Monday, April 24, 2006
Metro Detroit soccer coach's turf: A trail of trouble
Man who coaches youth teams to victory has criminal record, violent past, showing background check difficulties.
Fred Girard / The Detroit News
If it hadn't been for a phony case of tuberculosis, Mark Christensen, one of Metro Detroit's most talented and most controversial youth soccer coaches, would still be in a Georgia prison serving time.
Through a set of unique circumstances, Christensen's 10-year rap for aggravated battery in 1999 shrank to under four months behind bars, and he was released, eventually to return to Michigan and resume coaching.
He also has become a symbol of Michigan's continuing difficulties in establishing uniform standards for accrediting and checking the backgrounds of coaches and others who deal with kids.
Despite his criminal record and violent past, Christensen is fully accredited to coach by at least one national sanctioning body.
Christensen, 48, declined to be interviewed by The Detroit News. His story is told through police records, court files, and interviews with others.
Since his return to the state, Christensen has done anything but keep a low profile. He and another area soccer coach filed a lawsuit against the Michigan Youth Soccer League that reached a secret settlement earlier this month in Macomb Circuit Court after more than two years of ugly charges on both sides.
Among the exhibits, for example, are letters Christensen wrote from his Georgia prison dorm to one of his players, a girl who he said under oath in a deposition he thought was "13 or 14."
"Hi, Angel," he began one letter. "You promised me a good picture, maybe even one of that whole (sexy-body)."
He offered advice about her other soccer coaches, writing the word "Loser" after each of their names, adding, "These so-called men are useless humans who should be caned to death."
Christensen, who played soccer professionally, has an impressive record on the sidelines: coach of the year in both Michigan and Georgia, mentor of nine national championship teams, builder of high school programs.
He's once again making an impact on the Metro Detroit youth soccer scene.
Some is positive, such as Christensen's work with the Michigan Future Stars, where he is director of coaching.
Some people have found they befriend Christensen and use his coaching talents at their own risk.
In August 2001, Christensen's longtime friend Chris Corteg, then coach of Macomb Community College's soccer team, hired Christensen as an assistant. Corteg knew of Christensen's felony conviction in Georgia; but Christensen lied on his application and resume -- saying he has a degree from Oakland University, which he doesn't; that he was an All-American player there, which he wasn't; and, most importantly, stating that he had never been convicted of a felony.
Macomb's team won the national championship, but when officials learned of Christensen's past, neither he nor Corteg was rehired.
Corteg moved to Utica Eisenhower High as coach, and was again successful. His team amassed a 42-4-4 two-year record and consecutive Macomb Area Conference titles, and Corteg was promoted to athletic director.
Last October, however, Corteg was suspended, docked pay and placed on probation when school officials learned he had used Christensen as an assistant.
"You put the reputation of Utica Community Schools at risk," Assistant Superintendent David Berube wrote Corteg in a letter of admonishment. "You were more concerned about the soccer program and helping out an acquaintance (Christensen) than you were about how the community may view Utica Community Schools' safety standards by permitting a convicted felon to work with students."
Corteg said: "Understand, (Christensen) is a very good coach. My experience with him has been that when he's working with kids, he's been very professional.
"But was there a time when he was a bully? Probably."
Lawsuit filed
Andy Blasco, 37, says his career as a youth soccer coach came to an end simply because of his association with Christensen.
"Lots of people have lots of hatred for Mark," Blasco said. "But he's my friend."
In January 2004, Blasco said, Yvonne Curtis, an official of the Michigan Youth Soccer League, told officials that no team with Blasco on the roster would be registered because Blasco is "not to be around small children."
"She defamed me quite badly," Blasco said.
What really lay behind Curtis' actions, Blasco said, was his friendship with Christensen.
In April 2004, Blasco teamed with Christensen and Soccer Stop, the store in Fraser where Christensen works, in a lawsuit against Curtis and three other individuals, as well as the MYSL and the state governing body, the Michigan State Youth Soccer Association.
The suit accused the soccer officials of mounting an "active vendetta against Mark Christensen and people with whom he associates, including Blasco."
Who won the lawsuit? Blasco's attorney, Gary A. Colbert of Southfield, said, "We've gotten an order that has big-time damages if we even breathe about it. I'll say this: We're not sad."
It's unclear whether Christensen would share in any settlement. He accepted a $500 settlement to bow out of at least part of the case several months ago.
