Macomb Dakota HS & MHSAA collab to keep top hooper ineligible for senior year
I guess the coach and admins at Dakota HS in Macomb County felt entitled to this kid's athletic glory. Sad we entrust our children with vindictive dopes who think they "own" our kids.
December 8th, 2017 at 10:43 AM ^
Maybe on topic as Kithier is an MSU commit? That aside, I feel bad for the kid because obviously athletics are a big part of his life.
That stated, I don't know enough about the facts to tell whether the Kithier family was gaming the system. If somehow MSU's coaching staff encouraged the move behind the scenes and it blew up, I'd find that kind of funny (while still feeling bad for Kithier).
December 8th, 2017 at 11:22 AM ^
prior to the district adding Dakota. That area has exploded in population. I think WD lives in that area.
December 8th, 2017 at 11:35 AM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 12:30 PM ^
Did he finally move out of his mom's basement?
December 8th, 2017 at 4:20 PM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 2:21 PM ^
...with any regularity, you invariably know more about WD than pretty much anyone else in your life.
Other than my immediate family and my wife's cousin's crazy wife (who posts on Facebook 10+ times per day), I probably know more about WD than just about anyone.
December 8th, 2017 at 2:24 PM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 3:58 PM ^
(IIRC) that he lives in Clinton Township and goes to Macomb County CC. See below - looks like he went to Utica HS.
His mothers name is Wolveriness Zealousis, but she is from the far north, decendant of an ancent clan of Wolverines, and does not have a US SSN.
December 8th, 2017 at 1:36 PM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 11:41 AM ^
This isn't a family using a relative's address to attend a different school. They actually relocated to the Clarkston district. It's insane that Dakota even has to sign off in this scenario, they moved to a completely different county!
December 8th, 2017 at 12:30 PM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 12:39 PM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 2:22 PM ^
Yeah, no joke. Things are just as wild here in Northern Minnesota. There's a reason that in my immediate local area of five high schools with hockey teams two are state title contenders, one (the private school) is perennially good, and two are awful. And it's not because the good players all happen to live on one side of a street.
December 8th, 2017 at 10:33 PM ^
lest we forget thine deep and sundry lessons from thou Mighty Ducks coached by thine Grodon Bombay
December 9th, 2017 at 5:50 PM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 12:46 PM ^
I agree, however this isn't the kid from the neighborhood going to the district over and still living in the neighborhood, nor him getting an "academic" scholarship to one of the big Catholic League schools.
December 8th, 2017 at 2:22 PM ^
HE didnt break a rule, in fact relocating is one of the acceptions for immediate eligibility.
December 8th, 2017 at 2:39 PM ^
exactly
*exception (sorry, being THAT guy, lol)
December 8th, 2017 at 3:13 PM ^
They did not move. They (the parents) remained in Macomb. He got an apartment in Clarkston.
I'm split on this. It sounds like it was athletically motivated. It sounds like he was going to Clarkston to play with the PG that's also committed to MSU.
However, if the kid legitimately moves, why can't he play.
I'd have to know more about his living arrangement before making a final decision, though. What exactly is his rent? Who is his landlord? Did he actually, on his own, find an apartment or is he renting from the PG's family or from an MSU booster?
Need more facts, man. Lol. Either way, sucks for the kid.
Never rely on the MHSAA to do the right thing. That is one of the worst run organizations ever.
December 8th, 2017 at 9:36 PM ^
Yeah the more I read on this the more I think maybe there's some booster money in the back of this. However it really stinks for the kid. Should just let kids play high school sports, I mean, really. It's not like Dakota is a bad school that will suffer from this loss of a player.
December 13th, 2017 at 5:34 PM ^
But in Ohio, if the facts are as you state, he'd be ineligible without question. He'd only be eligible at the new school if his parents or legal guardian relocated into the new district.
Ohio's regs add another wrinkle: recruiting doesn't have to be by a person connected to the school. Anyone using influence to try to get an athlete enrolled at a particular high school for athletic purposes is recruiting and it becomes a violation. If, as it sounds, Izzo tried to influence the kid's decision on where to attend, that violates the recruiting bylaw and he'd be ineligible for that too.
Again, I don't know how Michigan's bylaws might differ.
December 8th, 2017 at 3:39 PM ^
There are specific rules governing transfers (besides location) and it appears that he admittingly violated one of them.
Don't like the rule? Change the rule.
December 8th, 2017 at 3:08 PM ^
I drew only one conclusion from this:
chuck bass went to Clarkston, or has kids there now.
NO ONE else on this site would get so worked up about a msu commit getting screwed!!!
