The story of the Olney Bears is one that will be told all throughout Olney and the surrounding area, even down to DC. The Jr. Midget team was crown back-to-back champions of the Pop Warner Super Bowl in 2003 and 2004. Coached by Mark Clark, the Bears represented the Maryland Football Association as the champ even though no one expected the team to win more than half their games. The sweet taste of victory would tarnish this community that
Money Magazine has once named as a great place to live in the U.S. Before long, Clark and a group of associates would be involved in a web of deceit that would include public and private schools, an amusement park, and so many others all for the sake of having a championship team of 12 year old children.
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| Armand's hosted the meeting on 06/13/06 |
The 2005 season was a huge let down when the Bears failed to return to the Super Bowl. Coach Clark found it challenging to organize his 2006 squad; the players from the championship teams were moving on. There were only four players left over: Richard Valentine, Justin Robinson, Tyson Gray, and Will Nelson. Clark felt that neither could offer him anything on the field and decided that he needed a whole new team to be able to compete. The plan was hatched at Armand's Chicago Pizzeria on the evening of June 13, 2006. Five unknown men met with Clark to develop an incentive program to entice talent from surrounding communities to come to play for their team. Numerous players form the northeast D.C. area were targeted, but the primary "harvest" would be from town of Laurel, MD.
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| Mark Clark |
Laurel also had a youth football team with talent that was considered to be the best in the last few years. Laurel High School's football coach was anticipating his class of 2013; his challenge was to keep the players on the field and focused on football even though he had to wait four years before they would even step foot into a Laurel locker room. Mike Goodwin, the Spartan coach, had no idea that the plan hatched by the six-man team in Olney would spin his world on a totally different axis. His dream would never materialize quite the way he planned.
The first wave of the plan included Montgomery County Schools hiring parents of Laurel players into bogus positions. The positions came with a relocation package that allowed the families to move closer to Olney without incurring any moving expenses. One family made the move in 2 days seemingly never missing a beat. Clark's players would now be in Farquhar Middle School where grades could be altered to keep his stars in the game and meet Pop Warner academic requirements.
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| Coach Goodwin of Laurel High |
Coach Clark and his coaches introduced incentive packages to sell to kids that were not interested in moving. Following each game, a group of parents, who could be considered boosters, and the coaches would award prizes to the player of the game; the child with the most tackles; the player with the longest run; and more. It cannot be verified what all prizes were given, but it is known that scholarships to Our Lady of Good Counsel HS were awarded to nearly 10 players. Other awards were sponsored weekend trips to the Adventure Park at Sandy Springs, Chuck E. Cheese, and Washington Redskins and Wizard games. It's been speculated that one young player was promised an athletic scholarship to Virginia Tech granted he stayed out of trouble.
This plan continued for the next two years yielding no Super Bowl appearances. In 2008, the men decided that they needed to increase their recruiting area. There was already a shuttle system that would bus kids from Eisenhower School in Laurel and Farquhar to practice at Blake High's football field. Numerous families had relocated across the county line, and the school system could no longer manage to create useless jobs. The incentive program was not as exciting as it had been two years earlier. Clark received a call from Frank Ashley. Ashley had a son that was interested in playing football. Ashley's intention was to get his son in OLGC but wanted Clark's partners to make sure it happen regardless of admission requirements. He offered to pay each player a minimum of $200 for playing the entire season and an additional $150 if they won the championship.
Ashley had deep pockets and connections. He also had nothing to lose; Ashley threatened to expose the operation if he was not promised admission for his son. As for his part in the whole scandal, Ashley was already known for being a shady man; therefore, he would remain a silent conspirator as long as things continued as planned. He never gave money to any of the players, hardly ever engaged Clark in public, nor attended the post game player awards. The season ended and the Bears were still left out of the championship.
The castle came tumbling down when one of Clark's boosters introduced the plan to the White Oak community south of Olney. Immediately, the White Oak Warriors won the the 2009 Jr. Midget title. Mark Clark decided to leave town amid the pressure to answer questions when Montgomery Co. School District released the parents of children who were too old to play in order to free up money for new parents relocating for the 2010 school year. Also, Ashley failed to make the last payment to players once he had managed to secure a contract stating that his son would be granted admission into Good Counsel.
Today, very few will speak of the greedy days of the Olney Bears quest for another championship. No one will admit that the actions of these men was fueled by a need to manipulate the system far beyond pee wee football. Montgomery Co. Schools, Mark Clark, numerous over zealous parents, and Mike Goodwin all failed the young men that wanted to be football players. Sherwood High and Good Counsel both benefited from the Goodwin's dream Class of '13 during the 2012 football season finishing
10 - 3 and
11 - 1 respectively. The Laurel Spartans?
1 - 9
Oh yea, Good Counsel won their 4th consecutive title. Great for a school that opened in 2007 right?
