Coach Comes Home to Lead Central's Rise
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
September 27, 2017
DETROIT – Thirty-three years ago, Lynn Sanders graduated from Detroit Central. And before he left, he made a promise.
Last year, Sanders showed he is a man of his word.
Sanders, 51, is in his second season as the head football coach at Central. Once a proud program under legendary coach Woody Thomas (who died in 2002), the program had wavered a bit. Coaches like Michael Thornhill, who took over for Thomas in 2002, Eric Smith, Robert Hunt and others have had some success. But stability within the program, especially in recent years, had been missing.
Many of the high school-age students in the neighborhood were attending schools elsewhere in the city. Now-closed Detroit Allen Academy, a charter school near Central, was one alternative. Open enrollment throughout the school district also allowed students to attend any school in Detroit, and many were taking advantage of the opportunity.
Since Sanders’ arrival, and because of his standing in the community, many of those in the neighborhood have decided to remain. Sanders and his staff have been able to make the Trailblazers relevant again, and there’s a renewed respect for the program. Central is 4-1 and 2-1 in the Detroit Public School League Black division and faces Detroit Pershing (1-4, 0-3) this week before taking on Detroit Martin Luther King (4-1, 3-0), one of the state’s elite programs, on Oct. 6.
“When I was 18, I told Coach Thomas I would replace him,” Sanders said. “It took a while.”
The rewards have come quickly.
Last fall in Sanders’ debut, and for the second time in school history, the Trailblazers won two playoff games in a season and finished 7-5. And they led Millington 20-0 in a Division 6 Regional Final before falling 22-20.
There had been success in the recent past. Central tied a school record for victories in a season with a 9-3 finish in 2010. In 2012, the Trailblazers began a run of making the playoffs in three of the next five years, each time finishing 6-4 – although the playoff appearances in 2014 and 2015 ended quickly as Central lost first-round games by a combined score of 107-14.
The Trailblazers took a sizable next step led by someone taking his first at the high school level. Sanders had never been a head coach, but he brought a long list of credentials while working with youth football. A 27-year veteran with the Michigan State Police, Sanders spent 10 years as the president of the Southfield Ravens, a Pop Warner program for players aged 8-11. He spent three years as a league commissioner within Pop Warner in southeastern Michigan. For two years he was a regional commissioner for American Youth Football (AYF).
Before getting the Central job, Sanders worked under coach Keith Stephens at Oak Park and then with Stephens at Southfield-Lathrup as his offensive coordinator.
Then there was a knock on the door of opportunity.
“I got a call from David Oclander, who was the (Central) principal then,” Sanders said. “We met and he told me what he was looking for. He knew of me, knew I was a Central grad, and he told me he wanted to turn things around.
“When I got here the team GPA was 1.9. The first day I called a meeting. I had all of the guys who wanted to play be there. When I gave that speech, I could tell they weren’t really happy. I was their third coach in three years, and I think they felt betrayed. They weren’t really interested. A number of them were looking at their phones, not paying attention. I told them here are my rules, my expectations and if you don’t like it you can leave. About half of them did. Fifteen stayed.”
It didn’t take long for Sanders to build upon those numbers. His association with Pop Warner and coaches in the area helped spread the word that expectations would rise.
In the meantime, Allen Academy closed following the 2015-16 school year and many of those students went to Central – including some athletes who had played on a Wildcats team that finished 5-4 in 2015.
Central didn’t have a freshmen or junior varsity team, but Sanders was able to gather 36 for the varsity. He has 32 this season.
“When I took the job I got phone calls from all over the place,” he said. “Coaches, former players, they all wanted to help. They’d do anything for me. I was well-respected, and the kids started to come. Instead of taking buses out of the neighborhood and going elsewhere, they stayed home. And they were good kids. I set some high expectations. Those that didn’t want to follow got shipped out.”
Sanders and Oclander saw eye-to-eye on many issues. The main objective was to instill discipline, and both came from a background where discipline was paramount: Sanders with the state police, Oclander as a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.
