MHSA(Q&)A: Detroit Lions rookie Chris Greenwood
May 25, 2012
By Brian Spencer
Second Half
Five years ago, Chris Greenwood was No. 28 for the Detroit Martin Luther King football team, a key contributor for a Crusaders as they finished 7-3 and made the playoffs.
These days, he's a national sports story.
Greenwood, a 6-foot-1, 193-pound cornerback, is attempting the rare jump from Division III college football to the NFL. A standout at Albion College, he was selected in the fifth round of last month's NFL draft by the Detroit Lions.
His round-trip travels from his hometown and back again also included a stop at Northwood University. Greenwood played his final three college seasons for the Britons, last fall being named the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association Defensive Player of the Year.
What is your favorite high school memory?
Winning the city championship senior year at Ford Field.
Were there any life/football lessons that you learned in high school that you’ve carried with you through college and now to the league?
Work hard; don’t let anything distract you. You are capable of doing anything that you put your mind to, and then some.
What is the biggest transition you’ve seen from DIII football at Albion to the Lions?
The talent difference I’ve had to get acclimated to, as well as technique. Technique has a much heavier emphasis now. I’ve also noticed a difference in speed and different terminology. For example, simple names for coverages have changed.
If you could trade places with anyone in the world right now, who would it be?
Nobody! I feel like I am in the best position possible. I’m living the dream.
What advice would you give to aspiring athletes who want to make the jump from high school to college? College to professional?
Never give up. Don’t ever quit. Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do something. If you work hard and have the ability, they will find you.
What wide receiver tested you most to get to where you are at today?
My older brother (Doug Greenwood); growing up he was always stronger. We used to play, just him and I. He was pretty good. I had to figure out what way I was going to cover him because he was that much faster and stronger. This all took place just in the backyard or the park.
Would you say that your past at a Division III college has helped or hurt you more in the transition from college to professional ball?
It didn’t hurt, as far as what I have to do and what I’m doing now (in practice or off the field), but I feel like it affected my draft position. I could have gotten more exposure at bigger schools. At this point none of that matters; I’m glad to be where I am. Very happy.
Who was your favorite football player growing up?
Charles Woodson (former University of Michigan and current Green Bay Packers cornerback)
Is Donald Driver (Packers WR) more or less intimidating now that he has won "Dancing with the Stars?" If asked, would you be on "Dancing with the Stars?"
No way, he is not more intimidating because of that. If I were asked to do that, I wouldn’t right now. Maybe later on in my career I would do that, but right now I've got to stay focused.
PHOTOS courtesy of Albion College. Note about the interviewer: Brian Spencer is an MHSAA intern this summer, and was an Albion College football teammate of Greenwood's the last three seasons.
Football Scheduling
December 23, 2014
The major complaint about the MHSAA Football Playoffs is not that too few teams qualify or too many, or that a five-week playoff is too long or should become six weeks, or that some worthy teams miss out while some less worthy teams get in. No; most people find a five-week, 11-player tournament after a nine-game regular season is the best that our late start to fall classes and our early start to winter weather will allow us in Michigan.
Many people appreciate being able to complete our 14-week season in the warmth of Ford Field on the Friday and Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. Most people think that nearly 45 percent of 11-player schools is a sufficient tournament field. Many people like the excitement that the six-win threshold creates for teams that had been eliminated earlier from league championships.
The most serious and legitimate complaint about the season-ending playoffs is the stress it has placed on conferences and the struggles many schools have in building nine-game regular-season schedules. Some critics want to mess with the Football Playoffs because of the mess they believe it makes for regular-season schedulers.
Having the MHSAA provide every school a nine-game regular season schedule of the most nearby teams of the most nearly equal enrollments would shift scheduling headaches from the local level to the MHSAA.
I’m not suggesting that this solution to local problems doesn’t create new, large headaches for the MHSAA. But in fact, that is the tradition of school sports: when an issue is large enough in scope and common enough among member schools, the state high school association is asked to be the problem-solver. That’s how we got transfer rules, defined sports seasons and competitive cheer tournaments, for example. Just about every policy and procedure and program of the MHSAA arises from a common local problem looking for a statewide solution.
The 2014 Update Meeting Opinion Poll indicates that 70 percent of responding administrators do not favor the solution of the MHSAA making all schools’ regular-season varsity football schedules. Maybe the question should be narrowed to having the MHSAA complete member schools’ non-conference scheduling.
Meanwhile, we will keep watching as high school associations in other states move to statewide scheduling. For if scheduling is the problem, then scheduling itself needs to be the focus of the solution.