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Economic Indicators

July 19, 2016

We don’t need the Federal Reserve Bank chairwoman to tell us about economic indicators; we have our own way of knowing at the Michigan High School Athletic Association office when the state’s economy is bad or good.

In bad economic times, we experience an increase in those registering to become MHSAA officials. When jobs are lost or hours are cut, a little extra income from officiating can make a big difference to people.

In good economic times, we see a decline in the number of registrations. We lose the officials who are in it for the money and retain the 10,000 hard core, committed officials whom school sports depends on in Michigan.

Another economic indicator is litigation. In bad economic times, fewer people resort to courts to solve disputes; while in good economic times, more people have more money to spend on lawyers to settle their squabbles.

So, what do those indicators tell us about today’s economic news?

Officials registrations in 2015-16 were the lowest in 29 years. And 2015-16 was the busiest year of litigation since 2010.

So, the good news is that the economy is improving. That’s also the bad news.

Corporate Care

March 10, 2015

One of the MHSAA’s newest corporate sponsors is arguably one of its most important ever because it will assist the MHSAA’s aspirations to go further beyond the ordinary in promoting student-athlete health and safety.
That new sponsor is Sparrow Health System, and you can read about our new relationship by clicking here.
During the many discussions with Sparrow’s leadership leading up to our partnership, we learned of its membership in the prestigious Mayo Clinic Care Network; and during our review of some of Mayo’s work we reviewed an April 2012 Mayo Clinic article about the risks of concussion in high school football.
The article presented the results of a carefully controlled study of individuals who played high school football in Rochester, Minnesota, during the decade 1946 to 1956.
The conclusion was that those participants did not have an increased risk of later developing dementia, Parkinson’s disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) compared to non-football-playing high school males. The study notes that this was the case even though, compared to today, “there was poorer equipment and less regard for concussions and no rules prohibiting head-first tackling (spearing).”
There is no small supply of data that sheds better light on the head trauma hysteria in sports in general and football in particular. We cite such data as a counter-balance, not as a reason to slow the search for safer ways to conduct school sports. Our new sponsorship is evidence that we are increasing our capacity to do much more.