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A Backhanded Compliment

April 17, 2012

A year ago this month I listened to the attorney for another statewide high school athletic association pose this question:  “Why is it that people quite readily accept inflexible age limitations over a broad spectrum of American life, including sports, but presuppose it is wrong for school sports?”

This attorney was in the middle of a controversy that more recently has visited the MHSAA:  an overage student seeking relief from a universally applied maximum age rule.  The speaker was perplexed and frustrated by the double standard.

Part of the reason for the double standard rests in the reality that people value the school sports experience so much more than other parts of life, including other sports experiences.  Because they want the opportunity to play, they resort to litigation in an attempt to create the right to play.

Another part of the reason school sports is challenged on an issue on which other programs get a free pass is that school sports has a centralized authority, close to home.  State high school associations are readily accessible targets, easier both to find and to fight with than most other entities with age restrictions.

And, of course, part of the reason for the double standard is the proximity of interscholastic athletics to academics – the former extracurricular, the latter curricular – the former a privilege for most teenagers, the latter a right of all citizens to age 26.

The reasons school sports are attacked on this issue while other entities are not are reasons really complimentary to school sports:  the program is popular, accessible and connected to education.  None of these features of school sports, or its age limitation, should change.

Inclusion Then and Now

October 24, 2017

It is accurate to say, and we can be proud that it is true, that there was no more inclusive state high school athletic association in the country at its inception than the Michigan High School Athletic Association.

In Michigan from the official beginning of the MHSAA, ours was one single athletic association. Not separate associations for schools with black students and white students, like some states then. Not separate associations for public schools and private schools, like some states. Not separate associations for big city schools and other schools, like some associations.

This association is unique in the U.S.: From its creation in 1924, by state law, open to urban and rural schools, black and white schools, public and private schools, and both high schools and junior highs. The MHSAA may be the only state interscholastic athletic association that can say all four of those statements were true at its inception.

We have in Michigan a legacy of inclusion that is second to none.

In recent years, we have added to this tradition through the inclusion of 6th-graders who, as a result of a change in the MHSAA’s Constitution in 2015, are now benefiting from MHSAA services, support and rules-making.

But, to be honest, the MHSAA has slipped some in comparison to the expanded inclusiveness of other state interscholastic athletic associations:

  • Compared to Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee, for examples, we do not sponsor and conduct events for junior high/middle school students, even when those students seek to compete under the MHSAA brand and banner.

  • Compared to many states, we are slower to add new sports for high school tournaments, even when students clamor for the opportunity to represent their schools in competition.

  • Compared to many states, we are slower to add programming for students with disabilities.

The MHSAA and its members cannot be all things to all people – that could obscure our mission and it would exceed our resources. But we should consider programming for more people.

The future of our society is in full-service schools developing the whole child in mind, body and spirit; and an essential ingredient of full-service schools is interscholastic athletics and activities. The ideal must be to serve the whole child and, as much as possible, the whole community of children.

That secures the future of schools and school sports as well as communities and their children.