Legendary Jackson Lumen Christi football coach Herb Brogan picks up career win No. 400

JACKSON — The Week 5 victory over Dearborn Divine Child ended with little fanfare.

There were no fireworks or people holding up signs noting that Jackson Lumen Christi coach Herb Brogan had reached another monumental milestone with victory No. 400.

“On Monday, my dad went to the (quarterbacks) club,” said Sean Brogan, Herb’s son and offensive coordinator. “He kind of said he didn’t want them doing anything from the win itself.

“I think my dad put the fear of God in all the mothers not to be doing anything like that.”

That is not the way Brogan remembers the meeting going.

“That’s not true,” he said, laughing. “I just made a suggestion.”

The suggestion may have been worded so that if they ever wanted to see their sons play again, they better not make a fuss over the game — which Lumen won, 35-7.

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Brogan is just the third coach in state history to hit the 400-victory plateau. Only Farmington Hills Harrison’s John Herrington (443-112-1) and Al Fracassa of Birmingham Brother Rice (430-117-7) have won more games than Brogan.

By all rights, Brogan — who will be 74 on Oct. 10 — never should have gotten to this point. After all, he broke the golden rule of coaching:

Never be the guy to replace the legend.

There have been many who have tried and failed miserably, which is why you want to be the guy who replaced the guy who tried to replace the legend.

But there was no choice for Brogan after legendary coach Jim Crowley was murdered in December 1979, just over a month after winning Lumen Christi’s second state championship in three years.

Crowley had built a powerhouse at Jackson St. John’s and after it merged with Jackson St. Mary, Brogan’s alma mater, in 1968, Lumen Christi was created. It rolled through the opposition, and Crowley was hailed as one of the top coaches in the state.

“I knew him pretty well,” Herrington said. “I was a young guy looking up to him. I knew him as a tough coach and a good coach. He was very disciplined.”

Coaches across the state held him in such esteem the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association named its most prestigious award the Jim Crowley Coach of the Year award.

So Brogan, who joined the Lumen Christi staff as a JV coach in 1971, knew the deck was stacked against him when he applied for the job to replace Lumen Christi’s legend. But he applied anyway.

“I had people telling me that,” Brogan said of the rule about replacing a legend. “I loved the place, I loved the kids. Jim had a son that was going to be a senior on my first team. You felt the connection. You wouldn’t feel right leaving them.”

So he got the job and he stayed, and stayed and stayed, taking the Titans to unheard-of heights, especially after the state playoffs were expanded.

There is a reason why Crowley’s picture hangs in the coaching office. He built the program; Brogan believes he is simply continuing what Crowley began.

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Several times during an interview when he was asked a question about the program, Brogan simply pointed to Crowley’s picture.

“He was a really great guy,” Brogan said. “He was very demanding — of the coaches, the kids, the players —everybody. But you sure learned a helluva lot from him.”

The same can be said of Brogan.

In his 43 seasons as head coach, Brogan has amassed a 400-94 record with 10 state championships.

When he took over the program, Brogan was pretty much a one-man band.

“You called the offense, you called the defense, you called the special teams, you did everything,” he said. “Then we hired a defensive coordinator. The main reason we did that was the guys deserved that. They put their time in. They deserved more responsibility than they had.”

One of the more remarkable aspects of the program is that like many other private schools, enrollment at Lumen has dropped, but the quality of the program has not changed a bit, winning the Division 7 state championship last season.

In the mid-1980s, Lumen Christi had nearly 1,000 students. This school year it has 302 students — about 150 of them boys — yet the football program continues to flourish and accomplish the unimaginable.

Two weeks ago, Lumen Christi knocked off U-D Jesuit, 28-6. U-D Jesuit has 651 boys. Last week, Lumen defeated Divine Child, a co-ed school with an enrollment of 723 students — and about 200 more boys than the Titans.

Brogan had immediate success as the head coach, posting a combined 18-1 record over his first two seasons. But then came a snag when the Titans were 5-4 in 1982 and 4-5 in ’83.

“We had three or four years after that we had to work pretty hard at it,” Brogan said. “I never worried too much about it. Honestly, when we went 5-4, 4-5, there were people that weren’t very happy about it. That’s the way of the world, but I never lost the support of the administration.”

He never lost his players, either.

