Prout Powers Pinckney with Inspiration
September 12, 2019
By Tim Robinson
Special for Second Half
Larry Prout, Jr., who wears Pinckney football jersey number 6, stands 4-foot-8 and 85 pounds.
Or slightly less than one pound for each of the 105 surgeries he’s had in his young life.
He can’t play football — his body is much too fragile, despite a strong desire to play the game — but he makes his mark with the Pirates as an inspiration.
And the Pirates put a spark into a young man who has spent a large portion of his life in hospitals.
“Everyone gets pumped when he’s around,” Pirates senior quarterback Joe Bona says. “How could you not? Larry’s a great kid, an awesome, awesome character, and what he’s gone through should push us, because it’s way harder than what we’ve ever done. I think it pushes and makes us work harder.”
Larry is the sixth of six children of Kathy and Larry Prout Sr., who have made countless trips to emergency rooms when a medical emergency has cropped up in young Larry’s life.
At one point, their living room was a hospital room for Larry, complete with bed and medical equipment as the Prout family rallied around him.
He was born with no skin covering the lower half of his torso, leaving his internal organs exposed.
He spent most of the first 18 months of his life in the hospital, and didn’t breathe on his own until he was 3 years old.
“His first word was ‘lucky,’” Kathy Prout said in a 2016 interview. “It was the craziest word. It’s like a three-legged dog named Lucky, you know? That was his first word, and we would die laughing.”
He was included as much as he could be in his siblings’ hijinks, although he spent much of his time at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor. But Larry Jr. became well-known among Wolverines fans during the 2016 season for the inspiration he was providing to the U-M football team, with Bleacher Report referring to him as the “heartbeat of Michigan football” in a 2017 report.
He’s making that level of impact on his favorite high school team now as well.
"Being part of Pinckney and Michigan means a lot," Larry Jr. said. "It’s been really fun, seeing the players and coaches; it’s the same as at Michigan. I love going to the games and sitting on the sidelines before kickoff, and seeing my players and my friends, my best friends, and seeing Coach Jim (Harbaugh) and Coach Rod (Beaton).
Larry is home-schooled because his body isn’t strong enough to allow him to attend school on a regular basis. He takes electives at Pinckney, including photography, and loves being at school, although his parents had to set some limits.
“We found out that every time we dropped him off at school, he would go out and find Rod (Beaton, Pinckney’s football coach),” Kathy said.
“We told him, once a week,” Larry Sr. said. “Rod’s got work to do.”
That may be, but Beaton returns Larry Jr.’s admiration.
“It goes without saying that he’s truly an inspiration,” Beaton says. “I’ve never met a young person with a more positive attitude than Larry. He really does bring it every single day, every time he’s here.”
Larry also has carried the flag during Pinckney's "No Quarter," the pause between the third and fourth quarters where a student picks up a black or red flag, depending on how the Pirates are faring, and runs back and forth in front of the bleachers to rev the Pirates crowd for the fourth quarter.
He practiced at home before carrying the flag in both of Pinckney's games so far this season.
His peers return the love, too.
Last spring, Larry Jr. planned to attend Pinckney’s prom, but had to miss it due to a hospitalization.
When Larry Jr. got out of the hospital, a classmate, Alex Williams, put on her prom dress and with some fellow students put on a prom for Larry.
“We have some outstanding kids here,” Beaton said, “and it goes to speak to what we have in this community. Our kids come from such great households, with parents who raise these kids the right way. They understand what Larry’s situation is, and it uplifts us all, every time he’s out here.”
The same, the Prouts say, goes for Larry.
“I remember I loved school,” Kathy said. “I loved it when my older kids were in school. You get the pencils and the pictures and the new clothes. With Larry, I have anxiety and stress because he wants to fit in and make friends and take six classes when he can only do two or three.”
Including Larry Jr. in activities like the prom and football means a lot to all of the Prouts.
“We have a lot of gratitude, and we don’t know how to show it enough,” Kathy said, ‘We want to show our gratitude to Rod and all of the players because they’ve made Larry feel important, such a part of this Pinckney football team. It’s something we’ll never forget, something Larry will never forget.”
Larry Jr. was a part of the Michigan football team for three seasons, and among his close friends is reserve Buck West, a former Pinckney standout who often is seen at the Prout house watching game shows with Larry Jr.
