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.

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.