Is a Future Possible?
September 8, 2011
While interviewing candidates for a staff position, we posed the question: “What will school sports look like a generation from now?” And we followed up with: “What will the MHSAA need to do to be of relevant service in that future?”
In a follow-up interview with one of the leading candidates, when I invited questions, that candidate turned the tables and asked me what I thought school sports and the MHSAA would look like in 10 or 20 years.
These exchanges, and all that has been changing as school districts chop away at school budgets and programs, has me wondering if a future is possible for school sports. But the answer is almost certainly “Yes.”
School sports have survived two World Wars, the Korean War and Vietnam, as well as the Great Depression and multiple recessions. School sports has existed before and after interstates and the Internet, before and after suburban sprawl and space exploration, before and after television and Twitter, before and after . . . well, you get the point.
Will school sports change? Certainly. But if history is a good indicator, it will change more slowly than the society around it. And many people will cherish that gap.
Sport Sponsorship Should Be Up
March 25, 2016
MHSAA member schools plan to sponsor significantly more sports during 2016-17 than they indicated a year ago they would sponsor in 2015-16.
As of March 8, with only one more member school than at the same time in 2015-16:
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Lower Peninsula Track & Field expects 16 more boys teams and 12 more girls teams next year than this year.
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Bowling anticipates 15 more boys teams and 11 more girls teams.
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In LP Golf, the anticipated increase is 12 girls teams, but a decline of 5 boys teams.
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In LP Cross Country, the growth is projected to be 7 teams for each gender.
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Girls Competitive Cheer and Girls Volleyball each expect 5 more teams next year; both Boys Lacrosse and Girls Lacrosse plan on 4 more teams; in skiing, it’s 5 more girls teams and 3 more boys teams; in LP Soccer it’s 4 additional boys teams and 2 additional girls teams. Baseball may be up 4 schools, while girls softball expects no change. Football expects a net gain of 4 schools; in Basketball, boys may grow by 2 schools, and no change is the current projection for girls.
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In LP Tennis, girls now expect a 1-team decline; but boys could continue its dramatic slide, down another 9 schools next year.
The overall theme may be that, no matter how much schools are struggling for resources and resorting to outside funding, they value the high school brand of sports. They see school sports as a magnet for attracting students and an igniter of positive school and community spirit. In short, sports make most schools better.