Inclusion has always been the name of the game for Detroit's Leland Stein III

Scott Talley, Detroit Free Press
·10 min read
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Leland Stein III is an extremely proud father and grandfather. He conveys his pride without saying a word. On a December morning, less than a week before Christmas, he pulled up a picture on his phone that had been taken of him on a packed couch with his two sons and six grandsons, ranging in age from 8-year-old twins to a 4-month-old infant.

With that photo in hand, Stein let his broad smile do the talking.

The setting that morning was Stein’s Rosedale Park home, the same place where the family portrait was taken. And at that moment, it was clear that the 68-year-old Stein is in his element when he is at home surrounded by family, which includes his wife of 41 years, Joyce.

In 35 years as an independent journalist, Leland Stein III (center) has covered 29 Super Bowls, 27 Final Fours, 23 NBA All-Star Games, four Summer Olympics and much more. But he says his number one team has always been his family, which includes Leland IV to his left, his youngest son, Leighton, to his right and six grandsons.
In 35 years as an independent journalist, Leland Stein III (center) has covered 29 Super Bowls, 27 Final Fours, 23 NBA All-Star Games, four Summer Olympics and much more. But he says his number one team has always been his family, which includes Leland IV to his left, his youngest son, Leighton, to his right and six grandsons.

But, over time, the father of three adult children (Candace, Leland IV and Leighton) and “grandpop” to Hunter, Max, Victor, Leland V, Venias and Luis, has been able to pry himself away from his family more than a time or two as he embarks on his 35th year as an independent journalist. Through his affiliation with the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and connection to Black-owned newspapers across the country, Stein has covered 29 Super Bowls, 27 Final Fours, 23 NBA All-Star Games, four Summer Olympics (1996 in Atlanta, 2000 in Sydney, 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London), more than 50 world boxing championships and thousands of other events spanning high school, college and professional sports.

“The mission of the Black press has always been to show the nation our struggle, sacrifice, progress and triumphs, from a Black perspective,” said Stein, who, during most of his time as a journalist also held down positions as an engineer and teacher to support his family. “I made the sacrifices because inclusion is everything. I met Jim Brown in Los Angeles around ‘92 or ‘93 and he said, ‘If we (Black people) don’t tell our own stories, I don’t know who will,’ and I’ve been using that line since.”

To gain a better understanding of Stein’s commitment to inclusion requires going back to a time when Stein was the son, not the father. 

“When I was 10, my dad (Leland Jr.) snatched me up and said, ‘You’re going with me’ and that’s how I became a member of the West Side Cubs,” said Stein, who grew up on Elmhurst and Prairie. “But, unfortunately, the Cubs were the only Black team in the Detroit Junior Football League in 1964. Through the '60s, the city’s demographics were changing dramatically. As a result, the Cubs were cutting 300 boys and girls because of segregation. So, after four years on the West Side Cubs, my dad, Sam Washington, Jocko Hughes and Ron Thompson left their beloved Cubs to provide more opportunities for young Black boys and girls.”

Stein explained that the provider of greater opportunities for Detroit youth was the formation of the St. Cecilia Beacons, which was connected to the same St. Cecilia Church on the city’s west side where Washington would create a legendary basketball program out of the church’s gymnasium.

A 14-year-old Leland Stein III, wearing jersey number 22 in the front row, was a running back for the St. Cecilia Beacons. With a connection to the legendary West Side Cubs and St. Cecilia Church, Stein says the team was created by men that wanted to address a critical need in the community during the late 1960s. "My dad (Leland Jr.), Sam Washington, Jocko Hughes and Ron Thompson left their beloved Cubs to provide more opportunities for young Black boys and girls," explained Stein about the team that provided an additional outlet for Detroit youngsters and complemented the respected youth programs established by the West Side Cubs.

“St. Cecilia started with a football vision even before the basketball vision,” revealed Stein, who also referred to a promise that was made to the coaches of the Beacons that the team would be able to participate in the Detroit Junior Football League. It was a promise that Stein says never came to fruition.

“We had 200 kids and no place to play, and we were all crying because we were little kids and they were telling us we can’t play,” Stein recalled. “And we couldn’t go back to the Cubs because they had about 100 kids that were already waiting on an opportunity to play.”