Depositions and interviews showed how dirty the fighting became, with Curtis quizzed about once having been a lobbyist for the adult entertainment industry; and her league using a coach -- not Christensen or Blasco -- whose picture was on a wall in a Meijer store warning he is not to be around children; and the other side firing back at Christensen about violent incidents in his past, all the undeclared income on his tax returns, and those mushy letters from prison to a 14-year-old girl he had coached.
Suspended in Michigan
Christensen had his first brush with the law in 1978, convicted of assault and sentenced to probation after he shoved the owner of a Pizza Hut and threw him to the ground; Christensen claimed the man had pushed his mother.
Two years later, Christensen's sister filed a report with St. Clair Shores police alleging he had beaten her and kicked her in the stomach when she was three months pregnant. There is no record of him being arrested or prosecuted.
In a 158-game stint playing for the Dayton Dynamos, he accumulated 80 points and 86 penalty minutes. Playing for the Kalamazoo Kangaroos, an indoor soccer team, in 1986, Christensen received an indefinite suspension for a fight with the opposing team's trainer.
The following year, Christensen was convicted of assaulting a motorist in a tailgating incident. According to court and police reports, Christensen spat in the other driver's face, kicked him in the groin, broke his nose, choked him, ripped off his gold chain, threw his watch into traffic, slammed the car door on his leg twice as the man attempted to flee, and did more than $2,000 damage to his car by kicking it. Christensen was sentenced to a year of probation, $2,100 restitution and 50 hours of community service.
In 1993, Christensen was suspended for six months by Michigan youth soccer officials after excoriating officials during a tournament, causing the Detroit Wheels of the pro U.S. Interregional Soccer League to withdraw a verbal commitment to make him their coach.
Christensen sued the state association, but the suit was dismissed, a decision upheld by the Michigan Court of Appeals.
In 1995, Christensen was suspended for 18 months by Michigan soccer officials for violating the terms of his previous suspension, plus another incident of coaching misconduct, and left the state.
Coach leaves for the South
Christensen moved south, and controversy followed.
In September 1995, he took over the soccer programs of the Montgomery, Ala., YMCA, despite still being on suspension in Michigan, which, theoretically, meant in every other state. With no nationwide reporting system, however, youth organizations must depend on coaches to be honest about their activities in other states.
Christensen became director of training for the Columbus, Ga., Youth Soccer Association for $30,000 a year and half of all fees paid by campers.
In January 1998, during a pickup soccer game, Christensen punched another player in the face, breaking his eye socket. A grand jury indicted him for aggravated battery, a felony. Christensen was suspended indefinitely by the Georgia Youth Soccer Association, meaning he was barred from soccer activities nationwide.
While awaiting trial, a warrant was issued against Christensen alleging he had threatened a man and his 14-year-old son who had testified before the grand jury. Christensen was arrested, jailed overnight, and released the next day on a $50,000 bond.
In April 1999, Christensen was tried by a jury before Muscogee Superior Judge Robert G. Johnston III and promptly infuriated the jurist.
"His attitude on the stand was terrible," Johnston told The News, calling Christensen "arrogant" and "unrepentant."
The jury heard testimony from the 1987 road-rage victim, as well as from Christensen's ex-wife, Linda, who said he had "beat her about the head and face with his fists after he came home one evening upset because he had been evicted from a game."
Exhibits included police photographs of her injuries. A warrant was issued for Christensen's arrest for third-degree assault in that incident, but there is no record he was arrested.
'Sucker punch' sentence
The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and it was time for Johnston to vent his wrath.
"Mr. Christensen has been throwing sucker punches for 20 years," he told the packed courtroom, "and he's finally come somewhere he can't throw sucker punches any more -- the bar of justice."
"And so," the judge later told The News, "I popped him 20 and 10."
That's Georgia court parlance for a harsh sentence of 10 years in prison, nine of which must be served before possibility of parole, followed by 10 years' probation.
In May 1999, Christensen, then 41, reported to the medium-security Troup County Correctional Institution to spend the next decade. By day, he pumped gas in the auto shop. Many nights, sitting in the dark on a bunk in a barred-window, 30-man dorm, he wrote letters to a 14-year-old girl he had coached the previous season.
He called her "Sexy" and "Sweetie" and "Angel," and told her, "I miss you always," and "I love you very much," and that "I enjoy your silly p.m.s. moods." Write back, he urged her, and "don't worry about being too mushy in your letters."
As well as listing the coaches who should be "caned to death," Christensen wrote: "Their (sic) is one special request I have and you can handle it. I need (2) address (sic): (he names a woman who had testified at his trial) and Robert Johnson (sic) III (Judge Johnston). Also how close they live to one another."
