Detroit Cathedral High School was a boys college preparatory

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

high school in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

.http://michigan-football.com/t/schools.htm Established in 1953. the school closed in 1970. The school was founded by the

Marist Fathers The Society of Mary ( la, Societas Mariae) abbreviated SM, commonly known as the Marist Fathers, is a men's Roman Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right. It was founded by Jean-Claude Colin and a group of seminarians in ...

in 1953 as Cathedral Central High School, In 1955, the

Brothers of Christian Instruction The Brothers of Christian Instruction ( la, Institutum Fratrum Instructionis Christianae de Ploërmel, F.I.C.P.''Ann. Pont. 2007'', p. 1499.), commonly known as the La Mennais Brothers, is a Catholic educational organization founded in 1819 by G ...

took over the school. In 1961, because of confusion with Catholic Central High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Brothers renamed their school Detroit Cathedral High School. At its peak, Cathedral had a student population of 640. It was considered an elite school academically with a graduation rate over 97%, and a college attendance rate over 90%. The Cathedral wildcats competed in the Catholic League's Central Division. One of their graduates was football player Reggie Cavender, who played at

Michigan State Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...

, The Wildcats competed in football,

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

, track, golf and swimming. The hockey team won several state titles. In 1966, due to the obsolescence of the Cathedral building, the Brothers began investigating a new site in western Wayne County. However, because of commitments the Brothers had made to

Walsh University Walsh University is a private Roman Catholic university in North Canton, Ohio. It enrolls approximately 2,700 students and was founded in 1960 by the Brothers of Christian Instruction as a liberal arts college. Walsh College became Walsh Univ ...

, they did not have the resources to build a new school In addition, the Archdiocese had already committed to building four new high schools in the Detroit area. The Brothers decided instead to close Cathedral. The final class graduated from Cathedral in 1970. Student Mike Gruba described the school in its final yearbook: “Though only the test of time will tell Cathedral’s influence on its men, still one thing is sure: their conduct will live on, long after their books have been closed. But to those of us of the final class, its inspiration will always be special. If, in the years to come, someone happens to exclaim, partly in jest, ‘Don’t tell me Cathedral’s still in business?’ –we’re sure to have a ready answer: It sure the Hell is!”

References

High schools in Detroit Defunct Catholic secondary schools in Michigan {{Michigan-school-stub