Pivotal Playmaking Puts King Back on Top to Close 2021 Season
By
Scott DeCamp
Special for MHSAA.com
November 28, 2021
DETROIT – Past disappointments tucked away in his mind, Dante Moore knew what he needed to do with an elusive Finals title on the line Saturday night at Ford Field.
Detroit Martin Luther King’s junior quarterback needed to make a play to put the game away. And that’s exactly what he and senior receiver Chansey Willis Jr. did.
Pinned against their own goal line, Moore and Willis converted a big third-down play to seal King’s 25-21 victory over last season’s MHSAA Division 3 champion DeWitt in a hard-fought title game.
It was the first Finals championship for Moore, the highly recruited 6-foot-2, 195-pounder, who after the game was presented the State Champs! Mr. Football award. Facing 3rd-and-6 from his own 5 and with his team holding a four-point lead, Moore hit Willis on a 7-yard play to move the chains and enable the Crusaders (13-1) to run out the clock.
Moments earlier, King’s defense stuffed DeWitt (12-2) on 4th-and-goal from the 1 in the back-and-forth contest.
“I just say, ‘Hey,’ I looked at Chansey – how we’ve been all year – ‘I’ll lead my guy, let’s get this pass. They don’t have any more timeouts. We can win this game,’” Moore said. “I gave him my trust throwing him the ball, and he’s going to do what he do: Catch the ball, get down and get the first down.”
The championship was King’s first since 2018 and fourth in seven years.
During Moore’s freshman year in 2019, King lost to Muskegon Mona Shores, 35-26, in the Division 2 Final. Last year, the Crusaders fell in the Regional to River Rouge, which lost a 40-30 shootout to DeWitt in the Division 3 championship game.
“Blessings. Ever since we lost my freshman year to Mona Shores, a shot at that great team; last year we lost in the Regionals to River Rouge. I mean, we’ve been hungry for it,” said Moore, who finished 18-of-24 passing for 228 yards with an interception.
“A lot of seniors on this team have got rings, but a lot of juniors, sophomores and freshmen were really hungry for it. After the start of conditioning in the summer time and being out here right now, we’ve just been really hungry for this moment and we appreciate it.”
King played like it early.
The Crusaders scored in the game’s first minute, as senior Terrence Brown sprinted for a 51-yard touchdown run. They made it 13-0 just 1:18 into the second quarter when junior defensive end Kenny Merrieweather tipped a pass and turned it into a 45-yard pick-six.
“Just being a ball player, trying to just make plays to try to win the game for me and my teammates,” the 6-4, 245-pound Merrieweather said about his interception return.
That was the start of a wild quarter when the teams combined for 33 points. Despite trailing 19-7 with three minutes left in the half, DeWitt stormed back to take a 21-19 lead into the break.
Senior QB Ty Holtz, who led the Panthers to the title last year, sandwiched 6- and 15-yard TD passes to seniors Bryce Debri and Tommy McIntosh, respectively, around a 6-yard scoring run by King’s Brown. Then, in the closing seconds of the half, Holtz electrified the DeWitt crowd by intercepting Moore and returning it 69 yards for a TD.
That put DeWitt in front by two at halftime, a lead the Panthers held until junior Sterling Anderson Jr. scored on a 3-yard run with 8:22 remaining in the game to put the Crusaders back in front, 25-21.
Holtz finished 10-of-18 for 153 yards with two picks. Six of his completions went to McIntosh, the University of Wisconsin commit, who finished with 90 receiving yards.
Holtz guided DeWitt deep into King territory during the game’s final minutes, as the Panthers had 1st-and-goal from the 10, but they could not punch it in.
“I mean, Ty Holtz, I want to give him a shoutout on defense, first of all,” Moore said. “I mean, him being a quarterback and being at safety, eyeing me wherever I go. … He was throwing the ball around to Tommy and the other teammates. It was a great team, a great coaching staff. They were here last year, they won it, so big shoutout to them.”
