators for too long. Eastern needs its own company man, a Bo Schembechler, Eddie Robinson, Duffy Daugherty or Herb Deromedi-type man to accompany a Don Canham-type athletic director. Moreover, Eastern needs a man content with building a successful, long-term program that will succeed him for a couple generations. I could see Ron English, the dynamic, hard-nosed, smart coach winning more than a handful of games next year, and eight or nine games in Year Two only to be poached away from Ypsilanti for a jackpot of dollars and a conference affiliation that starts with the letters B-C-S.

Where will that leave EMU? The same place it was was when Ron Cooper, another dynamic, hard-nosed, willful leader left after two years for the green pastures of Louisville after a 4-7 season was followed by a 5-6 campaign in 1994. Cooper had been head assistant coach at Notre Dame under Lou Holtz before being hired by another golden domer when Gene Smith tabbed Cooper to replace Jim Harkema in 1993, his final year as EMU's athletic director. After Cooper left EMU was 6-5 under Rick Rasnick in 1995 but that was a bit of a faux record. EMU didn't earn a winning mark in the MAC that season and hasn't notched a noticeable ledger in the MAC since 1989 when the then-Hurons lost to Ball State on the last day of the season in a winner-take-all scenario for the league's title berth to the California Bowl.

The school hasn't had a winning record since. If you think EMU doesn't matter in the big scheme of college football, consider that 20 young men with ties to metro Detroit populate the EMU roster, 11 of whom either lived or prepped in Oakland County.

Dan Enos interviewed for the job at Eastern. He's a Dearborn product, a former Edsel Ford Thunderbird who also led MSU to their last Big Ten title, when the Spartans earned a share of the championship in 1990 under the former Spartan quarterback. Like English, he's got Big Ten coaching experience and has children he's not willing to uproot. It was rumored that Enos was already building a staff that included George Perles' son, Pat, and former MSU standout receiver Courtney Hawkins.

I'm absolutely certain EMU hired the best candidate it was afforded in its search. I simply wonder if EMU missed hiring the best candidate as it relates to EMU's long-term success.

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

Today I did a little good will hunting at The Lil' Cafe on Michigan Avenue in downtown Dearborn at Pat Stagg's unofficial City of Dearborn High School Hall Of Fame.

The basketball book is in full research mode and although Dearborn won't have nearly the stake in the basketball book as it did in the football book, I still thought it prudent to look for a few compelling pictures, maybe a background or inset picture for the cover, perhaps. Plus it's really cool to root around in Stagg's restaurant and talk prep sports with all the fans over a plate of strawberry pancakes at three o'clock in the afternoon!

Are my sleep patterns messed up or what?

Anyway, the day's events brought me back to a quote from my friend Orlin Jones in Detroit, he of Pershing High track and field fame from the 1950s. To quote Jones, ever the historical collector: "There's always a connection in high school sports."

I've refereed basketball since 1988 when I was working for coach Roy Inglas on the recreational courts at basketball hotbed Vincennes University in Vincennes, Indiana. I returned to Michigan when I enrolled at Eastern Michigan University in the fall of 1990. Besides discovering the difference between junior college cross country and powerhouse, Division-I cross country, as well as the difference between a Huron and an Eagle, I learned about veteran MHSAA officials, the ones who wore the striped shirts that former EMU track coach Lloyd Olds invented nearly 80 years ago on the same Ypsilanti campus.

Guys like Paul Kinder, for example. Kinder was already long remembered for his acumen as an official rather than his days as a basketball captain on the Dearborn High team of 1955. Therefore, you can imagine the astonishment when I saw the picture of Kinder, a young, focused floor general in his testosterone days as a Dearborn Pioneer on the walls of the Lil Cafe today.

There was another photo of a hotly-contested game between Kinder's Pioneers and the Edsel Ford Thunderbirds that evoked The Orlin Jones Rule, if you will, that was discovered today. In the picture was a referee identified as Casey Lopata. Now, there aren't many Lopata households in metro Detroit, but there is a K.C. Lopata on the current University of Michigan football team, the same K.C. Lopata from the Farmington - Farmington Hills area. Many a Ford Motor Company employee moved from Dearborn in the late 50s and early 60s to the sticks of Farmington, Birmingham and Royal Oak.

Maybe it's all a huge coincidence, but my eye-opening experience with the football book tells me the chance that Lopata is related to the referee working this game I found in picture today is much greater than the chance he isn't.

There's always a connection, right?

Photo courtesy of the The Lil' Cafe, Dearborn, Michigan

~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, available from retail and online merchants now. Cameron's second title, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, is due in August 2009 from Arcadia Publishing.