In the meantime, the judge was suffering an attack of conscience.
"When I reconsidered," Johnston told The News, "I realized my sentence had been a knee-jerk reaction, instead of being objective, because of my subjective feelings."
Only 15 weeks after Christensen was jailed, his lawyer made a motion for a sentence reduction on the grounds Christensen had contracted tuberculosis in prison. Johnston granted the motion, reducing the 10-year prison term to time served.
Johnston also placed Christensen on probation through this September, and banished him from Johnston's six-county judicial district for that same period.
One requirement of Christensen's probation was that he "have treated the tuberculosis he contracted."
In a sworn deposition for the settled Macomb County suit, Christensen said he never had TB.
Back to coaching
After a brief stint coaching in Florida, Christensen returned to Michigan, and the Macomb-area soccer community has been in turmoil virtually ever since.
Christensen is still coaching because of differing requirements by an alphabet soup of sanctioning bodies, which apparently share little information.
Further demonstrating the lack of interstate record-keeping, Christensen's Georgia felony conviction does not appear on the Michigan State Police database that amateur organizations use to check coaches' backgrounds, because that includes only in-state convictions -- and not all of those.
The Georgia association held a hearing and lifted his suspension there, so some national organizations, such as U.S. Club Soccer, recognize Christensen as a registered coach; although other sanctioning bodies with a far larger Michigan membership still do not.
Bill Sage, president of U.S. Club Soccer, said Michigan officials shared no information about Christensen.
"Here's where I think this ultimately needs to go," Sage said. "We need a system where an amateur coach gets a universal card, through the best risk-management process we can get, and this would be his driver's license.
"We have to deal with this issue globally, because it just breaks down between the various organizations."
Corteg said he believes Christensen has changed.
"In life, you change," Corteg said.
"He's learned the hard way, you can't be a bully. Now I think he'd be the first one to tell you, if you have a problem, you can't resort to bullying tactics.
"Bottom line, if I had a 10- or 11-year-old kid, would I want Mark coaching him or her at practices and in games? Yes, I would."
You can reach Fred Girard at (313) 222-2165 or fred.girard@detnews.com.
http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 2733968206
Metro Detroit soccer coach's turf: A trail of trouble
Man who coaches youth teams to victory has criminal record, violent past, showing background check difficulties.
Fred Girard / The Detroit News
If it hadn't been for a phony case of tuberculosis, Mark Christensen, one of Metro Detroit's most talented and most controversial youth soccer coaches, would still be in a Georgia prison serving time.
Through a set of unique circumstances, Christensen's 10-year rap for aggravated battery in 1999 shrank to under four months behind bars, and he was released, eventually to return to Michigan and resume coaching.
He also has become a symbol of Michigan's continuing difficulties in establishing uniform standards for accrediting and checking the backgrounds of coaches and others who deal with kids.
Despite his criminal record and violent past, Christensen is fully accredited to coach by at least one national sanctioning body.
Christensen, 48, declined to be interviewed by The Detroit News. His story is told through police records, court files, and interviews with others.
Since his return to the state, Christensen has done anything but keep a low profile. He and another area soccer coach filed a lawsuit against the Michigan Youth Soccer League that reached a secret settlement earlier this month in Macomb Circuit Court after more than two years of ugly charges on both sides.
Among the exhibits, for example, are letters Christensen wrote from his Georgia prison dorm to one of his players, a girl who he said under oath in a deposition he thought was "13 or 14."
"Hi, Angel," he began one letter. "You promised me a good picture, maybe even one of that whole (sexy-body)."
He offered advice about her other soccer coaches, writing the word "Loser" after each of their names, adding, "These so-called men are useless humans who should be caned to death."
Christensen, who played soccer professionally, has an impressive record on the sidelines: coach of the year in both Michigan and Georgia, mentor of nine national championship teams, builder of high school programs.
He's once again making an impact on the Metro Detroit youth soccer scene.
Some is positive, such as Christensen's work with the Michigan Future Stars, where he is director of coaching.
Some people have found they befriend Christensen and use his coaching talents at their own risk.
In August 2001, Christensen's longtime friend Chris Corteg, then coach of Macomb Community College's soccer team, hired Christensen as an assistant. Corteg knew of Christensen's felony conviction in Georgia; but Christensen lied on his application and resume -- saying he has a degree from Oakland University, which he doesn't; that he was an All-American player there, which he wasn't; and, most importantly, stating that he had never been convicted of a felony.
