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

To the casual fan, yesterday's MHSAA district baseball results from West Bloomfield High School were nothing out of the ordinary. Birmingham Brother Rice marched to yet another district title, dismissing Birmingham Groves 10-0 before a mercy of Southfield Lathrup, 18-3 to advance to next week's regional at Birmingham Seaholm.

Sandwiched between the seemingly one-sided day was a dominant no-hitter and a stunning upset that sent Lathrup to a district final of consequence for the first time in several years. Rice hurler Matt Conway was just one of many thorns in the side of Groves and Lathrup scored a victory over Birmingham Seaholm that would have been as difficult to predict as it was to describe as it happened.

In commenting on his no-no, Conway was equal parts prideful and practical. "It feels great, that's for sure, but it feels great to finally step up and contribute, because this hasn't been my best year," explained the Rice junior. "Focus has been something I've had to correct. We knew Groves had a great team and they had a good pitcher going today so we really prepared for them. I really had my fastball working today. I'm just glad I did my part."

Brother Rice was methodical and mechanical in their surgical dissection of Groves. The Warriors nickeled and dimed the Falcons all game long, taking base after extra base and forcing Groves to make one perfect throw after another. The Falcons did complete an inning-ending double play that saw Jamey Sackett tag out a Warrior at the plate, but that was to be the only highlight for Groves. At day's end, all that spare change turned into $10 worth of runs on the scoreboard, resulting in an unceremonious end to a Groves season that was just one win short of sharing an OAA regular season title.

Taking it all in was a Birmingham icon, basketball coach Bill Norton. After coaching Rice for over 15 years in the 1970s and 80s, Norton left for Michigan State University. He returned to Rice for a cameo stint of five years before moving off Lahser Road for a nine-year run on 13 Mile Road at Groves. "Today I find myself talking about Groves but saying the word Rice and vice-versa, because I have a history at both schools," Norton said with a laugh.

"You know, baseball is the one game where all your players have to be clicking or this type of game can happen," Norton observed. "We (Groves) had a good team this year but we ran into a pitcher like Conway and Rice made no mistakes. They kept the pressure on us all day to make good plays and this is what happened.

Norton continued that his basketballers suffered a similar fate in this past season's district game with Orchard Lake St. Mary's that the baseball Falcons suffered with Rice yesterday.

"We were down 40-30 during about 10 consecutive possessions for each team in that game, and we got the looks and the shots for the players we wanted, but the triples that fell in the district opener with Walled Lake Northern didn't go down," Norton recalled. "By the time Orchard Lake started to respond with a run, our chance was gone. Our guys really wanted it but we weren't ready to pull off that upset.

"The other thing is, if you have two evenly-matched teams, you usually don't get a 80-40 game in basketball," Norton said. "You get three really good players, you can have an outstanding season. Boston won 24 games last year. They added three studs. They're in the finals this year. In baseball, just a pitching matchup alone could create a situation you can't recover from. Add a few mistakes and even though you have two good teams like Groves and Rice, you get a mercy."

The game of the day was the second semifinal. 20 years ago Seaholm's 'Maple Miracles' won the Class A state championship, but Seaholm was on the other end of glory yesterday. While it wouldn't have surprised anyone to watch Lathrup advance to a district final 20 years ago, today Lathrup is rebuilding under coach Darren Mosley and the Chargers haven't had a significant district win in recent memory...until yesterday. After surviving a first frame scare, Lathrup took a commanding 5-1 lead only to see the Maples take a 7-5 lead with three innings to play. Deadlocked at 10 in their final at-bat, Lathrup pushed across the needed run to hand Mosley the win his program has looked for to cement the idea that baseball can again be a winner at the tony Southfield high school.

"There were so many games this year that we should of won, but we'd squander the game away defensively," Mosley explained. "North Farmington is a game that comes to mind immediately, the classic example of our guys having no trouble putting the bat on the ball or throwing strikes, but we kicked the ball all over the place and lost a game we should have won.

"That's what makes today's win in an elimination game important," Mosley beamed, even after Rice disposed of his Chargers in the final by scoring 14 runs before an out had been recorded in the first inning. "A lot of black kids just don't play baseball, and when they play with no success, it makes them want to quit even more, so this win is important. We now have a win to point to and say, 'If you give us the preparation and attention to fundamentals, we could put this program back on the map in a hurry'.

Lathrup has had more than a handful of successful teams in football, basketball and track and field in the same manner their baseball team used to win on an annual basis, and Mosley is convinced it can be done again.

"We have good athletes in our school, and if our guys are willing to build on this, we can turn them into a skilled team that could win a lot of baseball games."

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