I read this morning that Avondale High School football coach Steven Deutsch was quoted in today's Detroit Free Press as saying no one plays defense in high school football anymore. The Yellow Jackets defeated tough-luck Hazel Park this past Friday with a 34-yard touchdown on the game's final play by a 53-52 count. That 100+ point tally was one of a handful of near triple-digit games this past weekend in metro Detroit.

I'm not certain that's true as much as high school football has evolved with the collegiate game in leaps and bounds on the offensive side of the ball. Power-I formations? Yeah, right. Off-tackle? Maybe once in a while. More and more, though, it's traps, sweeps, veer and several variations that feature and specialize in the single-wing offense. Nowadays, when you see four-to-five receiver sets, I half prepare for a run or short screen to a halfback as an official working the wing or in the back judge's position.

The bottom line is prep defenses can no longer gear to stop the run or pass exclusively, and with the proliferation of passing camps, quarterback schools, weight, speed and skill training, how can a defense keep up with the expansion of the typical offensive playbook, multiplied by the power of three, in high school football today?

Fight The Good Fight? An ugly donnybrook nearly came to fruition this past Saturday before the kickoff of a small college football game when the home team and visiting team were both waiting to take the field, poised from opposite endzones. By rule, when both teams refuse to go onto the field before their opponent, the home team is required to go first. So the hosts thundered onto the turf, went 100 yards into the opposite endzone and engaged in a testosterone-powered shout-down with their opponents that was quickly addressed by all seven officials.

No fists were thrown and one 15-yard unsportsmanlike foul was assessed to start the game, plus a delay-of-game before the game's first kickoff legally took place. Thankfully both teams marched to early touchdowns. That was important because once the game was tied 7-7, both teams settled down into a rhythm. However, that start was the precursor to 20 more penalties before the clock read 0:00.

That's the reality of officiating a hotly-contested game with first place on the line.

Forfeit Ends Polar Bear Season: Highland Park High was a no-show on Friday night at Dearborn Edsel Ford last week. This meant no walk-up ticket sales, concession money, program or spirit gear sales, either. Hopefully it wasn't homecoming for the Thunderbirds, which would be the end of a lot of memories for the Edsel Ford student body as well.

It could be called admirable that Highland Park head coach Cedric Dortch had the stones to make a tough decision to deliver a message, but in these economic times, that money is vital for some of these schools and the memories of a high school football season's game cannot be replaced, either. The coach's decision was reported within this morning's edition of The Detroit News.
I never like forfeits in high school football. One, finding a replacement game in nearly impossible for the offended school. Two, the money that one home football game generates cannot be found elsewhere.

Ironically, all three forfeited games remaing on the Highland Park schedule to end the season will either grant or greatly improve playoff chances for the three offended schools.
Edsel Ford qualified for the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time in school history with the awarded victory on Friday, their sixth of the season. The Thunderbirds entered the game 5-1. Ypsilanti, Highland Park's Week Eight opponent, now sit at 5-3 with the forfeit win, and will have a chance to qualify for the playoffs if the purple 'n gold can defeat Dexter's Dreadnaughts (1-6 so far) in Week Nine.

Dearborn Fordson, ranked somewhere in the top five of nearly every state divisional classification poll after the Tractors' 24-14 win over rival Dearborn High, will end the season undefeated if they can beat the undefeated Southgate Anderson Titans this Friday in a huge match-up to decide the Mega Red championship. Because Highland Park was the Tractor opponent for Week Nine, Fordson is nearly guaranteed at least one home game in the playoffs no matter the result this Friday.

~ T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, and is working on a follow-up title, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries!

I'll be presenting an interactive Image of Sports presentation tomorrow night at the Dearborn Public Library Main Branch (Michigan Avenue), starting at 7pm. After the program, I'll be signing copies of my book, Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries. The program's beneficiary is the library itself.

Not doing anything on a ho-hum Wednesday evening? Come join me! I'll have pictures and images of all four Dearborn high schools. Has there been a better season of recent memory in Dearborn? I think not. With Fordson at 6-0 , Edsel Ford and Dearborn and Divine Child at 4-2, all four schools have positioned themselves to make the Michigan High School Athletic Association playoffs. These are never-seen-before pictures and images representing the rich history of the Pioneers, Falcons, Tractors and Thunderbirds!

Come check out the new table skirt with all the varsity letters on it! Have one to donate? Come on up! The Dearborn Public Library is on Michigan Avenue due east from the Southfield Freeway across from Ford Motor Company and nestled in with the Dearborn Police Department and the city's Amtrak station.

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, available for purcahse and signing this Wednesday, October 8th at the Dearborn Public Library. Show starts at 7pm!