Brown led all rushers with 113 yards on 11 carries. Willis caught four passes for 111 yards. Senior Blake Bailiff led King with 10 tackles, including stops on each of DeWitt’s final four offensive plays.
It wasn’t Moore’s best game statistically, but King coach Tyrone Spencer was impressed with the way he ran the team.
After losing at Carmel (Ind.), 42-40, on a Hail Mary in the season opener, the Crusaders finished the year with 13 straight wins.
“I just love the way that kid (operates); he’s so poised,” Spencer said about Moore. “He throws an interception, he’s in the locker room, I mean, it doesn’t faze him. He comes back out and he does what he needs to do. They were taking the pass away from him. They had safeties all over the top, bailing out late and we had to stick to the run game. Sometimes, that’s going to take away from what you can do in the air, and that’s fine. We got a win. He found a way for us to win.”
For DeWitt, senior Nicholas Flegler paced his team with 11 tackles and 69 rushing yards.
He is one of 21 Panthers who will graduate in the spring and also played a significant role on last season’s champion.
“They grew up together and played together. They’ve won for a long period of time and they learned from the previous group, and I think that’s something that’s just carried on,” DeWitt coach Rob Zimmerman said. “We’ve got young kids coming up that want to be just like these guys.”
PHOTOS (Top) Detroit King’s Sterling Anderson Jr. (23) jets down the sideline as a DeWitt defender works to wrap him up. (Middle) Chansey Willis Jr. (2) prepares for contact as the Panthers’ Bryce Debri (21) pursues. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Robichaud 3-Sport Legend Wheatley Selected to National High School Hall of Fame
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
March 11, 2024
The playing career of 1991 Dearborn Heights Robichaud graduate Tyrone Wheatley remains one of the most storied in Michigan high school sports history. His prestige gained during that early stage of his athletic stardom has been recognized nationally as well, as Wheatley was one of 12 honorees announced today as this year’s inductees into the National High School Hall of Fame by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
Wheatley – who grew up in Inkster and is currently the head football coach at Wayne State University – will be inducted as one of 11 honorees selected for the 41st Hall of Fame class at a ceremony during the NFHS summer meeting July 1 in Boston. The rest of the class is made up of three more athletes, four coaches, two former state association administrators and a game official. Wheatley was nominated by the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
Wheatley will become the Hall of Fame’s 10th inductee from Michigan, joining the MHSAA’s first full-time Executive Director Charles E. Forsythe (inducted 1983), River Rouge boys basketball coach Lofton Greene (1986), Warren Regina athletic director, softball and basketball coach Diane Laffey (2000), Fennville basketball and baseball standout Richie Jordan (2001), Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett boys and girls tennis coach Bob Wood (2005), Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook hockey standout Jim Johnson (2007), Owosso football, basketball and baseball all-stater Brad Van Pelt (2011); Vermontville Maple Valley baseball national record holder Ken Beardslee (2016) and retired MHSAA Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts (2022).
To the greater public, Wheatley surely is best known as a star running back for University of Michigan who went on to play 10 seasons in the NFL for the New York Giants and Oakland Raiders. However, he is arguably most glorified in Michigan high school athletics for his accomplishments on the track, where as a junior in 1990 he became the first (of still only two) athletes to win four individual events at an MHSAA Lower Peninsula Finals – placing first in the 100 and 200-meter dashes, 110-meter hurdles and long jump. He led Robichaud to the Class B team title that day, scoring 40 of its 49 points. Wheatley completed his high school career in 1991 with three more Class B individual track & field championships and nine total over his final three seasons; he was injured in the 100 during that senior-year meet and could not run his final race to attempt another four-title day.
Wheatley’s meet records of 13.7 seconds in the 100 at the 1991 LP Class B Final and 23-10¾ in long jump in 1989 still stood when the four-Class track & field format was retired after the 1999 season. He also remains the only athlete to win the 100 three times at the prestigious Mehock Relays in Mansfield, Ohio, also finishing first in the 110 hurdles and 200 and runner-up in the long jump at that meet in 1991.
