The Michigan High School Athletic Association has extended its suspension of Belleville head football coach Jermain Crowell for an extra school year, barring him from coaching at any member school through the 2024-25 school year.
According to a report from the Detroit Free Press, Crowell has also been fired from his position as head coach at Belleville.
The extended suspension comes in light of the MHSAA continued investigation into Crowell’s violation of undue influence rules, which are the MHSAA’s anti-recruiting rules. News broke on Friday last week of Crowell initially being suspended by the MHSAA through the end of the 2023-24 school year.
After gathering and reviewing more information in the days since, MHSAA executive director Mark Uyl said they found “multiple examples of violation” which led to an extended suspension for Crowell for an extra school year.
“We wrote the school yesterday to let them know we have confirmed a violation of undue influence,” Uyl told MLive on Tuesday night. “The penalty for that is the coach is suspended for the balance of this school year and the next two school years. What that means is he in ineligible to coach in any sports at any member school that is part of the prescribed penalty with a violation of undue influence.”
Assistant coach DeJuan Rogers has served as interim head coach since the beginning of the playoffs when Crowell was initially suspended by Belleville when the investigation with the MHSAA began.
Although the investigation into Crowell started around Oct. 21 or 22, according to Uyl, this is not the first case of undue influence violations from the Belleville football program. Back in April this year, Belleville self-reported case of an undue influence rule violation, which resulted in an assistant coach getting suspended for four seasons. As a result of multiple infractions, Uyl said the entire Belleville football program is now on probation until the end of the 2024-25 school year.
“We were very direct in our communication with the school yesterday that any subsequent violations of undue influence would result in their football team becoming ineligible for the football playoffs in either the fall of ‘23 or ‘24,” Uyl said. “This is the second violation of undue influence that we found in the program going back to last spring and the school self-reported that at the time.”
Should Belleville cause further infractions, the duration of a tournament suspension would ultimately be of the MHSAA’s discretion. Uyl said it is a very rare punishment, but it has been done before in his 19 years with the MHSAA.
Uyl added that the MHSAA told Belleville back in April that it would use “progressive discipline” and said that punishments could escalate in the case of more violations coming to light. The added extension and probation are a result of that promise.
“The school has been clearly put on notice that enough is enough,” Uyl said.
According to the MHSAA handbook, undue influence rule “renders a student who is recruited by a person directly or indirectly associated with a school or athletic program ineligible for up to four years. The offending person could also be suspended from coaching and the school required to disconnect from that person for up to four years. It is against the anti-recruiting rules for any person directly or indirectly associated with a student or school to secure or encourage attendance because of athletics. Coaches have no role in the enrollment of new students and should refer all inquiries to the administration.”
The MHSAA provides a list of undue influence violations and information that available to all coaches and schools. According to Uyl, every school must agree to follow all MHSAA rules when joining the association.
Uyl said he was not made aware by Belleville administration that Crowell was going to be fired. Belleville athletic director and Joe Brodie and Crowell were not immediately available for comment when this story was published.
“I will say that the athletic director, Joe Brodie, has been responsive and very professional throughout this entire review,” Uyl said.
The Free Press also reported that the MHSAA discovered a segment from a 2018 episode of the TV show “Sports Stars of Tomorrow” that had comments saying former Belleville standouts Devontae Dobbs and Julian Barnett were living with Crowell, which is a violation of MHSAA transfer rules as well.
“Those were other issues we looked into,” Uyl said. “I will also share this: we did give the school our findings (on Monday). Over the last two weeks, we’ve had a lot of new information that’s reaching us on an almost everyday basis. We don’t ignore anything. We did give the school our findings yesterday, but if new information or examples come to light, we will address those as they come too.”
Meanwhile, the 13-0 Belleville football team is set to play in the Division 1 championship game against Caledonia on Saturday at 1 p.m. inside Ford Field in Detroit. Belleville won the state championship for the first time last year and is looking to complete the first undefeated season in school history.
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