“I love watching Family Feud and Steve Harvey,” Larry Jr. said. “(The Pirates) are like my brothers, just like Michigan was.”
Larry Jr. got connected to the Michigan team through an organization called Team Impact, which connects youths with life-threatening or chronic illnesses to college football teams.
Dan Kraft, the son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, invited the Prouts to Ford Field when the Patriots played a preseason game there last month and got them passes to be on the field during pregame.
“As I was hanging out, the camera was filming me and they said Team Impact had a surprise for me,” Larry Jr. said. “And the craziest thing is, I see Tom Brady coming up and giving me a fist-bump and a high five. I shook his hand and told him I loved seeing him play. He pointed to my (Michigan) hat and told me to make sure to beat the Buckeyes this season. I told him I would make sure to do that.”
After Brady left, Larry Jr. jumped for joy, no mean feat for a young man who uses a wheelchair for anything but short walks.
“When he gets excited, he jumps,” Kathy said. “He can clear eight inches, which is pretty awesome, because they said he would never walk.”
At Pinckney practice, Larry Jr. hands out encouragement and banters with players who are, in many cases, a foot taller than him.
While he basks in the glow of being part of a team, he contributes to the Pirates something they might not have learned otherwise.
“The lesson I take is that it’s not as bad as what it’s going to be,” senior running back Sal Patierno said. “What we go through, you just think of what he’s gone through, and it makes you want to go harder. Just keep fighting. I know he’s fought harder than any of us.”
“It makes you think,” Bona said. “It makes you work harder.”
“He uplifts us all, every time he’s out here,” Beaton said.
PHOTOS: (Top) Larry Prout Jr. carries the Pinckney "No Quarter" flag in front of the crowd during the Pirates’ Week 2 game at Chelsea. (Middle) Then-senior Pirates quarterback Jack Wurzer spelled out Prout’s name on his helmet in 2017 from bones the players receive for outstanding efforts. (Below) Prout’s friends put on a prom for him after Prout, in purple shirt and tie, missed the school’s event this spring while hospitalized. (Photos courtesy of the Prout family and Tim Robinson.)
St. Mary Erases Doubts, Ends Ithaca Run
November 28, 2014
By Bill Khan
Special for Second Half
DETROIT — The players and their coach insisted they were playing for their own glory, not to deprive Ithaca of further greatness.
Monroe St. Mary would've savored an MHSAA Division 6 football championship regardless of the opponent, regardless of the historical backdrop.
But when the clock expired on the Falcons' 22-12 victory over Ithaca on Friday at Ford Field, once they'd secured their first title since 1991, there was a little extra pride among the St. Mary players.
Yeah, it was pretty special to beat a team with a nation-leading 69-game winning streak and four consecutive Division 6 championships.
"At the beginning of the week, we didn't really think about that," St. Mary senior linebacker David Howey said. "The coach just kept preaching there's 48 minutes left in high school football. That's a pretty cool win, though, beating the nation's longest winning streak in high school football. It's pretty cool. When we told people that's who we were going to play, they'd doubt us, and that just fueled me even more."
There was also a bit of a revenge motive for St. Mary (13-1), which lost 45-35 in the Division 6 final when the Yellowjackets' string of MHSAA titles began in 2010.
"It makes it a little more sweet, but it's just awesome," said senior John Lako, who ran for two touchdowns and made seven tackles with a sack at linebacker. "I was actually at the game when we lost to them in 2010. Just to see they were that close, it feels like we finally wrote the end of the book."
Ithaca coach Terry Hessbrook hasn't had to deliver a postgame speech to his players following a loss since a 47-16 setback to Montague in a 2009 Division 6 Semifinal. From the start of 2010, the Yellowjackets assembled a winning streak that ranks 13th all-time in national high school football history. The streak included 24 consecutive playoff victories. Ithaca was trying to tie the record of five straight MHSAA titles shared by Farmington Hills Harrison (1997-2001) and East Grand Rapids (2006-10).
Ithaca had to come from behind in its previous two games just to keep the streak alive and return to Ford Field. The Yellowjackets trailed Madison Heights Madison 27-19 heading into the fourth quarter of the Regional Final before winning 41-27.
They made a stop on fourth down from the 4-yard line with 13 seconds left to preserve a 20-16 Semifinal victory over Boyne City, which took an early 14-0 lead.
