City all-star football game scandal financial update: some scholarships repaid; local businessman donates jerseys

In late March, Mike Crawford sat in a classroom at Northeast high with a few sample jerseys, hoping to build his youth sports apparel business by outfitting the Philadelphia City all-star football game.

In a phone interview Thursday, Crawford, who won MVP for the Public side in 1997 representing Mastbaum, says he was going to offer his jerseys at a discounted rate.

After all, his son, Mike Crawford III, also played in the game in 2017 as a senior at Imhotep.

During the meeting at Northeast, however, Crawford said the all-star game’s uncertain status was discussed.

The 40-year-old said he was unaware that the former executive committee president, Brian Fluck, was alleged to have embezzled committee funds, thus leaving the game’s future in peril.

After hearing some details at the meeting, Crawford, who was once a radio disc jockey in the city, said his mindset changed quickly from dollars to what made sense.

“I just thought it was the honorable thing to do to offer my services to those guys,” Crawford said, adding that he hadn’t had a chance to communicate with executive committee members before the meeting began.

“I probably caught them off guard,” he added with a laugh, “because they didn’t even know why I was there.”

Crawford, who started his apparel company, Holla Athletics, around 2013, stood up and pledged 100 jerseys to the committee, free of charge.

“That was one of the biggest costs,” said executive committee treasurer Cliff Hubbard, 81.

“It took a big cost off of our plate,” added Hubbard, once the longtime Roxborough football coach and also the executive director of athletics for the school district of Philadelphia from 2002 to 2006.

Hubbard said the cost of jerseys from previous seasons is part of the money the committee still owes other local businesses.

In February, the Inquirer reported that Fluck, now the former head football coach at West Catholic, was accused of embezzling and misappropriating “funds that he was entrusted to manage while in his capacity as president,” according to Fortunato N. Perri Jr., the lawyer representing the other executive committee members.

In an email to the Inquirer, Richard F. Klineburger III said his client was “more than willing” to participate in a full-fledged audit “to ensure that he, along with the Board, complied with the by-laws.”

Reached via phone on Thursday, Perri said he was unsure of the legal status of the situation.

In an email on Thursday, a spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office said: “We can neither confirm or deny the existence of any investigation.”

In addition to Crawford, Hubbard said, other local businesspeople have also assisted. The families of current all-stars, he added, were also instrumental.

He even referenced plans to add a new committee of businesspeople that would specifically handle fundraising for the committee. The details, he said, have yet to be finalized.

Crawford has been trying to finalize plans of his own. He said he hopes to some day have a storefront-business in North Philadelphia.

Production of his apparel, he said, varies between local and international vendors.

Last year, he outfitted the Northeast football team with jerseys, and had been growing his business by supplying youth football teams with jerseys and apparel.

He also helps as a coach with the Pop Warner champion North Philly Aztecs.

His son, Mike III, redshirted his first season at New Hampshire and then transferred to a junior college, Iowa Western.

Crawford himself, went to Thaddeus Stevens college in Lancaster and later Cheyney University, where he studied communications.

Now, he works full-time for the city, but said he is also committed to growing his apparel company.

“I want to keep it in the North Philadelphia area,” he said. Later, he added: “at the end of the day, that’s my goal. To be the leader in apparel in the heart of the city.”