A harshly worded letter addressed to Cass Technical High School football coach Thomas Wilcher, who led his team to victory against Detroit Catholic Central High School on Saturday, alleges that players are "ghetto warriors" bound for prison or drug addiction.
Cass Tech beat Catholic Central 49-13 at Ford Field to win the state's Division I championship, a first for a Detroit Public School.
Photos of the letter, which is dated November 28 and signed, were shared and posted across social media sites late Tuesday and caught the attention of school administrators on both sides Wednesday morning.
A transcript of the letter reads:
Detroit Catholic Central President Richard Ranalletti told MLive that the school searched student, parent and alumni databases and found no one matching the name of the writer.
"We find that kind of a racist attitude and a very sad comment on the times," he said. "My hope is that this is a misguided child."
"We take very much pride in our teams and everything else," Ranalletti added. "We were at the height of our season and our game, and they really beat us. We hope we'll meet them again. Anything along the lines of denigrating their abilities or academics is so far out of the things we believe in."
Detroit Public Schools requires a 2.0 minimum grade-point average in core courses -- social studies, mathematics, science and English -- for student athletes. DPS' minimum GPA is also higher than that required of the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
"This sort of trash is not worthy of a response," Detroit Public Schools communications director Jennifer Mrozowski said in a statement to MLive. "The entire City of Detroit, alumni, students and DPS community rightfully take pride in the academic and athletic accomplishments of these youth."
Historically, Cass Tech has been recognized as one of the state's leading high schools and is one of a handful of magnet public high schools in Detroit. Last year, the school notched a 95.5 percent graduation rate.
Calls to Cass Tech's athletic department were not immediately returned.
Cass Tech beat Catholic Central 49-13 at Ford Field to win the state's Division I championship, a first for a Detroit Public School.
Photos of the letter, which is dated November 28 and signed, were shared and posted across social media sites late Tuesday and caught the attention of school administrators on both sides Wednesday morning.
A transcript of the letter reads:
I had the misfortune of attending Saturday's game. As I watched, I wondered how many of your players would be academically eligible if they attended a real school rather than a DPS holding tank. While graduation rates may be high, a recent study concluded only 4.4% of DPS high school graduates are academically prepared to advance to higher education.
Questions abound: Do your players attend class? Are they, even by DPS standards, eligible? As one looks at the declining enrollment freshman-senior, it is clear that DPS is a failure and in five years your players will be unemployed, in jail, addicted to drugs or worse. In a word--failures. So while Cass celebrates today, the future is bleak and you and everyone associated with DPS is a failure, hence, we have Detroit -- a city about to be handed over to a financial manager.
The ghetto warriors had their Saturday but, in life, they are losers.
Detroit Catholic Central President Richard Ranalletti told MLive that the school searched student, parent and alumni databases and found no one matching the name of the writer.
"We find that kind of a racist attitude and a very sad comment on the times," he said. "My hope is that this is a misguided child."
"We take very much pride in our teams and everything else," Ranalletti added. "We were at the height of our season and our game, and they really beat us. We hope we'll meet them again. Anything along the lines of denigrating their abilities or academics is so far out of the things we believe in."
Detroit Public Schools requires a 2.0 minimum grade-point average in core courses -- social studies, mathematics, science and English -- for student athletes. DPS' minimum GPA is also higher than that required of the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
"This sort of trash is not worthy of a response," Detroit Public Schools communications director Jennifer Mrozowski said in a statement to MLive. "The entire City of Detroit, alumni, students and DPS community rightfully take pride in the academic and athletic accomplishments of these youth."
Historically, Cass Tech has been recognized as one of the state's leading high schools and is one of a handful of magnet public high schools in Detroit. Last year, the school notched a 95.5 percent graduation rate.
Calls to Cass Tech's athletic department were not immediately returned.
No comments:
Post a Comment