"We've had maybe more talented teams, I'm going to be honest, and that's no knock on this football team," Hessbrook said. "But I've never coached a football team that has more heart and more resiliency, and that's going back to the teams we've had in the last four or five years. I don't care what team you put out there, this team will fight you every step of the way. I couldn't be more proud. We came up short. We missed a few opportunities. We came up a few plays short. One play in the kicking game, one play here or there on offense, we win that game, and we win it going away."
Ithaca (13-1) had only three victories with a margin of fewer than 10 points during the winning streak. Missed extra points by opponents played a major role in two of those games, a 22-19 overtime victory over Montague in the 2011 Regional Final and a 21-20 victory over Montrose in a 2013 Semifinal.
Ironically, points after touchdown were critical in the outcome of Friday's championship game.
Monroe St. Mary's edge in conversions began following the first touchdown of the game, a 2-yard run by Lako that capped an opening drive that milked the first 8:15 off the clock. An off-sides penalty by Ithaca on the extra point attempt moved the ball close enough to the goal line to make a two-point attempt more feasible. Justin Carrabino ran untouched around the right side to give St. Mary's an 8-0 lead.
Ithaca tried to make up the difference following its first touchdown, an 11-yard pass from Jake Smith to Spence DeMull with 9:20 left in the second quarter, but the two-point pass fell incomplete to leave St. Mary's up 8-6.
Special teams loomed even larger with 7:11 left in the second quarter when Troy Hilkens forced a fumbled punt return. The ball popped up to Travis Vuich, who returned it 19 yards for a touchdown. Phillip Lehmann's extra point made it 15-6.
"It was a great feeling," Vuich said. "The guys did their job on the punt filling the lanes. The ball just popped right up."
Ithaca found the end zone for a second time on a 2-yard run by Smith with 33 seconds left in the first half. The extra-point attempt hit the upright, leaving the Yellowjackets down by a 15-12 margin despite matching St. Mary's two touchdowns.
"I hope that all those young people who were standing on our sideline understand what a small margin for error there is when you play for a state championship and understand how much work goes into it," Hessbrook said.
An Ithaca offense that averaged 43 points a game wouldn't score again, as St. Mary came up with huge defensive stops in the second half.
On fourth-and-one from the St. Mary 21, Ithaca was stopped in the backfield by Justin LaPlante and finished off by Darius Marks for a 1-yard loss with 2:29 left in the third quarter.
Ithaca marched to St. Mary's 19 on its next possession, but Bryce Windham (also the Falcons' quarterback) intercepted a pass after a reverse.
St. Mary's took over at its own 2-yard line with 10:19 remaining and was able to milk the clock down to 2:46 before punting. Ithaca got the ball at its own 20 for one final attempt to keep its winning and championship streaks alive. On second and 10, Lako sacked Smith for a 12-yard loss with 2:19 to go. On fourth-and-22, Marks intercepted a pass with 1:51 remaining and returned it to the 5.
Two plays later, Lako wrapped up the victory with a 3-yard touchdown run with 1:41 left.
Ithaca threw four incompletions on its final possession, and St. Mary kneeled out the clock.
"We won today because of our defense," St. Mary coach Jack Giarmo said. "Offensively, we struggled a little bit, but defensively the kids just did a fantastic job battling."
Ithaca outgained St. Mary, 262-182, but had three costly turnovers. Smith ran 18 times for 90 yards and a touchdown while completing 14 of 29 passes for 147 yards, one touchdown and one interception. DeMull caught nine passes for 108 yards and a touchdown.
Vuich made two clutch catches for first downs when St. Mary took 7:33 off the clock following Windham's interception. Vuich caught three passes for 38 yards, accounting for more than half of Windham's 71 yards on 7 for 12 passing.
LaPlante had nine tackles, including two for losses, to lead St. Mary's defense. Reeser had a game-high 12 tackles for Ithaca.
PHOTOS: (Top) Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central players raise their first MHSAA football championship trophy since 1991 on Friday. (Middle) St. Mary defensive back Darius Marks (2) snags an interception in front of an Ithaca receiver. (Click for action photos and team photos from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS:
SMITH TO DEMULL FOR THE SCORE - Ithaca scores its first touchdown in the second quarter, with Jake Smith finding Spence DeMull in the end zone for the score.
FALCON FINDS GOOD FORTUNE - On its drive following the first Ithaca TD, Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central punts and a loose ball on the return finds its way into the hands of Travis Vuich, who took it 19 yards for what proved to be the winning points.
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