Sanders looked to improve the quality of coaching his players were to receive in two ways. The first came during the offseason. He knew his players didn’t have the finances to go to camps, even if they were close by at places like Wayne State University. Instead, Sanders brought the college coaches to Central. Staffs from Northwood University, Eastern Michigan and Wayne State all came to Central to conduct a camp.
“That had never been done before at Central,” Sanders said.
The second was to convince coaches in the area that Central was the place to be. Eighteen said yes. Do the math: That’s more than one coach for every two players. It’s safe to say that’s a unique situation – and has led to an almost unheard of type of mentoring process.
And the players are reaping the results. Eight players from last year’s team are playing college football. Five players from this year’s team have made verbal commitments to a college or university, including El Julian Jordan. Jordan, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound quarterback who played his first two years of high school football at King, has accepted a scholarship to Western Michigan.
It was a big change for Jordan to go from a program like King, with 1,400 students, to Central where the enrollment is 370.
“It was a tough transition,” he said. “The kids in school were different. This school is so small, but I like it that way. I can focus more on my grades and such.
“I look up to (Sanders). He’s molded me into a leader. I lead by example. My first impression of Coach was a positive one, and that’s good.”
Jordan has had a fine season to this point, completing 56 of 95 attempts for 1,239 yards, 13 touchdowns and with no interceptions. He’s scored three rushing touchdowns.
“He’s a special kid,” Sanders said. “I don’t think anyone has put him in the position of being a leader before. After time, he knew he could trust me. He’s a phenomenal athlete. He’s a quiet kid until you get to know him. As we made our run in the (playoffs), the different (officiating) crews would watch him warm up. He can throw the ball 70 yards. And they couldn’t wait to see him in action.”
Other top players include a bevy of receivers including Jerodd Vines, TaQuan Snead and Brandon Cooper.
Central returned all five offensive linemen from a season ago including Jamauri’a Carter (5-10, 305). Carter, Snead and Jordan all played on the Eastside Raiders in the Police Athletic League (PAL) before high school.
Sanders’ stay at Central could be a brief one. He and wife, Kathy, who were high school sweethearts, have four children including three sons. One, Londale Sanders, is a junior linebacker at University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff. They recently returned on Sunday after watching their son play in last Saturday’s 34-27 overtime victory at Jackson State.
Another son, Lance Sanders, is one of the offensive line coaches at Central.
“I don’t know how long I’ll do it,” Lynn Sanders said. “I wanted to turn things around. I don’t know how long I’ll be here. I told my wife three years, tops, and see what happens. At least Central is back where parents, the people in the neighborhood are coming back. The kids are getting better. The test will be against King.”
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Detroit Central quarterback El Julian Jordan warms up before a game. (Middle top) Lynn Sanders, left, and offensive coordinator Kevin Rogers. (Middle below) Jordan surveys the field looking for a receiver. (Below) Sanders and wife Kathy. (Photos courtesy of Lynn Sanders and Detroit Central football.)
Honoring Lost Teammate, Jackson Rises
By
Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
September 10, 2015
By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
JACKSON – Hollywood producers do not make movies about football teams just two games into a season.
But if they did, Jackson High School would be a good place to start.
Take an urban football team that hasn’t made winning a habit in decades, mix in the recent addition of a successful coach from a nearby smaller rural school and throw in an eye-popping start this season, and you have a nice story. But there is more.
This also is a heart-wrenching – yet somehow uplifting – story of a bunch of teen-aged boys trying to move on a little more than three months after one of their teammates was killed in a triple-fatal automobile crash.
Meet the 2015 Jackson Vikings. Roll the film.
Dealing with adversity
It was the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend when everything changed. Jackson junior Maseo Moore, 16, was killed in a triple-fatal automobile accident on I-94 in Calhoun County. Also killed in the accident were former Jackson High School secretary Ella Blackwell, who had retired five years earlier, and her sister, Ethel Brinstone.
Moore, a wide receiver on the varsity in 2014, showed improvement late in the season and was in position to move up the depth chart for his senior year, according to Vikings head coach Scott Farley.
Moore’s death presented Farley with a challenge he had never faced during nearly 30 years of coaching.
