September 29, 2025

DPSCD Community,

As many of you know, two Fridays ago Cass Tech and Martin Luther King Jr. High Schools continued their exciting regular season rivalry at Wayne State University.  The game always showcases Detroit’s and the District’s excellence in athleticism, coaching, and competitiveness. However, this last game fell short in representing the best of the District. Specifically, long lines frustrated fans, students participated in the TikTok challenge where they ran throughout the area in large groups, and poor sportsmanship marked the game on and off the field. Ultimately, the game was suspended and continued the next day because students jumped fences without having been screened by security. This led law enforcement to feel uncomfortable with protecting everyone’s safety.

I have personally spent the last week reviewing the District’s preparation and management of the game to identify root causes of the challenges experienced to learn from them and not repeat them. For starters, the game was properly staffed with security at a ratio of 1:90 between security and fans. The national standard is 1:150. In addition, the game was not overcrowded. We sold fewer tickets than capacity and additional tickets were not sold at the game.

With that said, although the game’s security and management were to be led by Wayne State University because the event was on their grounds, the District, including myself, must take responsibility for the excessively long lines entering the game. This was disrespectful to fans and certainly caused frustration among everyone there, including students who jumped fences without going through security. Staff at the event should have opened the second and third entry point faster and should have expected to have more than one entry at the beginning of the game. Security staff should have also intervened more proactively to break up large groups of students before they started to run around the area, and we should have placed more security around the fence during the game. Despite these lapses, I thank our security for keeping everyone safe at the event without any major incidents and ultimately agreed and approved their decision to suspend the game until the next day.  

In the future, public announcements will be used at the game to warn students about watching the game and not staying in large groups; more school chaperones will be used to supervise students; and we will limit tickets to students only from each of the schools playing the game while also ensuring there is enough seats for them to sit in the stands as the game is being played. Future regular season games between these two great programs will return to their respective home fields only.

Unfortunately, the game was also marked by unsportsmanlike behavior, including trash talking before the game, players not shaking hands before and after the game, and threats directed at players by adult coaches. We are continuing to investigate these matters and have already taken accountability steps to address extreme unsportsmanship. Please note that the rescheduling of Cass Tech’s recent game against Mumford was not related to the Cass Tech v. King game or a threat to players in relation to that game. We will be working with both teams to rebuild a healthy and competitive relationship between both set of coaches, players, and families.

Moving forward please expect the release of clearer expectations regarding the management and security for athletic events districtwide this week, along with enhanced expectations regarding student-athlete and coach behavior before, during, and following games.

As a District, we must continue to create student-athlete and fan experiences that are safe and enjoyable. This includes our students as well. They deserve the opportunity to attend events in the City that are also safe, organized, and well managed with expectations and consequences for individuals and groups of people who are not following expectations. As Superintendent, I own the responsibility to improve our fans’ experiences by problem solving with our District and school teams, while also holding them and myself accountability to that responsibility. I also own the need to improve the sportsmanship of our student-athletes and their coaches.

I apologize for the challenges experienced at the game and commit to improving the systems and processes that simply need to be better moving forward.

Sincerely,

Nikolai P. Vitti EdD

Superintendent

Detroit Public Schools Community District