NFL High School

Jerry Marszalek, the wrestling coach for at Dearborn Fordson High School for the last 35 years, has lost his job because parents of Muslim students complained that one of his assistants tried to convert their children to Christianity.

The Detroit News reports that assistant coach Trey Hancock, who is a minister at the Dearborn Assembly of God church, attempts to convert Muslim youths to Christianity, although he says he does not do so on school grounds or at events affiliated with Fordson, which is a public school. Dearborn is home to one of America's largest Muslim communities.

Whether Hancock tried to convert Muslims or not, it's hard to see why Marszalek should be fired over it. And when the school's principal, Imad Fadlallah, won't explain the decision publicly, it's hard not to think Marszalek is getting a raw deal.

Via Sports by Brooks.

This is Hillsboro High School wrestler Dustin Carter, who has a 41-2 record this season:

The 18-year-old Carter, who had both arms and both legs amputated at age 5, has reached the Ohio state quarterfinals in the 103-pound weight class. Dustin seems to see himself as a fairly ordinary high school athlete, but the adults around him don't agree:

"He's our miracle," said his mother, Lori Carter. "He's my hero. He's my son, but he's also my hero. ...

"His perseverance speaks for itself," said Scott Goodpaster, Carter's trainer. "He wants to win. He wakes up every day wanting to win. This is his passion, and he bleeds for it. He works so hard to get by in life."

Carter says, "I wrestle like anybody else. I go to school like anybody else. I can live on my own like anybody else. I can do anything anybody else can do. I don't like people feeling sorry for me. Some people do."

People who watch him wrestle know he doesn't need anyone to feel sorry for him. Another video is after the jump.

Pittsburgh Steelers backup quarterback Charlie Batch has another job, besides just holding the clipboard and wondering if Ben Roethlisberger is going to crash his motorcycle again.

It turns out that Batch also serves as an adviser to Terrelle Pryor, a quarterback from Jeannette, Pennsylvania, who is widely recognized as the top high school football player in the country. Pryor writes in an online diary at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette web site:

I've known Charlie for a couple years. His brother dates my aunt. Charlie is kind of part of my family now. We talk. I asked him if he would want to go on my visits, and he said sure.

He'll just help me because he's been through this recruiting process before. Just from talking to him, I trust him a lot. When I go on these visits, I think he'll know who's telling the truth just by sitting there and listening.

Batch is a smart guy who knows the football business, and I think it's great that Batch is able to help Pryor through the process, since football recruits often have people hanging around who don't have their best interests in mind. But I feel pretty confident in saying that Batch won't be steering Pryor to his own alma mater. Eastern Michigan isn't quite the kind of program that gets players like Pryor.

The Florida High School Athletic Association has unveiled its All-Century High School Football Team, and, as you might expect, there are some awfully big names on it, from Tim Tebow to Daunte Culpepper to Emmitt Smith to Deacon Jones.

But my favorite piece of information is this: Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis is on the team, and not only for what he did on defense. Lewis also had six kick return touchdowns in his high school career.

Lewis also played running back in high school, and although linebacker is obviously the right position for him, there's no doubt in my mind that he has the athletic ability to play running back in the NFL.

Oh, and here's another tidbit: Warren Sapp was a punter in high school. Seriously.

Hat tip: The Big Lead.

Yesterday I wondered what was going on at Smith Center High School in Kansas, where the football team has outscored its opponents by a total margin of 640-0 this season. I even wondered if the coach at Smith Center was following the lead of Bill Belichick, who, as you may have noticed, has led the Patriots to some rather one-sided wins this year.

Wayne Drehs of ESPN.com interviewed the coaches at both Smith Center High and Plainville High, the school that was outscored 72-0 in the first quarter by Smith Center. And he found that both parties agree that there was no bad sportsmanship involved. First, Smith Center coach Roger Barta:

"I guess it's a record or something, but not one that we're proud of. We're not here to embarrass kids. We're not here to run up the score. We want our kids to play hard and get ready for the next round of the playoffs. This just sort of happened. And once it started, I didn't know what to do."

Then, Plainville coach John Petrie:

"It's our job to try and stop them," Petrie said. "And we couldn't do it. By any means was he running up the score? No. It's just one of those deals. When you're on a hot streak, do you stop it? Of course not."

