'Why I Cried After Losing a Football Game'
October 5, 2015
By Dallas Lintner
Owosso athletic director
Our varsity football team lost last Friday night to St. Johns High School 55-19. It was certainly a tough loss for our team. Often times, players, coaches, and fans may indicate they feel like crying after such a loss; occasionally they may literally shed a tear.
Let me share the story of what brought me to tears following our team’s loss. I will tell you, it was not the loss. … It was the story of two strangers, Logan Turner and Blake Thelen.
Owosso senior Logan Turner was diagnosed with leukemia over a year ago. While still a part of the Owosso football program, Logan’s condition prevents him from participation in football, or even attending school; yet each week, with permission from his medical team, Logan may occasionally attend OHS football activities. I will tell you that his attendance has been an uplift for our players and coaches nearly as much as seeing his classmates has been an uplift for Logan.
Logan has never met Blake Thelen, yet they share a remarkable bond. Blake Thelen is a member of St. Johns varsity football team. Last year while on spring break, Blake had read an online article about Owosso’s Logan and the struggles he was going through. He remarked several months ago to a few family members and friends that he would like to do something for this kid from Owosso.
Many times, our children will make remarks like this and forget the sentiment all together after a short time. Blake did not forget this sentiment. Several months later, Blake kept his word and offered support to a stranger … to a brother of the gridiron … to a friend he has never met. This is why I cried last Friday night.
On the Wednesday before our game with St. Johns, I received a phone call from Blake’s mother, Shannon. Shannon informed me about her son’s awareness of our Logan and his plan to offer support. Blake had mobilized students and parents to “pass the hat” in the stands and to place donation collection tubs at the concession stand area. Blake’s plan had been announced by the St. Johns public address announcer between the first and second quarters. From witnessing the event personally, this story of Logan and Blake had received as strong of an ovation from the spectators in attendance as the St. Johns Homecoming royalty did at halftime. What a display of character, integrity, and love. This is why I cried.
Logan was in attendance at the game and was on the sideline for a short time before the cold weather forced him to leave for home. Following the game, Blake, his mother, and a few other members of Blake’s group met me on the field immediately after the two teams shook hands. St. Johns’ athletic director Chris Ervin introduced me to Blake and his helpers and also to his mother Shannon, the woman I had met on the phone two days prior. Shannon was holding a gift bag filled with plastic food containers. As we greeted each other at midfield, there was an array of emotions. The Redwing players were elated, following a convincing victory; the Trojans were dejected following the defeat, and I was standing between the two groups smiling with tears running down my face as I tried to utter a few inspired works to Blake and his group expressing our gratitude, our surprise, and our awe for him and his generous deed.
I fear that I was only able to mumble a few incoherent syllables to that group. I spent most of the weekend attempting to determine how best to express today what I couldn’t express Friday night. This is why I cried.
When I returned home Friday evening, I sat in my chair with those plastic food containers and began to sort and count the donations from the evening. I was impressed that there was a great deal of pocket change in those canisters. Most likely from children who emptied their pockets into the tubs. At halftime, my own son purchased one less sucker at the concession stand so that he would have a quarter left over to donate to Logan. Shannon Thelen indicated that fans were flagging their people down in the stands with cash in hand. You wouldn’t believe the number of donations that came in denominations of 10 and 20 dollars, all for a stranger.
At the end of the night, I sat in my chair with $923.11 for Logan and his family. This is a remarkable sum that came from strangers … that came from Blake.
While the donations are very impressive, this is not what choked me up then and still. It is the notion that a student was moved by someone else’s story, took initiative, and gave a gift of far more value than $923.11. He gave friendship, he gave compassion, he gave love. School sports are often judged by scores, records, and stats. In this case, no score, record, or stat can do justice to this inspirational story.
It is these types of moments that inspire me to do what I do; to be associated with children who do amazing things. This high school football game transcended high school athletics and became a great human interest story on a very personal level.
This is why I cried after losing a football game.
God Bless you Blake.
God Bless you Logan.
