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Baby Steps

April 8, 2014

Two first, small steps have been taken in the direction of making school-sponsored sports for junior high/middle school-age athletes more attractive to these students and their parents.
Next school year, MHSAA member junior high/middle schools have the option to increase the length of quarters in basketball from six minutes to a maximum of eight minutes and to increase the length of quarters in football from eight minutes to a maximum of ten minutes.
In late March, the MHSAA Representative Council approved these recommendations of the MHSAA Basketball and Football Committees which had favorable reaction also from the MHSAA Junior High/Middle School Committee and from the Junior High/Middle School Task Force which is meeting throughout 2014 to bring special attention to long languishing issues of policy and programming for students prior to high school.
It is hoped that the up to eight additional minutes in school-sponsored basketball and football contests will allow more students to get playing time in more games, and we fully expect that it will also mean more playing time in all games for some students. Both are needed for school sports to be competitive in the youth sports marketplace.
These may have been among the easiest decisions the Representative Council will face as the Junior High/Middle School Task Force works its way through many tougher topics during 2014 when, in many cases, societal trends will confront sacred cows.

Taking Back Their Game

December 15, 2017

Editor's Note: This blog originally was posted August 30, 2011, and the message still rings true today.


Grayling High School’s Rich Moffitt is one of our many fine high school basketball coaches, and a good portion of the heart and soul behind the MHSAA/BCAM “Reaching Higher” experience for our state’s students aspiring to play college basketball. Rich shared with us a recent article in Basketball Times written by Billy Reed, a long-time basketball writer for the Louisville Courier-Journal, Lexington Herald-Leader and Sports Illustrated. In this piece Reed urges high school basketball coaches to take back their game from the corrupting influences of street agents and summer coaches. He writes:

“I’d like to see the high school coaches publicly challenge university presidents to stop sacrificing academic integrity on the altar of the almighty sports dollar. I’d like to see them petition the NCAA to do everything possible to rid college football and basketball of the slimy street agents, summer coaches, pimps, hustlers and con artists who undermine the authority of their high school coaches and teachers.

“I’d like them to urge the NCAA to start running its own summer games instead of leaving it to the shoe companies and NBA stars, and I’d like to see them work with their state high school athletic associations to adopt rules stipulating that only certified high school coaches can coach summer teams.

“I’d also like to see the high school coaches rededicate themselves to teaching humility, civility and respect for the opposition, the public and the media instead of letting young superstars grow into rude, selfish, egotistical adults who think the same rules that apply to the rest of society don’t apply to them.”