Belleville football coach Jermain Crowell fired, can't coach in Michigan for two years

Jermain Crowell has been fired as Belleville’s football coach and it will be impossible for him to get a job in Michigan anytime soon.

The Michigan High School Athletic Association Tuesday extended Crowell’s penalty for violating the undue influence rule, barring him from coaching any sport at any school for the next two academic years.

Ironically, Belleville will attempt to defend its Division 1 state championship at 1 p.m. Saturday when it plays Caledonia at Ford Field.

DeJuan Rogers has been the interim head coach since the state playoffs began.

The school immediately suspended Crowell for the playoffs after it received a letter of inquiry from the MHSAA once it began investigating Crowell for violating the undue influence rule.

Belleville athletic director Joe Brodie said there is no way Crowell will be coaching at Belleville for the 2025-26 school year when his suspension ends.

“At this point, the consensus is he can’t coach for us, so no,” Brodie said. “We have to find a new coach.”

Phone calls from the Free Press to Crowell were not immediately returned.

The football program was already on probation this season because of undue influence violations by an assistant coach no longer with the program.

MHSAA executive director Mark Uyl said there is no wiggle room left as far as the football program is concerned because it remains on probation through the 2024-25 school year.

“We also informed them,” Uyl said, “that if there’s any subsequent violations of undue influence during this period the school would become ineligible for the football playoffs.”

The inquiry began when a student at Detroit King said Crowell contacted him before he entered the ninth grade. He also said that Crowell picked him up and drove him to summer practice sessions and seven-on-seven competitions.

While investigating those allegations, the MHSAA discovered a 2018 episode of the TV show “Sports Stars of Tomorrow,” which carried a segment on Belleville seniors Devontae Dobbs and Julian Barnett. The show claimed the two were living with Crowell.

“It was certainly a violation and our staff has spent a lot of time since this whole process started around Oct. 21 or 22,” said Uyl. “The time that our staff has invested going over the last month, we found multiple cases of a violation and we’ve provided a penalty that we feel fits with the facts as we know them.”

When the MHSAA showed its case to Belleville administrators, it knocked them for a loop.

“This is stuff we were not aware of, so yes, we were surprised,” said Brodie. “It all surprised us. Given the things that they have looked into and some of the of the evidence, of course we were surprised by it.

“Are we surprised by the outcome and the penalties? No.”

The people least surprised by any of this were other coaches across the state who for years accused Crowell of cheating.

This was Crowell’s eighth season at Belleville and the Tigers made the state playoff every season.

Belleville is a school of choice district, but other coaches believed it unfathomable that any school of choice coach could amass the sheer number of high quality players that Crowell did without violating the undue influence rule many times over.

This case will relieve some of the pressure on Uyl and his staff. For years coaches have been reluctant to step forward and accuse other coaches of cheating because the MHSAA had earned a reputation of looking the other way.

It is a reputation Uyl is hoping to change.

“In Year 5 of this, I try to take them as they come,” Uyl said. “Sitting in this chair we really try to make decisions on the facts as we learn them and what gets presented to us. When a violation occurs we deal with it.”

As for Belleville, officials are hoping to direct the attention back to the players and Saturday’s championship game.

“We are focused on the coaches we have, the kids we have and we’re trying to make it a good experience for them on Saturday,” said Brodie. “That’s been our goal this whole way through. We’re trying to make this about the kids who are there and the coaches who are there and making sure they have a good experience with this tournament and that’s basically about how we’re handling it.”

After the game, however, Brodie and the administration will begin the process of hiring a coach.

Rogers has done a good job keeping the players focused on the state playoffs and could be a candidate to become the head coach on a full-time basis.

“We’re going to put the application out there and whoever wants to can apply and if he’s one of them he will be in the pool of candidates that we get,” Brodie said. “We’ll go through the whole interview process.”

In addition to being the football coach, Crowell also serves as the school’s student safety liaison. Brodie has no idea if that will change.

“I’m not going to comment or speculate on that,” he said. “I’m not his administrator when it comes to that. That would be more on the administration whether or not he will be retained in that position or not. In terms of his football coaching position: No.”

Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1. Save $10 on his new book, “Mick McCabe’s Golden Yearbook: 50 Great Years of Michigan’s Best High School Players, Teams & Memories,” by ordering right now at McCabe.PictorialBook.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Belleville football's Jermain Crowell fired after MHSAA violations