In 2015, Bob Thornbladh, a former Michigan football standout player and coach contacted us to see if we could assist Fred Jackson at Ypsilanti High School with building a weight room for the high school athletes there (this was just a sign of the distress that had fallen on the school since the merger).
Fred Jackson had recently retired from the University of Michigan after 23 years as one of the longest serving coaches in the long and storied Maize and Blue football history.
Indeed, Fred had other options; but he chose to come to Ypsilanti and bring his vision and experience to a place in distress where he could be used the most. Fred grew up in the segregated Jim Crow south in Louisiana where he was a high school Hall of Famer and played his football in college where he was an All American quarterback with Jackson State (HBCU) in Mississippi. After a period in the NFL in the early ‘70’s when it was virtually impossible to a Black quarterback, Fred Jackson soon began a coaching career that would take him from coaching Rick Leach in Flint, to schools that would include the University of Toledo, the Naval Academy, Wisconsin, and to the University of Michigan where he would establish himself with national prominence especially on the offensive side of the football.
Our conversation with Fred at Casey’s Tavern in Ann Arbor quickly revealed that we could do so much more than a Weight Room that would only achieve “strong and fast” for the short term. We determined that we could leverage all that Coach Jackson was bringing to Ypsilanti into somethings that really matters;
1. High School Graduation.
2. Post Secondary Engagement.
3. Healthy Lifestyles.
4. Good Citizenship.
5. A broader vision of what life has to offer.
6. A real belief that in each student that they matter.
We immediately recruited Tom Biggs, the former Chief Financial Officer for the University of Michigan Hospital to be our partner, teammate, and treasurer. Indeed, it was critical in these early days to make sure that we had structure and systems in place to assure confidence with our supporters, and compliance in letter and spirit with all matters of tax, accounting, and law. Tom was perfect for this with his adult life-long immersion and commitment in Ypsilanti, to our schools, and especially with young student athletes.
THE STUDENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM, inc. (a 501c3 non-profit corporation)