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A Bright Spot

April 22, 2014

One of the most foolish moves school districts have made as funding for their schools has been reduced, or redirected to various mandates, is to eliminate the position of full-time athletic administrator.
Some districts have combined the job with classroom instruction; other districts have hyphenated the position with other administrative responsibilities. Many districts have reduced clerical support and event management assistance. Hours have been cut and professional training has become an afterthought or luxury.
And still the districts send out their student-athletes to compete and collide in front of crowds of emotional onlookers. These districts are risking problems far more expensive than whatever was saved by this shortsighted approach to staffing.
One of the few bright spots in this bleak picture is the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, which has made initial and ongoing training for athletic directors one of its highest strategic objectives.
Last month, over three days at its annual mid-winter conference, the MIAAA provided 138 leadership training courses of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association to 88 of our state’s athletic directors.
A team of 20 leadership training instructors, coordinated by Mike Garvey (Kalamazoo Hackett), delivers this national training program year-round to Michigan’s athletic directors. As a result of their efforts and the hunger of our athletic directors, Michigan leads the nation in the number of persons who have received the NIAAA’s Certified Athletic Administrator (CAA) designation.
The MIAAA also is establishing a mentoring program to help the CAAs take the next step, to Certified Master Athletic Administrator (CMAA). Michigan has 47 CMAAs.
Again this August, the MIAAA will conduct a Leadership Academy focusing on newer administrators. Meg Seng (Ann Arbor Greenhills) and Fred Smith (Buchanan) co-chair the academy, and the MHSAA co-sponsors it.
The MIAAA, and its commitment to deliver an athletic program worthy of the label “educational,” is one of our state’s greatest resources.

Football Participation

June 13, 2017

Each summer, the Michigan High School Athletic Association issues several news releases that, together, help to inform us about the health of high school sports in Michigan. These include reports regarding participation and attendance.

The first of these releases will occur later this month when we report on participation and make comparisons to previous years. Later, there will be a report of how participation in Michigan compares to other states.

Without going into detail now, I’ll preempt the first release to provide its biggest news – football participation was down about five percent in grades 9-12 in 2016 compared to 2015.

The decline in number of schools sponsoring 11-player football is matched by the increase in schools sponsoring the 8-player game. So overall, the number of football schools is stable; but squad size is smaller.

Among other things, this predicts continuing growth in 8-player football, which expects approximately 60 schools this fall when the MHSAA 8-player tournament expands from one to two 16-team divisions.

The latest participation data also requires that those of us who love the game of football have much work to do; and that work has little to do with how either the 8- or 11-player tournament is conducted.

The focus needs to be on practice – including how early in August it begins and how much contact is allowed; the focus must be on personnel – including the importance of hiring on-staff teachers as coaches; and the focus must be on perceptions – including our narrative that our game has never been healthier for junior high/middle school and high school students and never more important for the unity and identity of schools and communities.

Like other sports, football is challenged by declining high school age enrollment, expansion in the number of sports offered by schools and increased single-sport specialization, as well as a largely misplaced concern for injuries.

On June 28, the leadership of the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association is convening a focus group to help identify the themes that resonate best with parents and who the most trusted people are to deliver those messages. This is an important effort.