But while the Detroit Junior Football League held on to its “policy” of one Black team, Stein said with support from the church leadership at St. Cecilia, the Beacons received a lifeline from the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) and was allowed to compete in the CYO’s league for multiple seasons. And yet, while competing for the Beacons, Stein and his mates still had an opportunity to reunite with the West Side Cubs — during an annual event that, to this day, gets Stein fired up more than 50 years later.

“The Soul Bowl was, like, the biggest thing in Detroit for about two years. And the Beacons played the Cubs,” Stein, who wore jersey No. 22 and played running back during his days on the Beacons, recalled with a twinkle in his eye. “We had about 4,000 people at Hammerberg Field for that game. I was a little boy, about 14 years old, and all of this stuff was going on and it was exciting. And we beat the Cubs! Two of our teams beat the Cubs, and one team lost, but no one could believe that we were able to beat any of the Cubs’ teams because during those times most of the best athletes in Detroit came through the Cubs.”

On Thursday, as Stein reflected on his Soul Bowl experiences, he said the event, and everything it was connected to, also was a triumph for each of the Detroit men that made the youth on the playing field a priority.

After graduating from Michigan State in 1978, Leland Stein III moved to Los Angeles where he lived for 25 years. In L.A., Stein connected with another MSU Spartan, Magic Johnson, and was a coach at Magic's Basketball Camp for 10 years. At the camp, Stein also met the late Brad Pye Jr. of the Los Angeles Sentinel, who was referred to by some as the "Jackie Robinson of sports writing." With encouragement from Pye, Stein began a journey which led to him becoming a sportswriter.

“John Thompson (Jr.), the former Georgetown University basketball coach, used to say how sports have always been a vehicle for Black folks to come away from their problems when nothing else was open, and since it is a vehicle, let’s use it,” said Stein, who during the early 1990s was asked by the late Thompson and the late Temple University basketball coach John Chaney to report on their movement for greater diversity and inclusion in college athletics. “And that’s exactly how our coaches (with the West Side Cubs and St. Cecilia Beacons) were thinking back then. It was always about more than sports. They used sports to take more kids off the streets and expose us to opportunities, like college. I understand and appreciate their vision even more today, and I just wish my father was here so that I could thank him some more.”

While Stein may not be able to thank his father and the other men that provided direction to him during those valuable years he spent playing for the Cubs and Beacons, he said he has attempted to show his gratitude by sharing his gifts with his community, even gifts that did not immediately come to the surface, which led the Mackenzie High School graduate (Class of January 1973) to pursue journalism about 10 years after he graduated from Michigan State University (Class of 1978) with a degree in packaging engineering.

Leland Stein III's journalism journey has included covering four Summer Olympics, including the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he posed with the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, in the backdrop.
Leland Stein III's journalism journey has included covering four Summer Olympics, including the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he posed with the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, in the backdrop.

“There was something inside of me that felt like it was going to explode,” recalled Stein, who, after going back to school to take several college English courses and earning a teaching certificate, was given an opportunity to break into journalism as a reporter for the Los Angeles Sentinel, a weekly Black-owned newspaper serving L.A. where Stein lived for 25 years after graduating from Michigan State University. “I just wanted to write. I was never out to get anyone; it was more about who is doing well in school? Who are the young people getting scholarships? Who is getting the coaching jobs and is progress being made in the area of diversity? I wanted to bring good news to my community.”

So, in 2001 — and with the full blessing of his wife, Joyce, a registered nurse and L.A. native — the family moved back to Stein's Motown hometown, where he immediately found opportunities to use the writing talents he developed on the West Coast.

When Leland Stein III wanted to return to his Detroit roots after living nearly 30 years in Los Angeles, he says his wife, Joyce, a Los Angeles native, gave him her full blessing. The couple, which posed for this picture at their home in Rosedale Park, has been married for 41 years.
When Leland Stein III wanted to return to his Detroit roots after living nearly 30 years in Los Angeles, he says his wife, Joyce, a Los Angeles native, gave him her full blessing. The couple, which posed for this picture at their home in Rosedale Park, has been married for 41 years.

“I was back in Detroit two weeks when Coach (Bob) Dozier called me and asked if I wanted to teach at my school, (Mackenzie High School). It took two seconds to say 'Yes!,'” Stein said. “A week later, Michigan Chronicle Publisher Sam Logan called and asked me to come on down and talk. It took another two seconds to say I would be his sports writer and columnist.”

Stein says that roughly a year into his return to Detroit, he made another visit — this time to the downtown offices of the Detroit Free Press.

