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White highschools in Baltimore pulling out of games with growing black powerhouse

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Mount Saint Joseph, Calvert Hall decide not to play St. Frances in football this fall, citing safety factors
Katherine DunnContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun

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With the St. Frances football program growing into a national powerhouse, local rivals Mount Saint Joseph on Wednesday and Calvert Hall on Thursday became the second and third Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association teams to decide not to play the Panthers this fall. Loyola Blakefield withdrew from the MIAA in football in January.

Mount Saint Joseph school officials cited safety concerns and the perceived difference in the goals of the two programs as the reason for not being willing to play St. Frances next season. Calvert Hall cited similar concerns in a note to team parents regarding the Panthers’ “size and athletic disparity.”

The move prompted criticism from St. Frances co-coach Henry Russell, who tweeted: “We live in a world of cowards, who teach kids to run from their problems rather than face them. Make excuses for failure, use lies, and take their ball and go home. I will never be a coach who conforms to this behavior and thought. What are you teaching your student athletes?”

Last fall, St. Frances, located in East Baltimore and playing its home games at Utz Field in Patterson Park, overwhelmed most opponents with its skill, size, athleticism and depth, leading to the safety concerns of Mount Saint Joseph and other schools. The Panthers won the MIAA A Conference for the second straight season and finished 13-0. The Panthers were ranked No. 1 by The Sun and in the Maryland state media poll. They finished No. 4 in USA Today’s Super 25 after defeating Bingham (Utah), 41-3, in the Geico State Champions Bowl Series in Phoenix on Dec. 23.

Mount Saint Joseph finished 6-4 last fall. The Gaels were 3-3 in the conference, but they came closer to St. Frances than any other team, falling, 37-22. No other team scored more than nine points and no other A Conference team scored more than a touchdown against the Panthers.

Lee Dove, executive director of the MIAA, confirmed that his office had been informed of the decision.

“The league has been notified of [Mount St. Joseph’s] intent not to play St. Frances and right now, the leadership of the league is taking that under advisement and we don’t really have a comment at this time,” Dove said.

St. Frances co-coaches Biff Poggi and Russell declined to comment further than Russell’s tweet that referred to the situation Wednesday morning.

One Gaels player, Aamir Hall, who will be a junior wide receiver-defensive back in the fall, said of the decision in a tweet Wednesday: “I never been scared of competition especially against the best out of best. Went at them boys last year and I’m definitely coming harder this year if we see y’all when all this bs blow off.”

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Sports High School Sports
St. Frances football faces struggle to put together football schedule after MIAA departures
Katherine DunnContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun

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St. Frances’ national powerhouse football team has lost another Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association rival from its schedule with Calvert Hall officials confirming Thursday that the school will join Mount Saint Joseph and Loyola Blakefield in not playing the Panthers this fall.

The Panthers, who were ranked No. 4 in USA Today’s Super 25 after a 13-0 season in 2017, are expected by some local coaches to be the best high school football team in the country next season. Administrators at Calvert Hall and Mount Saint Joseph have also decided the Panthers have outgrown the MIAA A Conference.

The athletic directors at McDonogh, Archbishop Spalding and Gilman said they have not decided whether to keep St. Frances on their 2018 schedules. The MIAA’s athletic directors hold their annual retreat on the Eastern Shore next week and those decisions likely will come after that.

The decision for teams to not play St. Frances includes a safety element. While the Panthers aren’t doing anything they shouldn’t be on the field, they have many Division I prospects and are considered too strong and too deep for most opponents to contend with.

Turner said when St. Frances began its football program 10 years ago, it played an independent schedule but was sanctioned by the league for it. There were no penalties imposed on the team but, he said, “When you’re reprimanded you get a clear sense, don’t do that again.”

Lee Dove, executive director of the MIAA since 2013, said the league requires its members to participate in all of its sports in MIAA play. Earlier this year, league officials granted Loyola Blakefield, an A Conference football team last season, permission to play an independent schedule in 2018, because “they were going through such a competitive disparity with all teams.”

The Dons could not move to the B Conference for another year because the league allows such movement only every two years and is in mid-cycle. Loyola officials plan to return to the MIAA perhaps as early as 2019.



The Panthers came back into the MIAA and won two straight C Conference championships before moving to the A Conference in 2013. They had an overall losing record for three years, but had wins over Calvert Hall, Mount Saint Joseph and McDonogh. In 2015, however, they lost every conference game.

In January 2016, coach Biff Poggi left Gilman and moved most of his coaching staff to St. Frances. He spent that fall as an assistant coach at Michigan while Henry Russell, his top Gilman assistant, coached the Panthers. Last fall, the two were co-head coaches at St. Frances.

According to Turner, Poggi, a hedge-fund manager, had been bankrolling the Panthers program from the start, donating about $60,000 in seed money. While coaching at Gilman, he also served on the School Board at St. Frances, a small Catholic school in East Baltimore.

In addition, Poggi has funded scholarships for about 40 students per year, Turner said, confirming what was first reported in the Catholic Review last winter. Some receiving scholarships are not top-level players but need tuition assistance, and he is paying for housing for football players from out of town in Canton.

Poggi also funded tuition for some students at Gilman, where he coached football for 19 years. His Greyhounds won 13 A Conference titles, and in his final season in 2015, they went undefeated in the A Conference, finished 10-1 and were ranked No. 13 in the country.

Turner said he’s been asked why there are so many transfer students on the football team and how that meshes with the mission of the school, which according to the St. Frances website, “provides the immediate neighborhood and the Baltimore area relevant educational programs.”

