Performance: Muskegon's La'Darius Jefferson
November 29, 2017
La’Darius Jefferson
Muskegon senior – Football
Muskegon’s 6-foot-2, 215-pound quarterback ran 32 times for 247 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Big Reds to a 28-10 win over Farmington Hills Harrison in Saturday’s Division 3 Final, earning Jefferson the Michigan Army National Guard “Performance of the Week.” The championship was Muskegon’s first since 2008 and came after the Big Reds fell by a point to Orchard Lake St. Mary’s in the 2016 championship game – when the Eaglets scored with four seconds to play.
Jefferson, who also celebrated his 18th birthday Saturday, finished this season with 2,097 yards and 33 touchdowns rushing and 1,205 yards and 21 touchdowns passing. His rushing touchdown total will make the MHSAA record book, and his performance Saturday earned four entries for accomplishments in a championship game. After splitting time at quarterback as a junior – and running for two touchdowns in the 2016 Final – Jefferson led arguably the best team in the state, regardless of division. The Big Reds scored 722 points, which rank third-most in state history, averaging 51.2 per game, which ranks 10th. Their average margin of victory was 45 points, and they outscored their five playoff opponents by a combined 221-36.
Individual awards are piling up for Jefferson, who was named Division 3-4 Player of the Year by The Associated Press and statewide Michigan High School Football Player of the Year by MLive. He previously had committed to continue his football and academic careers at University of Central Florida, but has re-opened his recruiting with Michigan State and Georgia Tech among those recruiting him hardest. Jefferson, who also ran track last spring, has big plans aside from football; he carries a 3.4 cumulative grade-point average and is a member of National Honor Society, and he plans to study aerospace engineering wherever he ends up.
Coach Shane Fairfield said: “He is just a selfless kid that loves to win, that loves family. He’s driven by the relationships in his home. And he loves his teammates. And he was more vocal and determined this week to get this win, because his biggest thing is he wants all the kids who aren’t going to have the chance to experience what he’s going to experience after he graduates to have some type of experience that they can say either, ‘Hey, I played with La’Darius’ or ‘I won a state championship when I was in high school.’ And that’s it – he’s very aware of how lucky and fortunate he is to be in the position he is, and he just wants to share that with all of his teammates.”
Performance Point: “It’s amazing. It’s something people dream of,” Jefferson said. “People dream about scoring the last touchdown in their backyard, making the final hoop. It’s a blessing. I’m trying to hold my tears in. We worked so hard to get here. We’ve been gassed and pounded. It’s so special. … This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me besides my family.”
Team of destiny: “It’s something these boys have been dreaming about. I kid you not; I told Eli Jackson, 44, our eighth grade year that we were going to win it. I mean, we’re here.”
Motivated Muskegon: “We had a chip on our shoulder until (the clock) was zero-zero. We weren’t done. We had a chip on our shoulder all year. Everybody we played, we said we’re going to punish. … Everybody doubted us. Everybody said we lost Kalil Pimpleton, one of the best players in the state (who played this fall at Virginia Tech). We lost JaCorey Sullivan (Central Michigan) … Andrew Ward (Nebraska), one of the best defensive players in the state last year. We lost them big boys up front. So we overcame.”
Checkmate: “I’ve been more humble (this season). I enjoy the moment. I feel like last year it was an amp moment; I wasn’t feeling it. I told myself, it’s all I’ve got. It’s my last job. I go through every day and I do a checklist. As a kid I dreamed about winning player of the year and breaking records and doing all this, and I did all that. The final checklist was win a state championship, and I can go home and check that off.”
Soaring on and off the field: “I know I want to be a successful young man beyond football. I want to go to college and study aerospace engineering, get my degree and help provide for my family. I’ve got goals beyond football. I thought as a kid that football was the only thing that I had, (but) I can do without football. I’m a great student. I work hard; I work my butt off in the classroom. I want to build planes. Who don’t want to build planes? Who don’t want to be like, ‘Oh, La’Darius built this big machine that’s flying?’ It’s cool; it’s unique.”
- Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Every week during the 2017-18 school year, Second Half and the Michigan Army National Guard will recognize a “Performance of the Week" from among the MHSAA's 750 member high schools.
The Michigan Army National Guard provides trained and ready forces in support of the National Military Strategy, and responds as needed to state, local, and regional emergencies to ensure peace, order, and public safety. The Guard adds value to our communities through continuous interaction. National Guard soldiers are part of the local community. Guardsmen typically train one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer. This training maintains readiness when needed, be it either to defend our nation's freedom or protect lives and property of Michigan citizens during a local natural disaster.
