Beginning Another Tourney Journey
August 8, 2016
Below is the introductory commentary to the MHSAA's spring issue of benchmarks. Histories of MHSAA tournaments published in that issue have been appearing on Second Half every Tuesday and Friday.
By Jack Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director
Concussions and cutbacks. Participation fees and part-time employment. Student safety and specialization. International students and interstate travel. Transfers and trials.
Through a myriad of issues which periodically cloud our mission, the foundation on which the MHSAA was built still shines brightest three times each year: Tournament Time!
It can be daunting and overwhelming to make a living at this business of interscholastic athletics these days, not to mention a tad confusing. Do we need legal degrees? Medical degrees? Business degrees? Marketing degrees? There seems to be no escape from threat of legislative mandates which continually change the landscape of our product and how it’s delivered. Demands pile up, resources dwindle.
Add the daily challenges of scheduling issues, inclement weather and pleasing teenagers and their parents on a daily basis, and it’s easy to lose focus of the primary missions for the MHSAA and its member schools.
And then, scenes like this happen:
• Holly Bullough, a senior cross country runner from Traverse City St. Francis takes her second straight Division 3 championship, winning by 36.4 seconds ... with a stress fracture in her left foot.
• Detroit Martin Luther King QB Armani Posey directs a game-winning drive to give his school the Division 2 football championship ... a drive which started on his own 3-yard line with 37 seconds left and ended with a 40-yard heave to receiver Donnie Corley on the final play of the game.
• Leland sweeps the Class D volleyball title match 3-0 over Battle Creek St. Philip ... ending a string of nine straight titles for St. Phil, the 10th longest national streak in history.
• Davison’s Taylor Davis becomes only the fourth person in MHSAA Girls Bowling history to roll a 300 game in the Singles portion of the tournament ... and the first ever in the championship match.
• The Upper Peninsula’s Hancock HS wins the Division 3 ice hockey title in its first trip to the Final since 2000 ... a trip funded in part from a “Go Fund Me” web page that raised $6,620 from 99 donors in two days.
• Junior Kierra Fletcher of Warren Cousino carries her team to the Class A girls basketball championship with 27 points in the Final ... after scoring 37 of her team’s 60 points in the Semifinals and totaling 198 during eight tournament games.
That’s just a sampling of the magic from last fall and winter.
These moments shine through the current challenges and the unseen future that awaits us as they always have. The uniforms and faces are different, but the tournaments have always yielded the fruits of our labors, and the memories for our mental scrapbooks.
PHOTO: Leland's volleyball team hoists its Class D championship trophy last fall at Kellogg Arena.
Century of School Sports: Connection at Heart of Coaches Advancement Program
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
November 19, 2024
As we believe that educational athletics are an extension of the academic classroom, it’s important to recognize as well that coaches – similar to teachers during the school day – are another first point of contact for more than 170,000 high school athletes and thousands more who play middle school sports in Michigan.
For two decades, the MHSAA’s Coaches Advancement Program has served as an avenue to provide our coaches with a variety of tools to assist in working through issues they encounter daily while building up their teams and building these relationships.
Past Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts, when writing about the CAP program in 2017, noted “the thousands of dollars and hours that the MHSAA devotes to CAP demonstrates this organization’s belief that nothing – absolutely nothing – is more important in the process of educational athletics than the quality of the coach-athlete connection.”
That commitment and dedication to the coach-athlete connection continues as the MHSAA moves through its 100th anniversary year.
Through the end of the 2023-24 school year, coaches had completed 41,167 sessions within the eight-level program since its creation for the 2004-05 school year. Counting this past weekend’s CAP 1 and 2 courses taught at Detroit Henry Ford, another 1,167 sessions have been completed since the start of the 2024-25 educational year.
The CAP program is broken into nine levels, each addressing a set of topics:
- CAP 1: Coaches Make the Difference, The Coach as Teacher, Sports Medicine and First Aid.
- CAP 2: Effective Communication, Legal Responsibilities, Psychology of Coaching.
- CAP 3: Additional Coaching Responsibilities, Effectively Working with Parents, Managing Time and Energy.
- CAP 4: Understanding Athletic Development, Strength and Conditioning, Preparing for Success.
- CAP 5: Healthy Living, Teaching Emotional Toughness, Resolving Conflicts in Athletics.
- CAP 6, 7, 8 & 9: Current Issues and Topics in Educational Athletics.
Those who complete the program receive a level of certification after their first 12 hours (completing CAP 1 and 2). Through this past school year, 2,295 individuals have advanced through CAP 5 – earning them themselves CAP Masters Certification. From that group, 476 have advanced through CAP 6, 100 through CAP 7 and 87 through CAP 8, with the first class to complete that module in 2015-16. CAP 9 was created this fall.
Perhaps just as notably, 20,960 individuals have completed CAP 1 over the last two decades. Completion of either CAP 1 or CAP 2 became a requirement for first-year varsity head coaches beginning with the 2016-17 school year, and predictably numbers have climbed since that time with 12,515 completing CAP 1 over the last eight school years.
The program is constructed and coordinated by MHSAA Assistant Director Kathy Vruggink Westdorp, who joined the MHSAA staff in 2004 after several years as a principal, athletic director, teacher and coach in Grand Rapids and Forest Hills public schools. She lives the program’s philosophy of providing CAP training “anytime, anywhere” across the state, and over just the last five months CAP 1 alone has been delivered at 19 schools plus during 14 dates at the MHSAA office in East Lansing. Flint Kearsley isn’t on the list of CAP 1 hosts this year, but instead welcomed in 45 students for a CAP 5 session in early August.
Additionally, colleges and universities in Michigan are licensed to present up to five levels through their undergraduate or graduate studies, and eight are scheduled to do so again this school year.
The faculty for 2024-25 includes well-known leaders in Michigan educational athletics, officiating and sports medicine. Instructors include past and present athletic directors, principals, officials, coaches, college professors, athletic trainers, leaders from the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA) and MHSAA staff.
For more information, see the Coaches Advancement Program page.
Previous "Century of School Sports" Spotlights
Nov. 12: Good Sports are Winners Then, Now & Always - Read
Nov. 5: MHSAA's Home Sweet Home - Read
Oct. 29: MHSAA Summits Draw Thousands to Promote Sportsmanship - Read
Oct. 23: Cross Country Finals Among MHSAA's Longest Running - Read
Oct. 15: State's Storytellers Share Fall Memories - Read
Oct. 8: Guided by 4 S's of Educational Athletics - Read
Sept. 25: Michigan Sends 10 to National Hall of Fame - Read
Sept. 25: MHSAA Record Books Filled with 1000s of Achievements - Read
Sept. 18: Why Does the MHSAA Have These Rules? - Read
Sept. 10: Special Medals, Patches to Commemorate Special Year - Read
Sept. 4: Fall to Finish with 50th Football Championships - Read
Aug. 28: Let the Celebration Begin - Read
PHOTOS Clockwise from top left: (1) Former Ypsilanti Community and current Wayne Memorial boys basketball coach Steve Brooks (far right) celebrates with a trophy-winning team. (2) Brighton girls lacrosse coach Ashton Peters raises the Division 1 championship trophy in the spring. (3) Pontiac Notre Dame Prep volleyball coach Betty Wroubel applauds during pre-match introductions. (4) Trenton baseball coach Todd Szalka (middle) huddles on the mound during last season's Division 2 Semifinals. (5) Past Calumet athletic director Sean Jacques (left) passes the Class C championship trophy to his girls basketball coach in 2015. All five have received levels of CAP certification.