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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.

By The Book

January 16, 2018

The Michigan High School Athletic Association is unfairly criticized by the uninformed for inconsistently administering the Transfer Rule.

That some students are eligible and others not after a change of school enrollment is the result of 15 stated and necessary exceptions within the Transfer Rule that can cause some students to be immediately eligible while others have to wait about one semester before they become eligible to participate for their new school. The rule, as written, with 15 pretty cut-and-dried exceptions, is consistently applied.

Some students have their ineligibility extended from one semester to two because an athletic-motivated transfer was alleged by the student’s previous school and confirmed by the MHSAA, OR because one of the listed athletic-related links was found to be present by the MHSAA without any school needing to make a written allegation of an athletic-motivated transfer. Some students have their eligibility extended further – up to four years – because they transferred as a result of undue influence (athletic recruitment).

So, if you read that one student transferred without any loss of eligibility, and another transfer lost one semester of eligibility, and another lost two semesters of eligibility, and another student lost even more, it is a function of the specific rules involved and their application to the specific facts of the different students’ situations.  

It’s not bias, but the book (the Handbook that all member schools adopted); it’s not favoritism but how the rule applies to the facts of each case.