Mowed Down

Please, don't get me started on what happened to Southfield's Maurice "Big Mo" Davenport earlier this week. Oh, alright, if you insist:

This kid got the shaft with a capital "S" in the recruiting process by those "winners" over in Ypsilanti at Eastern Michigan. Thanks a lot, Ron English and Tyrone Wheatley! Or shall I say, thanks for nothing guys and see ya at the bottom of the MAC once again over the next few years when I play my ass off and perform at the highest level for my new team, Wayne State U. The situation that development in regards to Davenport's recruiting process tells you all you need to know about the state of the EMU program. These former Wolverine "class acts", offered Davenport a scholarship back in October, which he accepted (and in turn informed all the other D1 schools that were recruiting him to stop – which they did), and then pulled it away from him in the hours leading up to signing day on Wednesday for no good reason at all.

And did Wheatley – who recruited him – or English, the Lloyd Carr-endorsed sideline general who leads the beleaguered Eagles program, have the human decency to call and inform Davenport of their decision to pull their offer off the table and leave him hanging in the wind sans parachute?. Of course not, that would have been the professional thing to do. That's how things are done at well-run, well-disciplined, classy programs – which are few and far between these days, as well as ever, for that matter. Davenport, a relentlessly-aggressive fullback-linebacker, with a heart of a champion and the will of a warrior, had to call the EMU football office himself to be informed why none of his recruiters had been returning his calls and that he no longer had a place on the Eagles 2010 roster. The EMU staff even had the audacity to tell Davenport that one of the reasons the scholarship offer was being taken away was due to him "not playing up to his capabilities." REALLY,? Cause that statement couldn't be more false.  Davenport played like a man possessed in the Bluejays run to a district title last fall and helped Southfield advance all the way to the Division Two Final Four in 2008. His leadership, effort, and playmaking were major reasons for his team's recent successes. To say there was some sort of drop off in his play, is ridiculous and downright offensive. It's obvious to me the Eagles coaching staff didn't properly complete their due diligence in regard to Davenport, fell in love with some JUCO they perceived as a better fit for their recruiting class and then used a BS excuse to blame him for the entire ordeal. What a bunch of sleaze balls!!!

 Way to go, Coach English, you've done your program and mentor, Carr, very proud. Why don't you just go kick a dog or push an old lady carrying a walker into oncoming traffic while you're at it?  All sarcasm aside, I truly hope that they way you and your program treated such a great kid like Davenport, is the exception rather than the rule and that this type of behavior isn't becoming the status quo in Ypsilanti these days. If it is the norm, than the school's AD needs to do some serious re-evaluating of whether or not they want English roaming the sidelines on their behalf in the future.