Controversy On December 7, 2006 senior star running back of the football team Antwain Easterling was arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious battery on a minor for having sex with a fourteen-year-old girl in a bathroom at Miami Northwestern High School three months earlier. The girl's mother had reported the incident to three faculty members at the school in October 2006, and one of them reportedly informed the principal, Dwight Bernard. The proper authorities were not notified, and it did not come to the attention of Miami-Dade school police until the mother of the fourteen year-old asked an unknowing member of the police staff how the investigation was proceeding. Also arrested in the incident and charged with the same offense were Dante Maurice Jefferson and Vincent Shannon Jefferson. After it was revealed that several members of the school's administration, faculty, and the football teams coaching staff knew about the incident and failed to report it, Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Rudy Crew fired a total of twenty-one people including Miami Northwestern Principal Dwight Bernard, Head Football Coach Roland Smith and his entire staff, and many other school employees. In addition, athletics director Gregory Killings resigned. The football team was also placed on probation for one-year instead of having the entire 2007 season canceled. Bernard was indicted by a grand jury in March 2007 with official misconduct for covering up the incident. The grand jury report said school officials "allowed for the glory of football to trump the needs and safety" of the victim and that "priorities were chosen and the little girl lost." It was later reported that the mother of the young girl made contact with members of the school administration over 30 times but the incident was never reported to Miami-Dade police as required by state and federal law. Easterling was allowed to enroll in a pretrial diversionary program which included 26 weeks of counseling sessions that would allow him to avoid prosecution and have the charges against him dismissed upon the completion of the program. Though he had been heavily recruited by schools like the
University of Miami, the
University of Florida, and
Notre Dame these schools lost interest and walked away. He was finally recruited by
The University of Southern Mississippi. After his acquittal, Bernard sued the Miami Dade school board for $329,000.
Football Prior to the 2007 season, the Miami Northwestern Bulls had won three class 6A state championships. In its third game of the 2007 football season, the Bulls, ranked No. 1 by
USA Today, traveled to
Dallas, Texas to take on the #2 nationally ranked
Southlake Dragons. A crowd of 31,896 at
Gerald J. Ford Stadium watched as Miami Northwestern won the contest 29-21, thereby ending Southlake's 49-game winning streak (tied
Abilene for the longest in Texas high school football history). The Bulls then completed an undefeated season capping it off with a 41-0 win in the Florida 6A state championship game and being declared the
mythical national champions by
ESPN and
USA Today. In 2024, Miami Northwestern alumnus and
NFL player
Teddy Bridgewater led the Bulls to a Class 3A
Florida High School Athletic Association state title.
Track and field The Bulls have also excelled in track and field, with the boys finishing in the top of the Florida state 4A track and field championships for 10 years in a row. In 2001, 2005, 2006, and 2007, the girls won the Florida High School Athletic Association's 4A track and field championship. In 2007–2008, in the 400 meter event, the girls swept 1st, 2nd, and 3rd with two freshman sprinters. == Notable alumni ==