Future Actions
February 19, 2016
MHSAA committees have prepared not quite two dozen recommendations for Representative Council action later this spring. Once again this is a smaller than average number of proposals, and again they are modest in scope and significance. What has been different in recent years, and especially this year, is the length and depth of discussions by some of the committees.
Slowly, we are changing committee focus from tournament tweaks and other strictly transactional business to more strategic, even transformational issues.
Several committees talked longer than ever about health and safety issues, with attention to concussion and sports specialization, and how to accommodate and appeal to younger grade levels (6th, 7th and 8th).
I look forward to the day when these long discussions turn into provocative proposals. For example, I would love to hear that ...
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The MHSAA Football and Junior High/Middle School Committees recommend MHSAA sponsorship of flag football at the 6th- through 8th-grade levels.
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The MHSAA Soccer and Junior High/Middle School Committees recommend practice and game policies that reduce heading at the 6th- through 8th-grade levels.
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The MHSAA Golf Committee recommends MHSAA sponsorship of coed, Ryder Cup format golf.
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The MHSAA Tennis Committee recommends MHSAA sponsorship of coed team tennis.
There is so much more we could be doing to transform school sports for the 21st Century. New sports and formats, with increased attention to health and safety and the junior high/middle school level. This is our future, when talk turns to action.
History Reveals Legacy
December 5, 2017
It is well established in dusty textbooks and derelict files that the National Federation of State High School Associations owes its origins to a small group of Midwest high school athletic associations, and that the most significant accomplishment within the National Federation’s first decade of existence was to influence the end of national tournaments for high school teams and individuals.
I joined this National Federation as a staff member about halfway through the organization’s march to its centennial celebration scheduled for 2019. A large part of my initial duties was helping to administer recently started services for high school athletic directors – first a national conference, then a publication, and then a national organization, now called the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.
This programming was launched in large part to frustrate efforts by what was then called the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, which had formed a national athletic directors organization that was tending in directions the National Federation opposed – from federal legislation to national competitions.
A few years later, the National Federation created the National Federation Interscholastic Coaches Association. Again, a primary reason for doing so was to counter the efforts of a man in Florida who had created a national high school athletic coaches association whose almost sole purpose was to conduct national high school championship events.
National Federation opposition to national events in high school athletics is not “one and done.” Yes, it’s in the core of the National Federation’s founding; but it’s also at the heart of its more recent launching of national organizations and services for athletic directors, and then for coaches.
Opposition to national high school athletic events isn’t ancient history for the National Federation; it is the organization’s living legacy.