PHOTO: Owosso athletic director Dallas Lintner, middle, stands with (from left) Jake Dorn, Adam Webb, Tyler Luznak and Blake Thelen after Friday's football game between the teams. (Photo courtesy of St. Johns athletic department.)
Building Beginning as Okemos Follows 1st-Year Coach Scott-Emuakpor
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 9, 2022
OKEMOS – The football lay on the turf, landing there before the play had really begun, and the most booming voice from the tallest man on the field yelled a reassuring, “It’s OK. Let’s go,” followed the next play by “Go again,” and then “Figure it out.”
An hour earlier, first-year Okemos varsity football coach Efe Scott-Emuakpor had been on the phone asking a parent to bring the helmet and practice jersey one of his players had left at home. Nearby, another small group also stood helmetless as they hadn’t yet gotten the pre-participation physical required to join their friends on the field.
Those are typical first-day glitches no matter the school, and fall practices for all sports began Monday at 750 high schools across the state.
But those relatively minor symptoms are what Scott-Emuakpor is focused on treating in the immediate term as he takes on one of the most serious rebuilding efforts in Michigan high school football.
“This is progress,” Scott-Emuakpor said halfway through his team’s first practice, looking out at 39 players on Okemos’ game field – 33 more than showed up for his first offseason workout.
“We’d like to have everything right now. But it’s growing. It’s slowly growing.”
And after Monday, Okemos is one step closer to what would be an incredible turnaround story.
The Wolves have not won since Week 2 of the 2019 season, a stretch of 23 games. After scoring on an 84-yard run during the first quarter of last fall’s opener against Mason, Okemos didn’t score again the rest of the season.
Standing 6-foot-3, and still only a few years from his last college game as a receiver at Ball State University, Scott-Emuakpor looks capable of stepping back into a huddle at a moment’s notice. A little more than a decade ago, in 2011, he was beginning a senior season at East Lansing that would see him cap his varsity career in the MHSAA record book with 134 catches, gaining 1,624 yards, over three seasons. He also was an all-leaguer in basketball and Finals placer in high jump before joining the Cardinals.
After graduating from Ball State with a computer science bachelor’s degree, and on the way to earning his master’s in business from Saginaw Valley State University, Scott-Emuakpor came home and has worked nearly six years as a business systems analyst with Red Cedar Solutions Group on efforts including the MI School Data website.
But that’s just his fulltime job. Scott-Emuakpor also co-founded a clothing line, Live For Today, and over the last five seasons served as a volunteer assistant coach with his hometown Trojans – who have made the MHSAA Playoffs six seasons running.
He'd never applied for a head coaching job. He’d never really considered coaching at that level. In fact, he was pretty happy with how assisting at East Lansing for longtime coach Bill Feraco fit into his schedule and other pursuits.
But Scott-Emuakpor also is a studier. And as a past rival and co-member of the Capital Area Activities Conference Blue, he and East Lansing saw Okemos plenty.
The Wolves had made the playoffs as recently as 2018, and won their first playoff game that season since 2011. Scott-Emuakpor had played against Okemos’ Taylor Moton, now considered one of the NFL’s top offensive tackles. And the school has had loads of success in other sports, annually ranking among the Lansing area’s best in just about all of them and coming off a statewide Division 1 championship in boys soccer from last fall.
“I paid attention to how things have been around here. And I know what they could be capable of,” Scott-Emuakpor said. “This program was once a good program that was very well-respected; I respected them playing against them in high school. They had great athletes. I think my senior year we beat them by one point (20-19 in 2011). So we had good battles.
“I just saw where they’re at. … We have some good kids around here, and I know there’s more in the school not playing. Maybe when they’re sophomores, juniors, they’ll come out. I think I’m capable of getting that interest up, getting them out on the field and just building something.”
Raj Singh is a senior this fall, one of only five or so Scott-Emuakpor is expecting to come out this week. He’s also a near all-A student, will play some quarterback and safety along with his receiver spot, and was the guy bringing carloads of classmates to workouts over the summer as he joined his coach in recruiting prospective players.
