Our Featured Editor's Notebook Column

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Tuesday, August 18, 2026

 The La'Quan Collins era at Swartz Creek High School may be over. That's what I said on my radio show this morning.

Multiple sources say so but Swartz Creek Board of Education President Chuck Melki would not comment when reached by phone last night.

Callers to our Hot Line reported yesterday afternoon that Collins had changed his job listing on his Facebook Page to remove reference to his position as varsity basketball coach at Swartz Creek. 

When e-mailing Collins afterward to ask what's up and to respond to all the rumors, his reply was short and sweet: "Resign for family matters."

Collins was revealed as the new head coach last spring after the Creek didn't renew the contract of Kevin Root. He had a losing record five straight seasons with the Dragons after replacing Scottie Wright in 2021.

The controversy began right away when many questioned how Athletic Director  Adrian Trzebiatowski could include Collins among her final candidates for the job among 25 applicants. I'd say an AD is allowed to go on a "guy" feeling about picking a lesser qualified coach with a far less superior resume and won-lost record.

But the accusations around the community argued that she was "hiring a friend" as she was also accused of doing with the football program.  

 Dajuan Massey's first team went 3-6 this past fall after Trzebiatowski dumped Joe Spencer who had been the head coach since 2016. He, too, had 3-6 seasons in his final two year but Spencer led the 2023 Dragons to a Metro League Stripes Division co-championship with Fenton.

Massey's varsity coaching experience at Flint Carman-Ainsworth had resulted in winning only four Saginaw Valley League games in five seasons. His 2025 team was 0-9 overall after records of 1-6, 2-7, 2-7 and 3-6. Not exactly up to C-A standards after Jerry Parker led the Cavaliers to five state playoff appearances while amassing a 48-33 record in 10 seasons.

In fact, his combined 8 varsity victories was only one more than Spencer won in his 2024 season alone at Swartz Creek when leading the Dragons to a 7-3 overall campaign.

The last time the Creek had a Metro League title was 51 years earlier. The Dragons shared the 1970 and 1972 co-championships.

Wright was also given the boot after leading Swartz Creek's basketball team to a co-championship in 2018. Only some hardware for a 2010 co-title under Jeremy Trent has been added to the school's trophy case in the last 51 years. Wright also ended a long drought by leading the Dragons to a district championship.

The guy sold his house in Grand Blanc and turned down a head coaching offer there to return to the place where he worked his way up the ranks to become a varsity assistant. He devoted his time to building a good program at the Creek and got involved at all levels. It paid off by Wright becoming the second winningest coach in Swartz Creek school history.

I admit it was one of the most shocking firings in my more than 50 years as a journalist in this community.

Rank the Spencer firing and Massey hiring right up there in the top 10.

Five losing seasons in a row for Root made his dismissal understandable although I believe it was a move influenced by parents going to school board meetings to complain about him last winter.

Plenty of top notch candidates surfaced to put their names in the hat to get a head coaching opportunity at a Division 1 program. Collins was not among them.

Collins coached at the lower levels under Mike Thomas at Grand Blanc when Thomas led the 2021 Bobcats to their first ever state championship. That helped land him the varsity job in Burton at Bentley High. His first two teams finished dead last in the Genesee Area Conference's Red Division. Season #3 included leading the Bulldogs to a 16-victory season but they didn't show progress last year when finishing near .500 at 11-9. Bentley did win a division title in a very weak GAC Red. But a true measuring stick of a program's progress comes in rematches later in the season. Bentley beat Beecher 76-75 early. The rematch in the final game of the regular season? Beecher went into the game two games behind in the standings but pounded the Bulldogs 74-40. A whopping 34 points? That's a 36-pint swing the wrong way!

Numerous calls to our Hot Line and Letters to our office from players and parents wrote a disastrous Chapter 1 to the Collins Era at Swartz Creek after that shaky opening chapter on how he was hired in the first place. Throw in a press release on the athletic department's social media to announce the hiring by falsely proclaiming he had led Grand Blanc to the 2021 state championship, and Collins has been on a collision path with resigning over "family matters" since Day 1. 

 I think Coach Thomas might take exception with that claim about Collins winning it all in 2021.

I'm guessing some of the same letters we received made their way to the AD's boss.

A special meeting of the Swartz Creek Board of Education has been called for 2 o'clock today.

I just wonder if board President Melki's comments match the "family matters' reason Collins cited for his resignation.

And AD Trzebiatowski is probably gonna be on the hot seat, based on the accusations directed at Collins in some of the letters we received made it to those who hold her fate in their hands.

She was recently switched from assistant principal duties with her AD role to the district's Director of Virtual Learning so maybe today's meeting has something to do with those changes.

 But a special meeting? I'm guessing that is related to the "family matters" explanation Collins gave for stepping down before he coached a single game. Or maybe it's to address possible communication from the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) over Collins sending out cell phone messages about workouts the next day during the "dead period" when every basketball coach in the state knows it's not allowed to have any contact with any player. 

It's a goof that could result in probation for the entire program.

But don't worry about it. Swartz Creek's state tournament tradition has been mostly one and done for more than a half century anyway except under Coach Wright and Coach Spencer who created a different kind of culture when they were leading their programs.

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Mike Killbreath appears on Metro Flint News/Talk Radio via The Morning Gazette Radio Show weekday mornings from 8 am until 10 am. He's an award-winning newspaper columnist and investigative reporter who is the former long-time owner of the local Metro Flint area chain of 14 community newspapers. This past fall marked his 50th year as a journalist. He also hosts a new weekend national TV show known as The American Crusaders on cable TV and various OTT TV live streaming platforms.

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