“There is no session at coaching clinics that tells you how to deal with something like that,” Farley said. “We talked as a staff and kind of talked through what we wanted our reaction to be and how we could support the kids and each other at that point.
“I talked to my brother (Mike), who has been a head coach for years coaching down in Georgia, and he had kind of dealt with something similar, and I talked to a couple of other coaching colleagues to kind of pick their brain a little bit.”
The answer was simple but not so easy: Communication.
“We were just available to the kids,” Farley said. “We met with them in the library first hour and spent a couple of hours with them just talking about Maceo and what he would have wanted us to do going forward, and how we needed to support each other and love each other; basically, because we were all hurting.”
About 100 students, many of them football players, attended Moore’s funeral, and as the summer progressed, the players and coaching staff kept in touch with Moore’s family. A few decisions were made about the upcoming season: One, the team would dedicate its season – and in particular its opening game – to their friend and teammate, and two, running back Shonte’ Suddeth would inherit the No. 14 uniform that had been worn by Moore.
Not only did Suddeth have Moore’s number on the back of his uniform for the season opener, the name “Moore” was across the back instead of “Suddeth.”
“He was like a brother to me,” Suddeth said. “He was with me every day. I’d take him to get his hair cut and everything – everything he needed, I was there for him. Everybody noticed it, and we had a group meeting, and they said I should be the one to wear his number.”
With his emotions running high, Suddeth had an inkling of something special that might happen on opening night: He had talked with his uncle, who told him, “You have to score the first time you touch the ball.”
Just two and a half minutes into the game, Suddeth, on his first carry, raced 11 yards for a touchdown.
He dropped to one knee in the end zone and pointed toward the sky.
“I pointed up to the air to tell him, ‘This is for you,’” Suddeth said. “I think about him before every game.”
Suddeth finished with 110 yards rushing and three touchdowns on just eight carries as Jackson defeated Ann Arbor Huron 40-7. After the game, the entire team presented Moore’s mother with the game ball.
“I think the good Lord uses bad things and bad situations for good,” Farley said. “I think our kids have – where some of them could have gone in another direction because of their sadness and their depression over the loss of their friend – they have used it to become stronger as individuals and as a group, and that has been a positive.”
Moving forward
When you walk into the football locker room at Withington Community Stadium, the first locker on the right has tape with the name Moore on it. It looks like every other locker, but what it represents makes it special to the players and the coaching staff.
Moore’s presence always will be felt by the players, and the locker helps keep his memory fresh. But life and football games go on, certainly as Moore would have wanted. Jackson followed its opening-night win with an even more impressive 56-27 victory over Lansing Everett.
Tonight, Jackson travels to East Lansing in search of its first 3-0 start in football since 2003, the last time the Vikings also started 2-0 prior to this season.
Winning isn’t exactly a tradition in football at Jackson, where the Vikings have not won a conference championship since 1945. (Yes – 70 years!) But the first two games with a combined score of 96-34 offer a huge contrast from a year ago when the Vikings lost to Ann Arbor Huron and Lansing Everett over the first two games by a combined score of 57-12.
The players say the difference is experience and a better understanding of the system that was brought in by Farley, in his third season at Jackson after a long and successful run at Leslie.
“About halfway through last year, we started to get it,” Jackson senior offensive guard Nate Lavery said. “It took us longer than it could have. We came into the season knowing pretty much everything we needed to know – at least the basics.”
Lavery is one of several standouts for Jackson. He helps anchor a strong line while Suddeth, quarterback LaJuan Bramlett and Corey Pryor II offer game-breaking potential on every play. Bramlett scored five touchdowns in the victory over Lansing Everett, and Suddeth, Bramlett and Pryor each have rushed for more than 200 yards just two games into the season.
“We have more speed than normal this year,” Farley said with a grin before adding that the Vikings are much more than speed at the skill positions.
“Guys like Maurice White, who has caught one or maybe two passes up to this point, he’s such a great leader and such a steadying force on the entire team,” he said. “Nate Lavery was an all-conference guard last year and has just been outstanding in the first two games. Carl Albrecht and Mac Carroll on the offensive line have been outstanding seniors. Cain Flowers has had four interceptions in two games.”