Tom Sullivan quarterbacked the Titans through the 1983 season and came back with an 8-1 season as a senior.

“Losing is not fun,” Sullivan said. “I’m not so sure it was fun when we were winning. But you realize the training you were getting, that’s the thing you take from it.

“If you can stay through the program, play to high expectations, be disciplined, all those things you learn from Herb, you’re going to get rewards later.”

One of the reasons Lumen Christi won so much is because there seemed to be no other option. If you wore a Lumen Christi uniform, you were supposed to win.

“One thing I remember being aware of was high expectations,” Sullivan said. “You were expected to win every game. The program had high expectations and every player was expected to meet the high expectations.”

Sullivan didn’t realize it at the time, but Brogan’s relationship with his players creates a bond that lasts a lifetime.

“I would say anyone who played for Herb knows that they have a guy in their corner, that’s for sure,” Sullivan said. “To this day, I talk to him. I think everybody who played for Herb would say their experience with him in the football program helped them through different experiences in life later.

“And he’s always there. The thing is, if you need to call somebody you could talk to Herb.”

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Jerry Smith was a receiver and defensive back for Brogan when Sullivan played and now is going through the program again with his son Luke, an offensive tackle and defensive end.

It’s been 40 years since Smith played and Brogan has mellowed from the days when guys headed the other way when they saw him coming.

“Here’s the thing, when I was in school walking down the hallways and you saw him, he was so terrifying you would do anything to not make eye contact,” Smith said, laughing. “He’s still kind of got that edge to him, but he’s softened up a little bit. “He doesn’t have the ‘I’m going to kill you’ fire in him, but he’s still got fire in him. If the kids are goofing off, he unloads on them and you can tell he’s still got their respect.”

Luke was in early elementary school when Smith jokingly asked Brogan if he was still going to be around when his son reached high school.

“I was thinking there was no way he’d still be there, but here he is and we are so grateful, so grateful,” Smith said. “My son didn’t really want to play, he wasn’t much of an athlete. I told him he was playing and he didn’t have a choice.

“Now he thanks me. He is very grateful.”

Lumen Christi’s 12 state championships — 10 under Brogan — are second to Farmington Hills Harrison’s 13 in state history.

When the state playoffs began in 1975, the entire playoff field included only 16 schools — four in each of the four classes.

These days, any team with six wins, and often five, is virtually guaranteed to make the 256-school playoff field.

But in the early years, it was not uncommon for scores of unbeaten teams to not qualify for the playoffs.

Twice, 9-0 Lumen teams were shut out of the playoffs; two other one-loss teams didn’t qualify, either.

Brogan’s first state championship team came in 1996, when the quarterback was his eldest son Sean.

“Back in those days we were playing one week Marysville, then Adrian then Divine Child, then Traverse City Central,” said Sean, 43. “And if you got beat once, you were out of the state playoffs.

“It would have been crazy to think how many more state championships we would have had.”

Lumen Christi has a tradition second to none in the state, and that plays a vital role in the team’s success year after year.

Brogan will tell you tradition is a hard thing to mess with, one way or another. If you have a losing tradition, it is difficult to turn around. If you have a winning tradition, your focus is on maintaining it.

“Our kids come here expecting to be successful and they kind of know the amount of work that’s going to be involved,” he said. “And we push the hell out of them. I think we’ve got great X's and O's guys in place and everything, but I, personally, think the best thing we do is develop players in the weight room.

“That’s probably my biggest role now.”

If you are looking for something you can point to as the biggest reason Lumen Christi has been so dominant, it might just be the weight room.

“The cornerstone has always been the weight room and hard work and developing a sense that we work so hard and we sacrifice and because of that hard work and because of that sacrifice, there’s a mentality that we deserve to win,” Sean said.

The lynchpin of the gym is Brogan, who also works out and looks amazing for someone about to turn 74. It's where he makes his magic happen.

“In the weight room is where you’re able to develop relationships different than when you have a whistle in your mouth,” said Sean. “Literally, pushing kids to the point of failure, pushing them, getting them to the point where they feel like they can’t do anymore and then you’re there pushing them, helping them, showing them that they can be successful even in the face of unbelievable amount of agony and pain, so he’s always here.”

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Sean wasn’t kidding about his father always being in the weight room. He teaches two weightlifting classes in the morning; every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon, he is in the weight room again to work with the players.

