‘IT WAS DRAINING’
Michigan Collegiate coach salutes ‘absolutely amazing’ team
John Guth feels a special connection with the 2020 Michigan Collegiate football team.
“I will never forget them and what we’ve been through with them,” the Cougars’ coach said after the season ended Saturday with a one-point regional loss to Clinton. “The seniors, the captains, have been absolutely amazing.
“We’ve had our ups and downs with everything, because it was such a struggle.”
COVID-19 cast a pall on the season before it even started.
Offseason weight lifting, a staple for every program, was suspended in March, and almost every element of training and instruction was put on hold until the summer.
Then, after a few weeks of conditioning, teams were told the season would be postponed until spring.
Then they were told something else.
A fall season did, indeed, unfold — shortened and later than usual.
But the delays weren’t over.
The playoffs were shut down after districts, and the ensuing delay was extended, ended, and then extended again.
“It was draining,” Guth said.
Fellow coaches would probably nod in agreement with Guth’s assessment.
The season was taxing and trying, a test of patience and perseverance. Every team is unique in some way. The Cougars’ reality seemed to wash over Guth in the minutes that followed the 13-12 Division 6 loss to Clinton.
Michigan Collegiate is a small charter school that doesn’t have its own football field, and its students hail from a vast area surrounding the institution on Ryan Road near 13 Mile.
“The whole COVID thing, you know, it’s tough, because our kids don’t come from the best homes,” Guth said as his voice trailed off. Then he struggled to find words. “Give me a minute,” he said.
As the Clinton players and coaches celebrated a few yards away, hoisting a regional trophy and thinking ahead to their state semifinal game against Constantine, Guth’s focus was on the previous 20 weeks and a season that on some days probably seemed destined to end without resolution.
“We did the best we could,” Guth said. “To be shut down and start over, shut down and start over … this has affected a lot of kids, a lot of young men. It’s affected adults. I can’t imagine what it’s done to our kids.
“I feel it’s been a struggle for them a little more, not having some of the resources that others have. We’ve been doing everything we can on our end to make sure they were taken care of.”
Guth said the Cougars, Charter School Conference champions and the only Macomb County team to go undefeated during the sixweek regular season, never wavered in their pursuit of the school’s third regional championship.
“They wanted to do this,” he said. “We asked them, ‘Is this what you want to do?’
“We didn’t force them to do anything. We just told them we’d have their back.”
Clinton scored a seasonlow 13 points against the Cougars.
Unfortunately for the Cougars, they, too, had their lowest output of the season in a game that featured time- consuming drives by the visitors and an offense powered by a full-house backfield.
“We knew it was going to be one of those games,” Guth said. “The doubletight T is tough to beat.
“We thought we had the pieces to do it.”
In the cold of Saturday evening, in the south end zone at Bishop Foley, Michigan Collegiate’s home field, Guth, his assistants and the Cougars took their time processing the defeat.
They cried and embraced and tried to make sense of a loss that happened two months after their previous game.
“I told them, ‘ There’s always a reason for everything,’” Guth said. “‘Hold yourself high, represent this program like you’re supposed to, and good things will happen in life.’”