Previous 2017-18 honorees:
November 23: Ashley Turak, Farmington Hills Harrison swimming - Read
November 16: Bryce Veasley, West Bloomfield football - Read
November 9: Jose Penaloza, Holland soccer - Read
November 2: Karenna Duffey, Macomb L'Anse Creuse North cross country - Read
October 26: Anika Dy, Traverse City Central golf - Read
October 19: Andrew Zhang, Bloomfield Hills tennis - Read
October 12: Nolan Fugate, Grand Rapids Catholic Central football - Read
October 5: Marissa Ackerman, Munising tennis - Read
September 28: Minh Le, Portage Central soccer - Read
September 21: Olivia Theis, Lansing Catholic cross country - Read
September 14: Maddy Chinn, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep volleyball - Read
PHOTOS: (Top) La'Darius Jefferson crosses into the end zone for one of his four touchdowns during the Division 3 Final on Saturday at Ford Field. (Middle) Jefferson breaks into an opening while Harrison defenders pursue.
Pontiac Notre Dame Prep Welcomes Frantic Fun of 1st Trip to Football Finals
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
November 29, 2024
Betty Wroubel has never been so happy to have a bit of chaos and unfamiliar busyness descend upon her and the athletic department at Pontiac Notre Dame Prep this week.
An administrator at the school for 45 years — dating back to the days when it was known as Pontiac Catholic — Wroubel and her colleagues always wondered what things would be like if the football program ever made a state championship game.
This week, all that dreaming turned into reality as the Fighting Irish advanced to Saturday’s Division 5 Final against Frankenmuth. As expected, it’s been frantic.
Phone calls and emails from alumni and other school officials have come in droves, hoping there is room on the sideline for them even when there are limited spots available.
“I think the most difficult part has been telling people no,” said Notre Dame Prep associate athletic director Aaron Crouse.
There have been several phone calls placed to fellow administrators or other coaches who have been there to inquire about all the little things not normally thought about.
Should we have the team go down Friday to check out those games in order to get more familiar with the environment?
Is it best to gather up a bus to transport students down, or just send the link to tickets and tell everyone they are on their own?
Of course, trying to figure out such logistics has been a labor of love.
“They are good problems to have,” Wroubel said. “I’ll take these problems. It’s exciting and worth it.”
While the athletic administrators have felt the energy in their offices, the same can’t quite be said for the Notre Dame Prep team itself.
There were no classes during the week due to Thanksgiving break, so the buzz of making a football Final for the first time wasn’t really felt in the hallways.
The advantage to that though is that the Notre Dame Prep players have pretty much been able to focus on football, and given the season the Fighting Irish have had, they don’t really need any more perks to be at their best.
Notre Dame Prep enters with an 11-1 record, its only loss coming in the regular-season finale against Hudsonville Unity Christian.
The Fighting Irish recorded wins over perennial powers Jackson Lumen Christi and Grand Rapids Catholic Central, and bigger Oakland Activities Association schools such as Troy and Ferndale.
In his 11th year leading the program, Pat Fox also will coach in a Final for the first time after more than three decades in that role on a high school sideline.
Fox has several mentors who have helped guide him along the way, including former Rockford and current Newaygo head coach Ralph Munger, former Chelsea head coach Brad Bush and former Saginaw Arthur Hill head coach Jim Eurick.
Fox had planned on chatting more with Munger and Bush this week about the logistics of making a Final.
Regarding his team, Fox said getting this far is especially rewarding since he has been in the same building with many of his players for over a decade and has watched them grow up.
“My quarterback, I remember seeing him in the building when he was a little toddler,” Fox said.
That quarterback is junior Sam Stowe, who Fox credited with sticking with the program and waiting for his turn instead of trying to transfer for more playing time as a freshman or sophomore.
Stowe and Notre Dame Prep have been rewarded greatly for that patience, as he has thrown for more than 2,500 yards and 38 touchdowns, and has a completion percentage of 72 percent going into Saturday.
The Fighting Irish also have a core of six players who have been starters the past three years: WR/LB Billy Collins, DL/RB Drew Heimbuch, WR/LB Mike Wiebelhaus, WR/DB Joey Decasas, OL/LB Luca Gasperoni and OL/DL Jake Gartin.
Fox also said junior LB Brody Sink has developed into a Division I college prospect with his play this year.
“They’ve been through a lot of wars and have been great,” Fox said. “We have really good team speed.”
Wroubel and Crouse said they and other school officials “saw this coming” with how the program was trending up and being built right over the years. But the reality of what was happening didn’t fully set in until the fourth quarter of a Semifinal win over Flat Rock.
“Administrators were crying out there,” Wroubel said.
Come Saturday, the Notre Dame Prep community hopes there will be more tears in celebration of the program’s first state championship.
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Notre Dame Prep quarterback Sam Stowe (15) takes a snap against Detroit Central during a 49-14 Week 1 win. (Middle) The Fighting Irish, including Drew Heimbuch (5), line up before a game. (Photos courtesy of the Pontiac Notre Dame Prep athletic department.)