Logo

Engagement

October 31, 2017

In addition to daily calls, texts, emails and old-fashioned mail delivery, Michigan High School Athletic Association staff engaged face to face with its core constituents in these ways from August of 2016 through July of 2017:

  • More than 350 local school visits, including:
    • Approximately 120 to attend regular season local contests to evaluate officials for MHSAA tournament readiness.
    • More than 60 to support or evaluate MHSAA pre-Final tournament events.
    • More than 60 to speak at or support MHSAA CAP sessions (plus 25 CAP sessions at the MHSAA building).
    • 12 for MHSAA.TV, NFHS Network or School Broadcast Program.
    • 6 for Second Half website features.
    • 6 for new school orientation.
    • 5 for Battle of the Fans (each involving 3 MHSAA staff).
    • 5 for officiating classes.
    • 2 for Reaching Higher (each involving 4 or more staff).

  • More than 60 local officials association visits, including:

    • 45 for rules meetings/presentations.

Plus 8 visits to officials camps,
         5 presentations to college officiating classes, and
         9 officiating recruitment events.

  • More than 50 coaches association meetings.
    • 24 for MHSAA rules meetings/presentations.
    • 6 for CAP programs.

Plus the Coaches Association Presidents dinner at the MHSAA office involving 9 MHSAA staff.

  • More than 50 league meetings, including:
    • 8 to conduct student leadership or sportsmanship events or for team captains clinics (usually involving multiple MHSAA staff).
    • 8 to provide event marketing assistance.
    • 7 to provide MHSAA information/updates.
    • 6 to provide MHSAA rules meetings/presentations.
    • 3 for ArbiterGame training (usually involving 2 or more MHSAA staff).

Plus the League Leadership Meeting at the MHSAA office involving most MHSAA staff.

  • More than 15 MIAAA meetings.
    • 10 MHSAA staff at the March conference.
    • 2 MHSAA staff at the summer workshop.
    • 2 to 4 MHSAA staff at most board meetings.
    • At least 1 staff at multiple committee meetings, strategic planning, etc.
  • More than 50 standing committees, task forces and ad hoc study groups convened at the MHSAA office, and several did so multiple times.

What is abundantly clear here is that the MHSAA staff does not operate from an ivory tower or information vacuum.

No Rules?

February 6, 2018

We like to say that school sports is “educational athletics,” but this does not mean athletics and academics should be treated exactly the same.

Competitive athletics is not like the composition or algebra classroom. Competitive athletics requires two opponents playing by the same rules that govern who can play and how they can play.

In 1907, William James put in writing a series of lectures he had given in Boston the year before titled “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking.” Included in the third lecture is this gem:

“. . . the aim of a football team is not merely to get the ball to a certain goal (if that were so, they would simply get up on some dark night and place it there), but to get it there by a fixed machinery of conditions – the game’s rules and the opposing players;”


This to James was a given, cited to help him make a more profound point.

But the point here is profound enough for us. Without rules, and opponents playing by the same rules, there is no validity in moving the ball to the goal. Without rules, there is no value in sinking the putt, making the basket, clearing the bar, crossing the finish line. Without a regulatory scheme adhered to by all competitors, victory is hollow.