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Sports High School Sports
Preston: No sympathy for the MIAA schools complaining about St. Frances
Mike PrestonContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun

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Instead of criticizing St. Frances for its recent football success, schools in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association should work harder to try to keep pace.

Mount Saint Joseph and Calvert Hall this week became the second and third teams to decide not to play the Panthers this fall, citing safety concerns and other perceived differences in their programs.

Neither Mount Saint Joseph nor Calvert Hall will get any sympathy here.

St. Frances apparently has violated no rules in becoming a national power, and it appears racism is part of the motivation behind these schools not being willing to play the Panthers.

St. Frances is predominantly black, and the majority of the students live at or below the poverty line. Back in 2013, 2014 and 2015, when the Panthers were 3-3, 4-2, and 0-6 in the A Conference, no one complained about playing the Panthers, maybe one of the worst high school teams in Baltimore history.

But two years ago, Turner hired former Gilman coach Biff Poggi to take over the program and St. Frances has become one of the top teams in the country. The Panthers just don’t win, they dominate and were ranked as high as No. 4 nationally last season.




And now there are complaints. Critics want to say the Panthers recruit players from other states. They say they steal players from other teams. They say St. Frances players have been playing longer than the allotted four years.

It seems almost standard practice for parents of athletes in private schools to hold their children back a year in grade school so they have a better chance of getting a scholarship as a senior. St. Frances is doing what its competitors have been doing for years, but now the Panthers are winning.

They have become like Alabama in college football and the Golden State Warriors in the NBA. But instead of pointing fingers, rival schools should look in the mirror. They should recruit better athletes and hire better coaches. Maybe they should spend more time in the weight or film rooms.



But this complaining about an unfair advantage needs to stop. In 1984, Poly was unbeaten and unscored on for the entire season. No one complained. No team refused to play McDonogh’s girls lacrosse team recently, even though the Eagles won 198 straight games.

There is a sense of entitlement at these private schools. I’ve known Poggi and a lot of his coaches for more than 20 years. They are competitors and want to win, but this staff has a sense of purpose. The coaches believe in giving players second chances and trying to turn them into men.

They aren’t just about winning. According to Turner, every senior football player under Poggi has graduated. He said 12 of the players on the current roster are legally classified as homeless, coming from as far south as Richmond, Va., and as far north as Philadelphia.

“People just think we’re going out bringing in ringers or whatever,” Turner said. “They have distressed areas in Richmond and Philadelphia, but they don’t have a St. Frances Academy nearby.”

According to Turner, St. Frances can house 40 students.

The program is much more than about football. It’s about all those things we have said sports build, such as character and discipline. But sometimes we get so carried away about what is on the surface that we don’t see what is going on underneath.

I believe in second chances. I believe in taking kids off the streets. It’s good to provide students who have struggled with tutors, and to put them into housing. Playing football might be their only opportunity to succeed.

The athletic directors at McDonogh, Archbishop Spalding and Gilman said they have not decided whether to keep St. Frances on their 2018 schedules. Regardless, Turner said St. Frances will still play a full schedule of games even though the Panthers might have to find new opponents in June.

He said the school had talked to the MIAA three times in the past about going independent, but was denied. In the meantime opposing teams should look at playing St. Frances as the ultimate challenge.

That was the way other teams approached Dunbar and Calvert Hall boys basketball in the late 1970s and 1980s. They met the challenge instead of walking away from it.

“My counterparts at Mount St. Joe and Calvert Hall never called me to discuss the issue,” Turner said. “They say we don’t share the same values and that was some very hurtful stuff. It seems like there were a lot of meetings about us but I was never invited.”

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An earlier version of this column said St. Frances was 2-4 in 2014 and 0-8 in 2015.

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i hate shit like this......

when the niggas smash people its so unfair and why play.

but when white schools crushing black schools its all good.

theirs a school in philly washington....where mostly white boys played.....they used to wipe the floor with the under funded inner city schools. but did we bitch?

this is that drake shit.....when you cant win ...you dont want to play
 
Bruh, I live right up the street from mt St Joe...

Them bitches been a force for decades....

And had no issues blowing st francis out by like 60 points a few years back....

But now that can't beat the niggazv up no more..... They scared for their safety??1

Where was that fear when they was blowing st Francis out every season by 40-50 points??
 
Power Bottom said:
This is pussy. My highschool played against much better competition for years in football. It was never no idea of not playing good teams. How you supposed to get better? Pussy ass honkeys.
Click to expand...
thats what im saying.....

they always need to change the rule or move the goal post.

those schools used to crush us....we just went to the game to meet up. we didnt even really watch it.
scores used to be like 57 to 11 or some shit....
 
that shit is weak..they have defeatist mindset if you think you are going to lose you already lost.Cowards
 
Basically it's saying it's okay for them turn beat us by 40, but we better but try to do the same
 
DOS_patos said:
thats what im saying.....

they always need to change the rule or move the goal post.

those schools used to crush us....we just went to the game to meet up. we didnt even really watch it.
scores used to be like 57 to 11 or some shit....
Click to expand...


I remember we lost like 66 to 0. Niggas still played and beat them in basketball.
 
so basically they sayin grown ass men that should be on college teams are playing....

just cant wrap their brain around losing
 
blacks will never get a fair chance...

if they playing feild is in their favor.......the game can go on.

but when its visa versa.....its ok to beat an opponent down.
 
LLS this is all the way fucked up.

Coach Poggi had been recruiting one of my nephews to go to Gilman.
 
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