Macomb's team won the national championship, but when officials learned of Christensen's past, neither he nor Corteg was rehired.
Corteg moved to Utica Eisenhower High as coach, and was again successful. His team amassed a 42-4-4 two-year record and consecutive Macomb Area Conference titles, and Corteg was promoted to athletic director.
Last October, however, Corteg was suspended, docked pay and placed on probation when school officials learned he had used Christensen as an assistant.
"You put the reputation of Utica Community Schools at risk," Assistant Superintendent David Berube wrote Corteg in a letter of admonishment. "You were more concerned about the soccer program and helping out an acquaintance (Christensen) than you were about how the community may view Utica Community Schools' safety standards by permitting a convicted felon to work with students."
Corteg said: "Understand, (Christensen) is a very good coach. My experience with him has been that when he's working with kids, he's been very professional.
"But was there a time when he was a bully? Probably."
Lawsuit filed
Andy Blasco, 37, says his career as a youth soccer coach came to an end simply because of his association with Christensen.
"Lots of people have lots of hatred for Mark," Blasco said. "But he's my friend."
In January 2004, Blasco said, Yvonne Curtis, an official of the Michigan Youth Soccer League, told officials that no team with Blasco on the roster would be registered because Blasco is "not to be around small children."
"She defamed me quite badly," Blasco said.
What really lay behind Curtis' actions, Blasco said, was his friendship with Christensen.
In April 2004, Blasco teamed with Christensen and Soccer Stop, the store in Fraser where Christensen works, in a lawsuit against Curtis and three other individuals, as well as the MYSL and the state governing body, the Michigan State Youth Soccer Association.
The suit accused the soccer officials of mounting an "active vendetta against Mark Christensen and people with whom he associates, including Blasco."
Who won the lawsuit? Blasco's attorney, Gary A. Colbert of Southfield, said, "We've gotten an order that has big-time damages if we even breathe about it. I'll say this: We're not sad."
It's unclear whether Christensen would share in any settlement. He accepted a $500 settlement to bow out of at least part of the case several months ago.
Depositions and interviews showed how dirty the fighting became, with Curtis quizzed about once having been a lobbyist for the adult entertainment industry; and her league using a coach -- not Christensen or Blasco -- whose picture was on a wall in a Meijer store warning he is not to be around children; and the other side firing back at Christensen about violent incidents in his past, all the undeclared income on his tax returns, and those mushy letters from prison to a 14-year-old girl he had coached.
Suspended in Michigan
Christensen had his first brush with the law in 1978, convicted of assault and sentenced to probation after he shoved the owner of a Pizza Hut and threw him to the ground; Christensen claimed the man had pushed his mother.
Two years later, Christensen's sister filed a report with St. Clair Shores police alleging he had beaten her and kicked her in the stomach when she was three months pregnant. There is no record of him being arrested or prosecuted.
In a 158-game stint playing for the Dayton Dynamos, he accumulated 80 points and 86 penalty minutes. Playing for the Kalamazoo Kangaroos, an indoor soccer team, in 1986, Christensen received an indefinite suspension for a fight with the opposing team's trainer.
The following year, Christensen was convicted of assaulting a motorist in a tailgating incident. According to court and police reports, Christensen spat in the other driver's face, kicked him in the groin, broke his nose, choked him, ripped off his gold chain, threw his watch into traffic, slammed the car door on his leg twice as the man attempted to flee, and did more than $2,000 damage to his car by kicking it. Christensen was sentenced to a year of probation, $2,100 restitution and 50 hours of community service.
In 1993, Christensen was suspended for six months by Michigan youth soccer officials after excoriating officials during a tournament, causing the Detroit Wheels of the pro U.S. Interregional Soccer League to withdraw a verbal commitment to make him their coach.
Christensen sued the state association, but the suit was dismissed, a decision upheld by the Michigan Court of Appeals.
In 1995, Christensen was suspended for 18 months by Michigan soccer officials for violating the terms of his previous suspension, plus another incident of coaching misconduct, and left the state.
Coach leaves for the South
Christensen moved south, and controversy followed.
In September 1995, he took over the soccer programs of the Montgomery, Ala., YMCA, despite still being on suspension in Michigan, which, theoretically, meant in every other state. With no nationwide reporting system, however, youth organizations must depend on coaches to be honest about their activities in other states.
Christensen became director of training for the Columbus, Ga., Youth Soccer Association for $30,000 a year and half of all fees paid by campers.