“After getting hired at Mackenzie to teach English and journalism, I discovered that the school did not have a journalism program or curriculum anymore,” said Stein, whose work has been published in the Michigan Chronicle, New York Amsterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier, Chicago Defender, Los Angeles Sentinel, Black Voice News, as well as other publications and outlets connected to the NNPA, which says its members deliver news, information and commentary to more than 20 million people weekly. “So, I developed a concept for it and got a meeting with the Free Press High School Journalism Program editorial staff. The program was already filled, as they only could accommodate so many schools. However, I got the editorial staff to make an exception and they let us in. It was clearly one of the best things that has happened in my journey through education.”

On Thursday, Stein proudly displayed a stand-alone, glass award he received in 2005 from the Ford Motor Company Fund and the Free Press in recognition of his “outstanding achievements and contributions as a journalism advisor” in the Free Press' High School Journalism Program. He said he is equally proud of the roughly 20 students from the program that he remains connected to, who all are working professionally. And, Stein says, “no doubt about it, the best is still yet to come for all of them.”

Proud Mackenzie High School graduate Leland Stein III (Class of January 1973) says creating a new journalism program during his time as an English teacher and journalism teacher at Mackenzie was one of the highlights of his life. During 2005, the Ford Motor Company Fund and the Detroit Free Press presented an award to Stein in recognition of his efforts.

As for the Detroit Lions, whom Stein has covered every home game this season from the Ford Field press box, he spoke in an optimistic tone about the team's chances in the season finale at Green Bay, while disclosing a tip he received early in the season from a local source.

“Even in defeat, in the opener (against the Philadelphia Eagles), I spoke to Brandon Graham (Eagles defensive end and Detroit Crockett and U-M football alum) afterward and he said the Lions ‘Gave us all we could handle,' " Stein said. "They started 1-6, but they have fought their butts off all this season. The team should go into Green Bay with a good attitude and play like they have nothing to lose.”

Scott Talley is a native Detroiter, a proud product of Detroit Public Schools and lifelong lover of Detroit culture in all of its diverse forms. In his second tour with the Free Press, which he grew up reading as a child, he is excited and humbled to cover the city’s neighborhoods and the many interesting people who define its various communities. Contact him at: stalley@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @STalleyfreep. Read more of Scott's stories at www.freep.com/mosaic/detroit-is/.

In his own words: Leland Stein III

During his 35-year journey as an independent journalist, Detroit native Leland Stein III, the proud son of Leland Jr. and Frances Irene Stein, has worked other full-time professional jobs, secured his own press credentials to national and international events, and has often dipped into his own pockets to make coverage opportunities possible. But he says he would do it all over again.

Leland Stein In Ford Field Press Box.
Leland Stein In Ford Field Press Box.

Following are some of Stein's favorite memories of covering Detroit athletes and events through the years.

* As a member of the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame selection committee, I was able to bring an alternative voice and advocate for my former coaches, Sam Washington (2008 inductee) and Ron Thompson’s (2011). I also had the honor of giving Coach (Ron) Thompson’s acceptance speech.

* At the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, I covered the induction of two of my favorite people: Detroit Mackenzie's own Jerome Bettis (2015) and Barry Sanders (2004).

* My Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity brother, King High coach, James Reynolds, piloted his team to the PSL’s first Michigan High School Athletic Association state title at Ford Field in 2007. A triumph for anyone who played in the PSL.

* My beloved Pistons waxed a team I covered for 10 years prior, the LA Lakers, to claim the NBA championship at The Palace of Auburn Hills in 2004.

* Annually, the National Watkins Awards honors the top five Black high school scholar-athletes. Over 30 years, only three metro Detroit scholar-athletes have been finalists: Cass Tech’s Joseph Barksdale in 2007, Inkster High’s Devin Gardner, 2010 and Cass Tech’s Donovan Peoples-Jones, 2017.

* Jerome Bettis (Mackenzie) & Larry Foote (Pershing), two Detroit PSL athletes, led Pittsburgh to Super Bowl glory at Ford Field in 2006. That was my most memorable out of 29 Super Bowls covered.

* Magglio Ordóñez hit a three-run homer in Game 4 of the ALCS to punch the Tigers' ticket to the 2006 World Series. It was hard keeping my Detroit cool in the press box that day.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: A commitment to inclusion keeps Leland Stein III writing about sports