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Fewer but Bigger Changes
June 22, 2015
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.
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Going to the Mat
October 4, 2016
Somewhere I heard a speaker say: “The most exciting thing in life is to be shot at ... and missed.”
In a real sense, I wouldn’t know; but metaphorically, that’s somewhat how we’ve felt after a federal district court judge tried unsuccessfully to cripple the Michigan High School Athletic Association in the aftermath of a lawsuit over the placement of sports seasons in Michigan.
Plaintiffs wanted the high school sports seasons for boys and girls to coincide and to mirror the seasons the National Collegiate Athletic Association established after our high school seasons were adopted. With the urging of its member schools, the MHSAA battled for nine years to attempt to retain a sports seasons schedule that allowed schools to use their resources (facilities, coaches and officials) in ways that they could demonstrate promoted higher participation rates by both genders.
Plaintiffs did not get all that they sought in the case, and neither did schools; but the judge ordered the MHSAA to pay $7.9 million, much more than the organization’s assets at that time.
But rather than being the death knell for the MHSAA, these events breathed exciting new life into the organization, the positive effects of which continue today.
The judgment – reduced significantly through negotiations, early payment incentives and insurance and paid off in 18 months – set in motion a review of internal operations that reduced expenditures by $600,000 over 12 months, while sponsorship and broadcast revenue grew by a combined $600,000 during those 12 months.
Eight years later, many of the operational savings continue, and non-tournament revenue is now more than double what it was in the first year following the judgment.
While complaints still come to us from students and citizens in local communities regarding the court-ordered changes for sports seasons, and participation has declined significantly in several of the affected sports – especially girls basketball, girls volleyball and boys tennis – the MHSAA office still continues to enjoy many efficiencies, as well as some euphoria, from the shot-at-but-missed experience.
This comes from the knowledge that we went to the mat for what our schools wanted, fought long and hard, paid a high cost, and came out of it with schools’ respect. In the aftermath, the MHSAA staff and Representative Council came together, and came through it stronger.