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Football Week in Michigan

November 24, 2017

One of the best and most influential friends of school sports I know from outside the field of school sports is Greg Hammaren, senior vice president and general manager of FOX Sports Detroit.

Greg has observed his children participate in school sports and has taken special interest in treating educational athletics with first class efforts when producing MHSAA Finals in football and basketball for many years. He has been respectful of what we value and how we do things in high school sports.

About one year ago, Greg observed that his network and most other well-known names in live cable or over-the-air video sports production were abandoning the high school level. He felt that FOX Sports Detroit should not join that trend. But he had to convince the parent company in southern California that we were valued by Michigan’s consumers and advertisers. He has done just that.

The Michigan High School Athletic Association Football Playoff Finals dominate the schedule for FOX Sports Detroit’s first annual Football Week in Michigan this November. Over eight days, the best high school, college and professional football involving Michigan teams is being featured on a variety of FOX video platforms – FOX Sports Detroit, FS1, FOX Sports GO!, Big Ten Network and FOX over-the-air television.

MHSAA championship football games provide 10 of the 13 games during FWIM. The prep schedule began on Nov. 18 when the two divisions of the 8-Player Football Finals were shown live on the FOX Sports Detroit Facebook page from the Superior Dome in Marquette. Delayed telecasts of both games were aired on FOX Sports Detroit on Nov. 21.

This weekend, seven of the eight 11-Player Football Finals on Nov. 24-25 are being shown live on FOX Sports Detroit-PLUS, the exception being the Division 4 game tonight which will be shown on a same-day delayed basis on FOX Sports Detroit this evening at 11:30 p.m. All of the 11-player Finals will be available live on FOX Sports GO!

Over-the-air FOX television affiliates in Michigan also have the option to carry 11-player Final games being shown live in their markets if they have a local team participating in a game. Participating affiliates are: Alpena – WBKB-DT2 (11.2); Cadillac – WFQX-TV (32); Detroit – WJBK-TV (2); Flint – WSMH-TV (66); Grand Rapids – WXMI-TV (17); Lansing – WSYM-TV (47); Marquette – WLUC-DT2 (6.2); Sault Ste. Marie – WWUP-DT2 (10.2); Vanderbilt – WFUP-TV (45). Check local listings for games to be shown locally.

Football Week in Michigan – Greg’s brainchild – was officially recognized in October in a Proclamation by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.

FOX Sports Detroit’s MHSAA Football Playoff coverage began Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. with the announcement of the pairings for the 2017 playoffs on the Selection Sunday Show on FOX Sports Detroit-PLUS. Each week throughout the playoffs leading up to the 11-player Finals, the FOX Sports Detroit Prep Zone featured four games viewed live on FoxSportsDetroit.com and FOX Sports GO! – with one game also available live on the FOX Sports Detroit Facebook page.

School Sports Benefits

June 14, 2016

The May 2016 issue of Kappan features an article by an assistant professor at Texas A & M and a doctoral academy fellow at the University of Arkansas who argue in favor of school-sponsored sports. They cite benefits to students, schools and communities:

“Student-athletes generally do better in school than other students – not worse. Opening high school sports to girls in the 1970s led to a significant and meaningful improvement in female college-going and workforce participation. Tougher academic eligibility requirements that schools place on athletes have decreased dropout rates among at-risk students.

“Schools that cut sports will likely lose the benefits that school-sponsored sports bestow. Removing these activities from K-12 education would likely have negative effects on historically underserved school communities. As was the case with the Great Depression, less-privileged families would be less able to afford the expense of having their children participate in organized sports due to the cost of travel and registration fees of club organizations.

“We do not contend that school-sponsored athletics are perfect and should be preserved exactly as they are, even in the face of financial constraints. In tough financial times, everything should be scrutinized. Sports are no exception. But when we look at the larger body of evidence, we find that sports are a tradition in U.S. education that has genuinely benefited students and their school communities.”

One by one the article (with the unfortunate title “History and evidence show school sports help students win”) disposes of typical arguments against school sports:

  1. That sports participation has no role in academic development and may undermine it.

  2. That European-style club programs would enable adolescents to participate in sports while eliminating negative influences that school sports have on academics.

  3. That eliminating school-sponsored sports will increase student participation in other extracurricular activities.

The evidence, according to the authors, does not support those arguments. Click here to read the article.