“It’s the development of a kid that comes in here as a ninth-grader,” Sean said. “My guess is most programs wouldn’t look at this gumpy, 5-11, chubby offensive lineman that just is terrible. But from four years of relentless hard work, that kid has developed into a good football player that helps you win.

“That depth that we create to getting a kid to be a player that probably wouldn’t be a player in a lot of other programs is a key aspect to it.”

No. 2 son Shane was a quarterback for his dad and he, too, won a state title before going on to play at Albion College (where Sean also played).

Shane, 41, pointed to the weight room as his dad’s happy place. He also mentioned one crucial element of his father’s success.

“One thing is he’s very humble,” Shane said. “He lets his coaches coach. He doesn’t really step in. He still has all the kids’ respect. He’s always prepared.”

Brogan has a self-effacing sense of humor. Sean sits in the press box during games and tells his dad which play is next and he gives it to the quarterback. Brogan will tell you his biggest role is to get the play right.

“Our offense is kind of complicated and wordy,” he said. “He’ll call the stuff down from the press box and as long as I can remember it and repeat it to the quarterback I’ll serve my role.”

Following a state championship victory, the standard practice is for a representative from the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s council to hand the trophy to the head coach, who holds it above his head as the players and fans go crazy.

Brogan, however, has never accepted a championship trophy. That chore is left to the captains.

Championship rings? They've been the rage for many years now, and it is that way at Lumen Christi, too. The difference is, at Lumen Christi, rings go only to the players.

No coach there has a championship ring.

“I believe it,” said Herrington, who mentioned Brogan twice turned down the coach of the year award. “You talk about humble. He does a heck of a job and he sticks with it.”

How long Brogan will continue to stick with it is open for debate.

This is Lumen Christi’s first season as a part of the Detroit Catholic League. Although Lumen Christi is one of the smallest schools in the league, Brogan has embraced the change.

Two weeks ago he was jacked to be playing U-D Jesuit and all of its students.

“You can’t be afraid to lose,” said Brogan, who has had only two losing seasons. “I told one of the guys I’m not on edge as much as I thought I’d be and the reason is we’re going to be better prepared after this game win, lose or draw. You’ve got to test yourself sometimes.”

Brogan has tested himself plenty. He began rattling off some of the names of guys he has coached against over the years: Herrington; Tom Mach, Detroit Catholic Central; Jim Ooley, Traverse City Central; Walt Braun, Marysville; Smokey Boyd, Saginaw Nouvel; Greg Carter, Detroit DePorres; George Porritt, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s.

“I remember one year we played Marysville and Nouvel back-to-back,” he said. “They were the two winningest coaches in the state at the time.”

Herrington has 443 victories and 13 state titles in his storied career. Harrison beat Lumen Christi, 7-6, in the state playoffs in Brogan’s first season as head coach.

Harrison’s touchdown came on a play in which a Harrison lineman clearly moved before the snap, which Herrington readily admits.

“In the grand scheme of things, I didn’t know how many wins he has,” Brogan said. “All I know is, I’m 0-1 against him.”

With all of the talk of 400 wins, Brogan began thinking about how long he can keep coaching.

Not that anyone at the school wants him to leave, but Brogan wondered when the right time might be to step down.

“As long as you're healthy and you have the energy to do it,” he said. “It’s been a great experience. We’ve had great administrations, the kids are great, we’ve had great coaching staffs. It’s still fun.”

You may want to count on Brogan coaching for at least four more years. Both Sean and Shane have eighth-grade sons who will be freshmen at Lumen next fall.

After that, well, Sean has a sixth-grader and Shane has a third-grade son.

And then there is Colin, the first-grade son of Sean, who is also the school’s assistant principal.

Colin may have been thinking quite a few years down the road Saturday as he walked onto the field to play in his flag football game.

“Dad?’’ he asked Sean. “You’re not ever going to fire Grandpa, are you?”

Sean paused for a second and said:

“No, I don’t think so. We’ll keep him around.”

Forever.

Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him @mickmccabe1. Order his book, “Mick McCabe’s Golden Yearbook: 50 Great Years of Michigan’s Best High School Players, Teams & Memories,” right now at McCabe.PictorialBook.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jackson Lumen Christi football coach Herb Brogan gets win No. 400