December 9th, 2017 at 11:24 AM ^
Our kids are in not in Clarkston Community Schools. I just have empathy for the kid and his family after reading grown men, paid by the public to elevate kids, conspired to harm a random teen. No doubt the secondary education "professionals" involved in this took joy out of what they've done to this young man and his family. It's disgraceful.
December 8th, 2017 at 10:43 AM ^
named Tocco. Look up that name if you don't know what I am talking about... LOL!!!
-- Signed the Michigan Business School Sicilian of the year in 1996
December 8th, 2017 at 10:46 AM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 11:47 AM ^
I was in junior high and high school with a number of supposed mob family kids back in Grosse Pointe. One of them was rumored to have been involved with Hoffa's disappearance after I graduated. I was on good terms with them and they never bothered me, but I certainly wasn't inclined to get in their grill about what their dads and uncles allegedly did for a living.
A couple of them were on varsity sports teams with me, and they were good guys, excellent students, never gave me or anybody else any grief, and one of them came to U-M a year or so after I did.
Activity with the mob crosses many national and ethnic borders. The Irish John F. Kennedy family history during the prohibition years was pretty lurid. The infamous and vicious Purple Gang in Detroit that was active during Prohibition was largely Jewish. Now Russians and East Europeans are running many criminal enterprises in the northeast, and Mexicans and Central Americans are active in many parts of the country.
December 8th, 2017 at 12:14 PM ^
(+ 1 or 2 others) ended up in the federal pen.
December 8th, 2017 at 1:07 PM ^
Hmmmh, they were defensive backfield players. You mean the guys who specialize in "tracking people" during the "game" and "taking them down" when they're about to do something against "your team's interest"?
Sounds about right!
December 8th, 2017 at 12:39 PM ^
Italian mob gets about 90% of their income from legit sources these days. The funny thing is that those business lines started off as "fronts" in order to launder the funds from illicit activities and now they are the vast majority of the business.
The remaining activities are the white collar stuff like gambling and corruption / skimming from gov't contracts...
Like you said, the Italian families have been happy to let the new immigrant groups to do the dirty work (drugs, prostitution, "protection" rackets, etc...)
December 8th, 2017 at 1:49 PM ^
that businesses were 'persuaded' to hire.
December 8th, 2017 at 2:51 PM ^
My family made money the old fashioned way--they printed it.
December 8th, 2017 at 10:47 AM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 11:10 AM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 11:43 AM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 12:34 PM ^
The first rule in the Tocco family is that no one talks about the Tocco family?
December 8th, 2017 at 2:10 PM ^
What are they going to do? Fit us with cement shoes and a trip to the river?
December 8th, 2017 at 5:24 PM ^
Let us know what they say.
December 8th, 2017 at 6:11 PM ^
He was rolled in a carpet and buried in a shallow grave. No cement shoes needed.
December 8th, 2017 at 10:45 AM ^
MHSAA has a transfer exception (meaning you don't have to sit a full semester after transferring) with respect to full family housing moves into another school district. Assuming the alleged Kithier move did not meet exception criteria, not allowing eligibility for the full year is quite suspect in my opinion.
December 8th, 2017 at 3:44 PM ^
be ineligible unti January 1. Then the family appealed and the board extended it to 180 days. sometimes it is better to leave well enough alone.
December 8th, 2017 at 7:28 PM ^
your prior house has to also have been sold or remain unoccupied---you can't rent it out--with the obvious move back.
December 8th, 2017 at 10:46 AM ^
Just from reading your summarization of this situation and as a baseball coach of young kids, sports and winning often and unfortunately seem to matter more to the adults than the kids.
December 8th, 2017 at 10:46 AM ^
Just moved back to Michigan after a long hiatus, so I'm not terribly familiar with things. But I'm so confused since Michigan is now a school of choice state, correct? Can't students move to different schools on their own whim, but probably subject to some transfer rules (like the 90 days you refer to)? Why would Dakota have to sign off on a transfer release if school of choice is the law of the land?
December 8th, 2017 at 11:33 AM ^
Yes, school of choice exists, but MHSAA has it's own rules separate from those, dealing with eligibility. Sports eligibility is wholly separate from what school you can attend as a student.
December 8th, 2017 at 1:38 PM ^
Correct. School of choice for an education is an entirely different beast than school of choice for athletics.
December 8th, 2017 at 10:46 AM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 10:48 AM ^
December 8th, 2017 at 11:22 AM ^
But isn't this irrelevant with Michigan's school of choice mandate? I thought school of choice allowed you to attend a different school even if you're not physically living in their "footprint". But, yeah, if they did physically move to Clarkston, then this MHSAA ruling doesn't pass the smell test.