Wheatley was similarly accomplished on the high school football field, leading his team to a state championship in 1990 and earning a Parade All-America honor. Over three varsity seasons total he ran for a combined 4,257 yards and 67 touchdowns, including 2,010 yards and 33 scores on 208 carries as a senior in 1990 – the latter despite playing quarterback half of that season (and throwing five touchdown passes). He played quarterback, running back, defensive back, punter, kicker and returned kicks, and he scored 252 points over 13 games as a senior and 484 over 38 career games.
Wheatley also was a standout on the basketball court for Robichaud, averaging 14 points and 16 rebounds per game as a senior in earning all-state recognition in that sport as well.
“My city where I come from, Inkster, means the world to me. I grew up in an incredible era of sports in Michigan (with successful University of Michigan and Detroit pro teams) … but if you ask me who my idols were, they were the guys I grew up with playing on the playground,” Wheatley said. “After you come from a basketball game where you see Jarvis Walker drop 30, or Earl Jones running the last 200 of a race backwards … you hear people talk about them, you hear their reverence about them, and I just wanted to be put in the conversation of the best to come out of Inkster, forget the state. I can tell you this for sure: I’m not the best athlete to come out of Inkster, just the person who got the recognition. And my foundation was built watching, taking notes, preparing, working out and just trying to be one of the guys.
“(Robichaud was) the step. Because without Robichaud … Michigan, the NFL, me coming back to coach, it doesn’t happen,” Wheatley said. “Without the Robert Yaucks (his football coach at Robichaud), the Coach (Leit) Jones (his Robichaud track coach), the Coach (Mercer) Brysons, the (coach) Wade Cooks, the (coach Jeff) Flounorys, the Millie Hursins (his academic advisor) of the world, this doesn’t happen. Without my high school teammates, none of this happens. So it’s not just a step. What’s the saying – the first impression is the lasting and best impression? Robichaud was it.”
Wheatley returned to Robichaud as its varsity football coach in 2007 and led that team to a 9-2 record and the MHSAA Playoffs for the first time since 1994 – after Robichaud had finished 0-9 the previous season. He has served as an assistant football coach at four college programs including U-M and Syracuse, and with the Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars and Denver Broncos.
He also served as Morgan State University's head coach from 2019-21 and just completed his first season as head coach at Wayne State, which finished 3-8 – an improvement of two wins from 2022 and the program’s best record since 2019.
Wheatley graduated from University of Michigan in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology. He and wife Kimberly have five children: Tyrone Jr., Terius, Tyrique, Tiana and Tamari. Tyrone Jr., an offensive tackle, played this past season for the New England Patriots.
“Many of us who grew up in Michigan grew up as fans of Tyrone Wheatley because of what he accomplished at the college level – but his legendary story begins at Dearborn Heights Robichaud, where his outsized athletic ability was on full display in every sport he played,” MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said. “Michigan has produced several professional athletes in a variety of sports and nearly 50 Olympians in track & field alone, and what Tyrone Wheatley achieved as a high school athlete remains a standard few have approached. We are ecstatic that he will deservedly take his place among the all-time elite high school athletes nationally as well.”
The National High School Hall of Fame was started in 1982 by the NFHS. The 11 individuals were chosen after a two-level selection process involving a screening committee composed of active high school state association administrators, coaches and officials, and a final selection committee composed of coaches, former athletes, state association officials, media representatives and educational leaders. Nominations were made through NFHS member associations. Also chosen for this class were athletes Joe Mauer (Minnesota), Takeo Spikes (Georgia) and Dot Ford Burrow (Mississippi); sport coaches Paula Kirkland (South Carolina), Gary Rankin (Tennessee), Roy Snyder (Pennsylvania) and Ronald Vincent (North Carolina); former state association administrators Mike Colbrese (Washington) and Marie Ishida (California), and baseball/football game official David Core (Oklahoma).
For more on this year’s Hall of Fame class, visit the NFHS Website.
PHOTO Tyrone Wheatley crosses the finish line first during one of his nine MHSAA Finals track & field championship victories. (MHSAA file photo.)