In January 1998, during a pickup soccer game, Christensen punched another player in the face, breaking his eye socket. A grand jury indicted him for aggravated battery, a felony. Christensen was suspended indefinitely by the Georgia Youth Soccer Association, meaning he was barred from soccer activities nationwide.
While awaiting trial, a warrant was issued against Christensen alleging he had threatened a man and his 14-year-old son who had testified before the grand jury. Christensen was arrested, jailed overnight, and released the next day on a $50,000 bond.
In April 1999, Christensen was tried by a jury before Muscogee Superior Judge Robert G. Johnston III and promptly infuriated the jurist.
"His attitude on the stand was terrible," Johnston told The News, calling Christensen "arrogant" and "unrepentant."
The jury heard testimony from the 1987 road-rage victim, as well as from Christensen's ex-wife, Linda, who said he had "beat her about the head and face with his fists after he came home one evening upset because he had been evicted from a game."
Exhibits included police photographs of her injuries. A warrant was issued for Christensen's arrest for third-degree assault in that incident, but there is no record he was arrested.
'Sucker punch' sentence
The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and it was time for Johnston to vent his wrath.
"Mr. Christensen has been throwing sucker punches for 20 years," he told the packed courtroom, "and he's finally come somewhere he can't throw sucker punches any more -- the bar of justice."
"And so," the judge later told The News, "I popped him 20 and 10."
That's Georgia court parlance for a harsh sentence of 10 years in prison, nine of which must be served before possibility of parole, followed by 10 years' probation.
In May 1999, Christensen, then 41, reported to the medium-security Troup County Correctional Institution to spend the next decade. By day, he pumped gas in the auto shop. Many nights, sitting in the dark on a bunk in a barred-window, 30-man dorm, he wrote letters to a 14-year-old girl he had coached the previous season.
He called her "Sexy" and "Sweetie" and "Angel," and told her, "I miss you always," and "I love you very much," and that "I enjoy your silly p.m.s. moods." Write back, he urged her, and "don't worry about being too mushy in your letters."
As well as listing the coaches who should be "caned to death," Christensen wrote: "Their (sic) is one special request I have and you can handle it. I need (2) address (sic): (he names a woman who had testified at his trial) and Robert Johnson (sic) III (Judge Johnston). Also how close they live to one another."
In the meantime, the judge was suffering an attack of conscience.
"When I reconsidered," Johnston told The News, "I realized my sentence had been a knee-jerk reaction, instead of being objective, because of my subjective feelings."
Only 15 weeks after Christensen was jailed, his lawyer made a motion for a sentence reduction on the grounds Christensen had contracted tuberculosis in prison. Johnston granted the motion, reducing the 10-year prison term to time served.
Johnston also placed Christensen on probation through this September, and banished him from Johnston's six-county judicial district for that same period.
One requirement of Christensen's probation was that he "have treated the tuberculosis he contracted."
In a sworn deposition for the settled Macomb County suit, Christensen said he never had TB.
Back to coaching
After a brief stint coaching in Florida, Christensen returned to Michigan, and the Macomb-area soccer community has been in turmoil virtually ever since.
Christensen is still coaching because of differing requirements by an alphabet soup of sanctioning bodies, which apparently share little information.
Further demonstrating the lack of interstate record-keeping, Christensen's Georgia felony conviction does not appear on the Michigan State Police database that amateur organizations use to check coaches' backgrounds, because that includes only in-state convictions -- and not all of those.
The Georgia association held a hearing and lifted his suspension there, so some national organizations, such as U.S. Club Soccer, recognize Christensen as a registered coach; although other sanctioning bodies with a far larger Michigan membership still do not.
Bill Sage, president of U.S. Club Soccer, said Michigan officials shared no information about Christensen.
"Here's where I think this ultimately needs to go," Sage said. "We need a system where an amateur coach gets a universal card, through the best risk-management process we can get, and this would be his driver's license.
"We have to deal with this issue globally, because it just breaks down between the various organizations."
Corteg said he believes Christensen has changed.
"In life, you change," Corteg said.
"He's learned the hard way, you can't be a bully. Now I think he'd be the first one to tell you, if you have a problem, you can't resort to bullying tactics.
"Bottom line, if I had a 10- or 11-year-old kid, would I want Mark coaching him or her at practices and in games? Yes, I would."
You can reach Fred Girard at (313) 222-2165 or fred.girard@detnews.com.
http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 2733968206
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