Coaching Advancement
March 21, 2014
Over the past nine months we have marched down the field in our effort to enhance the health and safety preparation of those who coach school sports. There have been two big plays during this offensive drive.
Last May, the Representative Council adopted the requirement beginning in 2014-15 that all assistant and subvarsity high school coaches must complete the same rules/risk management session as high school varsity head coaches, or, in the alternative, complete one of several free, online health and safety programs posted for this purpose on MHSAA.com.
Last December, the Council adopted the requirement beginning in 2015-16 that all high school varsity head coaches must have current certification in CPR.
It’s my hope that we will not fumble now that we’re in the red zone, that we won’t drop the ball before crossing the goal line on this current health and safety drive focusing on enhanced preparation of coaches.
The next play the Representative Council is considering is to require that all persons hired for the first time at any MHSAA member high school as a varsity level head coach must have completed the Coaches Advancement Program Level 1 or 2.
More than 10,000 people already have done so; and other people who want to be high school varsity head coaches have more than two years to complete this requirement.
Finishing this drive won’t put Michigan’s high school coaching standards at the head of the class; but it will keep us in the classroom of best practices for coaches education. The standard of care is advancing nationwide and on all levels of sports.
Sweating the Small Stuff - #2
June 1, 2018
Seeding of Michigan High School Athletic Association tournaments, especially basketball and ice hockey, is a topic that routinely finds its way to MHSAA Representative Council agendas.
In May of 2017, the Council rejected a comprehensive proposal to seed the District and Regional levels of MHSAA Basketball Tournaments; but the Council instructed MHSAA staff to examine ideas for limited seeding at the District level only, using an MHSAA-controlled system.
In May of 2017, it appeared there was a small number of Council members who supported the proposal submitted for that meeting by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan, and that there were two larger groups – one open to seeding on a more limited basis than BCAM proposed and another group opposed to seeding of any scope by any system.
MHSAA staff responded to the Council’s request by presenting in March of this year and again in May a plan for seeding only the top two teams of each District, to which teams would continue to be assigned by geographic proximity, and then placing top seeds on brackets that would assure those two teams could not meet until the District Finals.
The staff provided answers to the many obvious policy and practical questions, including the system to be used, the games to be included and the placement of teams on brackets.
The effort to arm the Council with these answers had the effect of turning some advocates into opponents of seeding. It was as if the more questions staff anticipated with answers, the more people objected to the plan.
This brought defeat to the plan to seed basketball Districts, and the same to plans to seed ice hockey Regionals and Semifinals.
The questions now are: Do we vote on a fully vetted plan, knowing the details before we move forward; or do we buy a pig in a poke, voting in a concept without details, surprising others and ourselves with how seeding would be implemented? And do we vote on anything at all until we have answered the large philosophical questions as well as the dozens of smaller practical questions that seeding requires we address.