Both coaches sound like good guys who want to do what's best for their players. But I still think there's something wrong with high school football in Kansas if they can't find more competitive games for either Smith Center or Plainville. A 72-0 first quarter can't be good for either school.

At a time when running up the score has become the biggest controversy in the NFL -- with a Redskins player calling Patriots coach Bill Belichick classless and a well-respected journalist advocating taking Tom Brady out with a late hit -- maybe we should focus instead on running up the score in high school.

High school players, after all, are supposed to be learning lessons about sportsmanship and the value of competition, not getting humiliated in games they have no chance of winning.

But one high school is humiliating its opponents to an astonishing degree. Smith Center High School in Smith Center, Kansas, has outscored its opponents 640-0 so far this season. That includes two different games against Plainville High School, which ended in scores of 69-0 and 86-0.

Now, it should be said that Smith Center was up 72-0 at the end of the first quarter and then only outscored Plainville 14-0 the rest of the way, so Smith Center seemingly could have made it a lot worse. But really: What was the point of playing the second game at all?

UPDATE: Commenter Mike says they played the second game because it was a playoff game. I'm still wrapping my head around the idea of a team that loses 69-0 and 86-0 being in the playoffs.

We've previously noted that Oakland Raiders Hall of Famer Howie Long (now a Fox broadcaster and thespian) has a son, Chris Long, who could be the first pick in the 2008 NFL draft. But is it possible that neither Chris nor Howie is the best football player in the family? Howie's younger son is a stud high school lineman:

It sounds as though the 6-foot-7, 280-pound Kyle Long is actually leaning toward giving up football and concentrating full-time on baseball, either when he gets to college or possibly turning pro right out of high school. Howie has said publicly that he'd rather see Kyle play baseball. Either way, there's something pretty remarkable in the Long genes.

Riddell's Revolution helmet has been advertised as the best football helmet ever designed for preventing concussions in football players, from high school to the NFL.

But some researchers question just how effective the Revolution is. Alan Schwarz of the New York Times reports that Riddell uses a study published in the journal Neurosurgery to bolster its claims about the Revolution's effectiveness, but there's an awfully big caveat:

That study has been strongly criticized by several prominent experts because it was commissioned by Riddell and because it tested new Revolution helmets against reconditioned traditional models of indeterminate age....

Dr. Michael Levy, a neurosurgeon at the Children's Hospital of San Diego, said in a telephone interview: "People are running around with that paper selling helmets, and it has not been shown that it makes a difference. People get a false sense of security, and you have to hope that children are not suffering from the promotion of numbers that are not accurate."

That doesn't mean the Revolution isn't a good helmet - most experts do seem to believe that it's effective. But it's troubling how little good, solid, unbiased science there is behind the claims about which helmets are most effective for preventing concussions.

Warwick High School in Newport News, Virginia, used to have a jersey worn by its most famous alumnus, Michael Vick, in its trophy case. But that jersey is now gone:

Michelle Morgan, a spokeswoman for Newport News Public Schools, said Vick's jersey was taken down last month around the time he pleaded guilty to federal dogfighting charges.

"It remained up through a lot of the allegations and news reports," Morgan said. "It came out after he admitted to some wrongdoings."

The decision was made by the school, not the district, and it strikes me as the right move. Just as Virginia Tech can distance itself from Vick but can't and shouldn't pretend he wasn't a player and student at the school, Warwick High School can distance itself from Vick without ignoring his history there. It would be fine to keep a trophy representing the team's accomplishments during Vick's tenure in the trophy case. But having a Vick jersey in the trophy case sends Warwick High students the message that Vick is someone to be admired. Which he, obviously, is not.

Brandon Wright of the St. Petersburg Times reports that there's a mini-scandal brewing in the local high school football world, reminiscent of Patriotgate.

Largo High School coach Rick Rodriguez sent his brother, Jose Rodriguez, to St. Petersburg High School to sit in the stands and tape St. Petersburg in preparation for its game against Largo. That actually doesn't sounds so bad, but it's against Florida high school rules to tape a team without its permission.

And Jose Rodriguez apparently knew he was breaking the rules, since when he was first confronted he claimed he wasn't affiliated with Largo and that his name was Jose Smith.

You don't exactly have to be an evil genius -- or even Bill Belichick -- to think of taping your next opponent's games, but come on. You've got to come up with a better alias than your actual first name and the last name Smith.

Hat tip: The Big Lead.