Singh is following his older brother Joe Singh, an admittedly “smaller than everyone” offensive lineman who earned all-league honors as a senior in 2017. When Joe Singh told his younger brother that playing under the lights on a Friday night is a feeling unlike any other, the idea stuck – which is why it made sense when Raj Singh fractured his wrist in Week 2 last season but was back by Week 7 despite a cast covering one hand.
Watching Singh catch passes one-handed last season during East Lansing’s 49-0 win over Okemos stuck with Scott-Emuakpor. Joe Singh had told his little bother that all that matters is having more heart than his opponent and a fighting spirit – in other words, being the type of player Scott-Emuakpor will rely on to get Okemos up and succeeding again.
“I’ve been playing football since I was 6 years old. It’s just been a dream of mine to be at this moment,” Raj Singh said.
“Coach Efe is bringing in a lot of new aspects, and that’s been very helpful to make it different than last year – make us feel a little more at home this year. Compared to last year, he’s brought a lot of structure. We’ve been really coming together as a family … and it just shows Coach Efe wants to build a community around here.”
The process is about more than building stronger, faster bodies and learning football skills and technique. The Wolves aren’t talking a lot about last year, but there’s something there to overcome – and Scott-Emuakpor started working on that soon after he was hired at the end of March.
“In the springtime, we were fortunate enough to get in the weight room and I was able to see kids put up good weight and do some things. I’d tell them, ‘You’re actually strong. You’re actually a fast kid,’” Scott-Emuakpor said. “But when you’re not successful for so long, and the way they were losing last year, it was easy for them to not feel confident, not feel they were able to ultimately get the job done. And so I was just there working on minds.”
Last season was going to be uphill for Okemos no matter what. A mid-summer coaching change brought on by a major fulltime job promotion for the former coach led to an interim staff, players leaving the program, and an applaudable effort to just keep teams on the field.
Scott-Emuakpor has surrounded himself with a staff that includes a pair of his past coaches growing up in East Lansing, past players from when he was coaching there and others with winning experience playing at DeWitt and Williamston.
In addition to what he learned playing and coaching under Feraco, Scott-Emuakpor brings a ton of insight from his experiences at Ball State; he had only one catch during his college career while battling injuries, but he spent that time on the sideline observing his coaches and taking mental notes. Just Sunday, he was pulling from the 2012-13 Ball State football handbook a few details to incorporate into his work in progress with the Wolves.
Okemos will have varsity and freshman teams this fall, and the majority of players at Monday’s combined practice were juniors and sophomores – so recruiting remains ongoing. But Singh said the number of classmates who did come out Monday exceeded his expectations – and that just added to the excitement of starting again.
“If you walk through the school, you’ll see some guys, you’ll (say), ‘OK, what does that guy do?’ You find out he plays (only) lacrosse, or only wrestles, where in other areas, other schools, they might do everything because that’s what they do, what they’ve grown up doing” Scott-Emuakpor said. “I’ve been trying to rebuild that connection, that love for football. A lot of them are very intrigued; I feel like some of them are kinda peeking and saying, ‘What’s going on? This new coach seems to be young and interesting.’ And I’ve just been trying to stay focused on the process and not get too far ahead of myself.”
Geoff Kimmerly joined the MHSAA as its Media & Content Coordinator in Sept. 2011 after 12 years as Prep Sports Editor of the Lansing State Journal. He has served as Editor of Second Half since its creation in January 2012, and MHSAA Communications Director since January 2021. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Barry, Eaton, Ingham, Livingston, Ionia, Clinton, Shiawassee, Gratiot, Isabella, Clare and Montcalm counties.
PHOTOS (Top) First-year Okemos varsity football coach Efe Scott-Emuakpor, middle, huddles up his players during Monday's first day of practice. (2) Scott-Emuakpor confers with senior Raj Singh on blocking from his receiver position. (3) The Wolves work on offense during the first part of their Monday session. (4) Scott-Emuakpor speaks with his team at the start of the workout. (Photos by Geoff Kimmerly.)