Mount Clemens Community Schools officials say they are “deeply shocked, disappointed, and disgusted” by video clips of raunchy behavior that took place in their high school gym over the weekend.
School officials say they received a deluge of phone calls from people complaining about one act in particular in Saturday’s showcase of performers that was captured on videotape and shared by numerous people.
“Did I get phone calls from parents? Is the sky cloudy when it rains,” Earl Rickman III, president of the Board of Education, said Monday. “I got many, many inquiries to the effect of ‘how did this happen?’ My phone has not stopped ringing since 4:20 Sunday morning.”
The clip shows a shirtless young man rapping and performing a simulated sex act on a scantly-clad woman as she twerks on the Battling Bathers circle at midfloor on the basketball court. A group of adults is shown watching the performance.
The rapper appears to have a white cloth hanging from his jeans zipper as if to imitate a penis.
Superintendent Monique Beels responded to the video Sunday after the clip was viewed on social media. She said the entire matter is under investigation.
“The Mount Clemens Community Schools’ Board of Education and Administration are deeply shocked, disappointed, and disgusted by the inappropriate events that took place last night,” she said in a statement.
“We will conduct a full review of our current practices of facility and usage, and work to ensure that our community does not compromise the values and action that we work to instill in our students.”
The school district said an organization called Rivals Recruiting Worldwide rented the high school gym and concession stand Saturday for a charity event. They are now banned from ever using the district’s facilities again, Beels said.
According to its website, Rivals Recruiting Worldwide is a professional football league that provides adult football players an opportunity to gain more experience while attaining game film that be used to market the players to the NFL and the CFL.
The group’s founder and CEO is Quentin Hines, a former Carlson High School football player, who transferred to Mt. Clemens for his senior year, who went on to become an NFL player, Super Bowl champion, and the former coach of Mount Clemens High School football team.
Rivals Recruiting hosted Peezy’s Sweetie’s Day Bash at the high school. According to a flier, it was originally set for Wisner Memorial Stadium in Pontiac but wound up at the high school.
Reached Monday, Hines acknowledged he could have done a “better job at screening the entertainers” who performed Saturday. He said he paid $2,000 to rent out the gym for Rivals Recruiting.
“Rivals Recruiting is a platform where athletes and entertainers have the chance to market themselves to be discovered,” he said. “We had 20 awesome acts lined up. One had a derogative song and performed with an under-dressed back dancer.
“I’m sorry it happened.”
He said with the exception of the shirtless man, any of the entertainers performing Saturday could end up playing at sporting events at Little Caesars Arena or even the Super Bowl.
But Rickman, the school board president, said Hines’ request for a permit was a “total misrepresentation and fraudulent.” For example, Hines had advertised the event as being for charity, which Rickman says he’s not sure the event qualified as.
“Simulating sex acts in a high school gym doesn’t sound like a charity to me. I’m pretty sure we would not have granted him permission had he told us about this,” Rickman said.
The superintendent said the Rivals group had rented the gym in the past for the Rivals Football Draft and Hines’ football league play. There have been no previous issues of similar behavior demonstrated by the organization, she said.
Beels added the group’s behavior took officials by surprise.
“Our facilities were rented to Rivals Recruiting Worldwide in good faith and trust was broken,” Beels’ statement read. “This type of behavior is not tolerated in our schools.”
Hines, who is Black, found himself in a controversy in 2016 when he accused a bartender at a Mount Clemens restaurant of calling a racial slur and referring to him as “black guy” on a receipt. He is a 2008 Mount Clemens High School graduate and former running back for the New England Patriots.
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