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Fewer but Bigger Changes

June 22, 2015

Accelerating a nearly decade-long trend, there was a sharp decline in the number of sport-specific proposals from MHSAA committees to the Representative Council during 2014-15 – in fact, the smallest number of recommendations for change in more than 30 years.
The dearth of proposals from some sports means all is well; however, for other sports, it only means that proposals to effect some major changes were not yet ready for prime time. For example, several sport communities are interested in seeding some aspects of their MHSAA tournaments, but they have a lot more work to do to draft the details and to develop broad support within their sport across Michigan.

The Representative Council has taken advantage of the repose to advance policies that extend across multiple sports and years. For example ...

  • The three-year phase-in of additional health and safety requirements for coaches. The second step – CPR certification for all high school varsity head coaches – commences Aug. 1, 2015. The third step – that all high school varsity coaches hired for the first time in Michigan after July 31, 2016, complete the Coaches Advancement Program Level 1 or 2 – takes effect with the 2016-17 school year.

  • The focus on concussion care in both practices and events of all levels of all sports. School year 2015-16 brings new reporting and recordkeeping requirements for member schools, as well as MHSAA-provided medical insurance protection for all eligible athletes, grades 7 through 12.

  • Changing out-of-season coaching rules. While the membership didn’t rally toward a totally new approach during the past year’s discussions, consensus did coalesce around four substantive changes to the current approach to manage and monitor out-of-season coaching, which the Council approved to take effect in 2015-16.

  • The proposed amendment to allow school membership in the MHSAA to begin with the 6th grade. Discussion on this topic resumed two years ago and it will continue through constituent meetings this summer and fall prior to the membership’s vote in late October. The change, if approved, would take effect Aug. 1, 2016.

Momentum

August 4, 2017

The 2017-18 school year holds great potential for the Michigan High School Athletic Association and for school sports in Michigan. Only time will tell us if the potential is greater for good than for bad.

There is positive momentum in promoting participant health and safety as the last of three advances in the health and safety preparation of coaches is implemented, as high schools’ mandatory concussion reporting and MHSAA-purchased concussion care “gap” insurance for 6th- through 12th-graders enter year three, and as higher limits of accident medical insurance is purchased by the MHSAA for all member junior high/middle schools and high schools, effective this month.

There is positive momentum in serving and supporting junior high/middle school programs where membership was up five percent last year over the year before. The MHSAA had an enjoyable, brand-broadening experience as “presenting sponsor” at a half-dozen junior high/middle school league track & field meets this past spring; and the MHSAA will be doing so during fall, winter and spring junior high/middle school tournaments during the 2017-18 school year.

The MHSAA’s Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation continues to develop strategies that focus on junior high/middle school students and their parents and to address the greatest health threat in youth sports – overuse injuries as the result of year-round sports specialization; and the Task Force is developing tools that help define and defend educational athletics.

Beneath these three over-arching themes, the MHSAA is addressing some pressing new problems – like what to do about venues that are no longer available to us for MHSAA tournaments in girls and boys basketball and individual wrestling – as well as some chronic concerns – like recruiting and retaining contest officials and athletic-related transfers. The loss of officials and the rise of athletic-related transfers are problems of nearly epidemic proportions.

The amount of resources the MHSAA will be able to bring to all these topics will be affected by the number of controversies that arise during the normal course of essential business in administering programs, policies and penalties. Such controversies can knock us off message, and rob us of resources that could allow us to be doing more of the positive things we know need to be done.

There is also the potential that we get distracted by the National Federation of State High School Associations, some of whose member state association CEOs want to talk more about NFHS sponsorship of national tournaments, even after decades of opposition to such events from both state and national educational associations, as well as clear and convincing evidence that no organization – from Little League to the NCAA – has been able to conduct national tournaments without adding to their existing problems and creating new pressures and new problems.

Excesses and abuses in school sports have their own momentum. We should not create more by NFHS sponsorship of the very events it was created to end.