Bouncing Basketball Around
November 17, 2017
We can educate kids in school sports just as well with or without elegant venues. That doesn’t mean we won’t miss The Palace of Auburn Hills for the Michigan High School Athletic Association Individual Wrestling Finals, but people are more important than places in educational athletics. Values are more critical than venues.
Nevertheless, when we think and talk about sites for MHSAA Girls and Boys Basketball Finals in 2019 and beyond, as we have been forced to do because of increasing costs and decreasing availabilities at Michigan State University’s Breslin Student Events Center, it draws more public and media attention than the fundamental importance of the topic.
Our discussions across the state and our surveys have given us some insights.
One is that using Michigan’s larger NCAA Division I university arenas is not considered a high priority by a majority of our constituents. Nor is utilizing the same facility for both genders a necessity.
It appears most people like WHEN and WHERE we’ve conducted our tournaments the past eight years (the Breslin Center, on consecutive weekends for girls and boys); but most people seem to value the schedule more than the site ... they appear to prefer that we keep the calendar we’ve enjoyed for many years, even if the venue must change to make that possible.
It appears that many people prefer a smaller venue than Breslin’s nearly 15,000-seat arena for the girls tournament, some reflecting fondly on the exciting, often near-capacity atmosphere that Central Michigan University’s Rose Arena provided in 1996 through 2003. They should get that atmosphere for this year’s Finals at Calvin College’s Van Noord Arena in March, the largest NCAA Division III arena in the country, which has twice hosted the Division III Women’s Basketball Final Four.
We had hoped to be able to announce this December the decisions that would inform everyone when and where we will be staging Girls and Boys Basketball Finals for the next four years; but it is becoming increasingly apparent that we may be making decisions on a year-to-year basis for a while, hoping eventually to sort things out and establish new traditions that we come to value as much as the schedule and site stability that ended in 2017.
Pitch Perfect
August 5, 2016
The national rules of high school baseball for the 2017 season will require for the first time that state high school associations adopt policies and procedures that limit the number of pitches that an individual player may make over a specified number of days.
Presently, Michigan High School Athletic Association rules state that a student may not pitch more than three consecutive days regardless of the outs pitched, and shall not pitch for two calendar days following that in which the player pitched his 30th out.
In the past, there has not been consensus among Michigan high school baseball coaches or support by the MHSAA Baseball/Softball Committee to impose a specific pitch count; and the new national rule does not prescribe what the maximum count should be or how it should be applied.
The MHSAA will convene a group of coaches and administrators this month to discuss the many questions created by the nebulous national mandate. The group’s challenge is to craft a rule that will not result in students pitching more than they do under the current rule, especially at earlier grade levels, and a rule that is as simple to monitor and manage as the current rule.
The proposal of this study group will be reviewed by baseball coaches and school administrators throughout Michigan before submission for action by the Representative Council in December.
Michigan’s climate and culture within high school baseball probably makes a change in the MHSAA pitching rule unnecessary for the high school season. And sadly, any change made for high school play is likely to have little or no effect on the summer and fall ball that may be much more damaging to young arms than the high school season which often is much more restrained in the number of games per day and per season than non-school baseball.
We can hope, of course, that the additional focus on pitching risks at the high school level will be seen and taken seriously outside the high school season.