Bitter Michigan prep football rivals show solidarity after gruesome injury

BLOOMINGDALE, MI - Last year, Joe Good was breaking up a fight during the annual preseason scrimmage between bitter high school football rivals Bloomingdale and Gobles.

On Thursday, the Bloomingdale head coach found himself arm-in-arm with players from both teams, as they came together in an act of sportsmanship to honor one of their own.

During Gobles' first offensive drive of the scrimmage, senior quarterback Caleb Brady escaped the pocket and picked up a chunk of yardage, before a Bloomingdale linebacker caught him from behind and forced the signal caller's leg to roll up underneath them as they hit the ground.

Bloomingdale senior linebacker Devin Gibson was one of the first to approach Brady to help him off the turf when he saw the quarterback's broken leg.

"I didn't know what happened at the time," Gibson said. "I was going to help him up, and I saw the break, and it was kind of swinging, and I started yelling, 'Doc! Doc!' for our trainer to get over there. It spooked a lot of our guys."

Gobles head coach Thad Schafer ran to Brady's side to help his player, and he described the broken leg as "a devastating injury."

"It broke both bones, so when you see someone's foot going the wrong way, it affects a lot of people," Schafer said.

Located just 5 miles apart down County Road 388 in Van Buren County, the two teams have played 59 times since Gobles fielded its first high school football team in 1958, and Schafer, a former player and 1983 Gobles graduate, said the rivalry has been heated since Day 1.

"We've been having a rivalry with them really since 1958, and it's always been intense," Schafer said. "Last year when we scrimmaged there, we had a couple fights breakout, so it's always been hard-fought and intense."

When Bloomingdale joined the Southwest 10 Conference in 2017, the Cardinals no longer had room on their schedule for Gobles, so the rivalry shifted to an annual preseason grudge match.

The final score lost some of its importance, but it didn't mean the players cared any less.

"There's a lot of history there with the rivalry, and some kids take it personally and get jacked up about it even playing in a scrimmage," said Good, who is in his first year as the Cardinals varsity coach after serving as an assistant last year. "The pads were very loud on both sides of the ball at the start, and I don't think they were very happy with each other."

After the injury, Gibson and Bloomingdale teammate Pierce Manning went to their sideline and led a prayer for Brady’s well-being.

Then, the seniors thought it would be a nice gesture to reach out to the Gobles sideline and see if the Tigers players wanted to link arms in prayer for their injured teammate.

After losing its three-year starting quarterback and leading tackler before the season started, it would’ve been easy for Gobles to tell the two Bloomingdale players to get lost, but the Tigers accepted the Cardinals’ goodwill gesture, and the teams gathered at the 50-yard line to pray.

"The two teams came together, kneeled together and they all held hands, and it kind of teaches you what football is all about and how two communities with a rivalry and history can kind of set that aside when something like this happens," Schafer said.

Good agreed that a moment like that can help put the rivalry and the game of football in general into perspective.

"There's more than the rivalry, and you can still be friends and still have a relationship that's competitive, but at the same time have that love for one another," he said. "It was great that Gobles at that time -- it's their starting quarterback, and he means a lot to their team -- for them to allow us to join hands with them and display such a moment together and give our prayers and thoughts to Caleb, it's unbelievable. I was kind of speechless."

If Good has any say in the matter, Thursday’s scrimmage will be the last between Gobles and Bloomingdale.

"That will likely be the last time we play each other," he said. "I'm ready to move on, cut ties and focus on our own conference."

If that is indeed the final chapter in the longtime football rivalry, it certainly stands out among the years of heated and blood-thirsty battles between the two teams.

“Last year, I was breaking up a fight, and this year, I had one hand on a Gobles player’s shoulder and another hand on a Bloomingdale player’s shoulder, so it was something special,” Good said.