Milan Players to Watch

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• You can call it whatever you want. When there's a fee of over $200 on the registration form, it sure looks like pay to play to me. Sport specialization is a factor, but to be honest, it is usually brought up when gloomy fans wish a star player in another sport also played football ("Imagine how good we'd be if we had Nick Perkins going up for jump balls in the end zone!").

  Pay-for-play can have it's biggest impact on the depth of your program. Families of kids who don't see much playing time might not see the reason to shell out the money for their son to play football. It might not even be so much due to financial hardship as it is seen as a practical financial decision for that family.

  Personally, I would talk to that family and discuss about the many, many benefits football offers regardless of how much playing time they think their son may get.

  Playing time is only one factor that a family may consider when weighing the practical financial decision of paying for football. Even at the youth league level, some parents talk about how their child is too small and will never be good at football, or that their son didn't play last season and he would be behind everyone else.

  Of course we may think these thoughts are silly but if the sport were free (or, to be more accurate, paid for by our taxes and direct contributions from the community) it would give kids a chance to see if they could work hard and earn more playing time, grow four inches their junior year, or just be there and ready to step up when the guy ahead of them gets dinged up.

  Whether anyone wants to call it pay-for-play or not, we can agree that it's different than when I was a kid. Back then, even the "rich kids" got to play for free.

• There is no pay to play at Milan. You pay for certain things like camps or anything else, but any kid with financial difficulty is taking care of. Numbers are down because of poor work ethic and kids specializing in one sport. Very few basketball or baseball players involved in football at this point. Kind of sad. That's the difference between them being good and winning the league or being great and winning a district or regional in my opinion. 25 guys compared to 40-45 like most teams.

  Milan Fan

• Neither Colville is playing football.

• Milan will be godo this year and possibly dynamite next year. But after that it's going to be rough sailing for the big reds

• Could we save the Private School vs. Public School talk for later? I'm sure the issue will come up a few more times as it does every season.

  Sad news about Josh Colville. I hope his brother is still on the team.

  Milan held out for as long as they could before instituting pay-for-play in football. I commend the program for that. Now that pay-for-play is in place, the participation numbers for the program are slashed by more than half, and that's sad. One could expect a losing program to average 2 dozen kids on Varsity and a lot of kids playing both ways, but it's not what I'm used to seeing at any school with sustained success.

  Props again to the coaching staff here at Milan for getting the most out of the roster as they do.

• Saying a run in D6 doesnt count is really disrespectful to the players who bust their butts to make a dream come true.

  • Smcc is a well coached team and decent players. It is what it is. Some teams has a reputation and traditional winning history. But one team has figured out how to beat them in the league...14 and counting

• Its the same last names year in and year out at SMCC.. If recruiting were such a thing at CC, how on earth did they let the twins go.. maybe the best 2 players they have had there in years.

  If Giarmo were to coach any of the good teams in the Huron, they would win just like CC over a ten year span or more. Huron, would be almost unbeatable.

  -bn

  -bn

• So was point was d6 doesn't count because they are private? Seriously have you been to a central game you mean to tell me they have the better athletes when they step on the field. Huron and Riverview both for example were more athletic the last 2 years and this year also.

  As far as your olsm story of them beating cass tech 2 years ago everyone can have their one day. cass also beat brother rice UD Jesuit and detroit catholic central that year all private. Jefferson also beat a great Bedford team win they only had 1 one win oh wait does that mean jhs recruits because d3 beat a d1

• Ithiiac has done a great job recruiting the Mt. Pleasant area and winning has only brought them more kids. Just like Saline has done a great job recruiting the AA area. In order to comport with the private schools you need to do this. The public schools are starting to figure it out. Unless your a team that doesn't have to worry about kids leaving like Bedford, Jefferson or Airport for example, everyone else is susceptible to losing kids

• I like SMCC coaching staff and Giarmo is a good guy and a good coach. The point is that as a private school team you get more kids to play whether it's sons or tradition of your school. No difference from Gabriel Richard, CC, Brother Rice, TCSF, OLSM, or Muskegon CC. SMCC has 200 boys in the HS give or take. 1/4 or 50 of them play football. Make sense.....

  The fact is that SMCC beats most of the teams in D-3 or D-4 because of this, then beats up on the teams in D-6 until they run into the 3 or 4 really good ones. For example, OLSM beat Cass Tech as a d-3 team beating the D-1 champs. It's the same thing just a lower level. There is no argument. That's why Country Day could beat 90% of the teams in D-1 or D-2. It's bullshit that GI got beat by them two years ago, but that's how this game works when dealing with private teams. Just more players and tradition