Optimism about football isn’t something that has been common around Jackson very often. Since 1950, the Vikings have posted a record of 186-379-14 for a .333 winning percentage, and they won a total of four games from 2011-14.
Farley knows all about football programs in a tailspin. He faced a similar situation more than 20 years ago when he took over at Leslie.
The man in charge
When Farley was hired at Leslie in 1993, the Blackhawks had not had a winning record in 10 years. In fact, since finishing 10-1 in 1983, Leslie was 15-66 over the following nine seasons.
Not unlike Jackson, Farley took over a team in despair, and he said the similarities were striking.
“It was no different than when I took over at Leslie in 1993,” he said. “You have a program that has been down for a while; you’re going to have people who have bad attitudes. If they had winning attitudes, they’d be winning, so that was not a surprise. I anticipated that. I think some of the guys on my staff who have been here for a while were more discouraged about that than I was just from the standpoint of they had been here a while and they were frustrated by it. They kind of felt like it was different here than it is other places, and it’s not.
“The problems that we’ve had here are the same problems we had at Leslie 23 years ago.”
At Leslie, Farley achieved his first winning season in his second year, but it took until 2000 before the Blackhawks made it to the playoffs. When he left Leslie, about 15 miles north of Jackson, he had a record of 117-82, including 84-42 over his final 12 seasons with the Blackhawks.
In 2008, Leslie played for the MHSAA Division 6 championship, losing to Montague 41-20.
So, why would a coach leave such a successful program for one in so much turmoil?
“I think people looked at me and thought, ‘This guy is crazy. He had a good gig in Leslie, and he’s never going to be successful here,’” Farley said. “I could have rolled out of bed for the next 14 years doing the same job, but it was an easier decision because of the situation.
“I think this is what I’m built for. Part of my personal journey for taking the position was to kind of push myself outside of my comfort zone.”
In doing so, Farley has found himself using many of the same techniques he used when he took over the rebuilding job at Leslie.
“It’s the same thing,” he said. “It’s developing work ethic, and you develop work ethic by getting kids to buy into you more than what you are selling. Often, people don’t buy a car; they buy the guy they are getting the car from. It’s just getting them to believe that they want to be on your team.”
By all accounts, the 2015 Vikings want to be on Coach Farley’s team, and his handling of the Maceo Moore tragedy was just another reason for the players to put their trust in their coach.
“It showed he was really there for us,” Suddeth said. “It lit a match, and we were going from there.”
Farley has a keen perspective on the attitudes of today’s youth, one that might have helped him connect with his players.
“People talk all the time about how kids are different today, and kids are different,” he said. “I’ve been coaching for 28 years total, 23 as a head coach, and kids are different, but it’s not a bad different. In society in general, people don’t trust each other, and there is so much dishonesty that goes on out there that there is a reason to be distrustful.
“Kids get burned enough times, and they get to the point where they don’t trust people. They need to know who you are and what you’re about and what you stand for before they are going to buy into whatever you are selling.”
White, the senior receiver whom Farley praised for his leadership, said he has paid into what Farley was selling.
“At the beginning of the summer, I believed it and bought into it and could see we could be where we are now,” he said. “This is the second year in the system for me, and most of us returning are seniors, so we are pretty confident that we know what we are doing.
“This feels good. We feel pretty confident after two games, but at the same time, we’re not satisfied with being 2-0 right now. We want to keep on winning. I think we are playing more as a team and as a collective group. We’re like a band of brothers, and we come together as a team on Friday nights.”
Chip Mundy served as sports editor at the Brooklyn Exponent and Albion Recorder from 1980-86, and then as a reporter and later copy editor at the Jackson Citizen-Patriot from 1986-2011. He also co-authored Michigan Sports Trivia. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTO: Jackson football players (left to right) Nate Lavery, Maurice White and Shonte' Suddeth and coach Scott Farley stand in front of the locker that continues to bear the name of teammate Maseo Moore (inset).