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Guild and Guide

December 2, 2016

Today is the first meeting of the full Michigan High School Athletic Association Representative Council of the 2016-17 school year. This is the meeting that tees up some of the topics for action by the Council in March and May.

Posted on the meeting room wall will be banners that remind Council members of the over-arching topics previously identified for 2016-17:

    • Define and Defend Educational Athletics

  • Promote and Protect Participant Health and Safety

  • Serve and Support Junior High/Middle School Programs

  • Recruit and Retain Contest Officials

If we are to make any headway on these topics during this school year and beyond, then we must see the MHSAA’s role is to be both a guild and a guide.

On my bucket list for personal travel is a trip to the mountains of Peru where for a week my wife will weave and I will hike. She will be with a guild that allows her to learn more about her craft, while I’ll be on a high altitude trail to Machu Picchu with a guide that keeps me from getting lost or discouraged.

In similar ways, the MHSAA must be an organization that provides opportunities for people to learn the art of athletic administration and then both points the way and steadies the step of coaches and administrators. We must help new officials get started and stay with it. We must aid and direct team captains and other student leaders.

The Seeding Disease

May 1, 2018

I have yet to hear one satisfactory reason to advocate for seeding an all-comers, 740-team high school basketball tournament. But this I do know: Advocates of seeding are never satisfied.

Seeding high school basketball tournaments has become the rage since the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, still just a 68-team affair, became a billion dollar media business. Many people assume that what is used for this limited invitational college tournament is needed and appropriate for a high school tournament that involves 11 times as many teams.

The NCAA pours millions of dollars into the process of selecting and seeding its 68-team tournament, combining a variety of data-based measurements with the judgments and biases of human beings.

One of this year’s questionable selections to make the 68-team field was Syracuse ... which sent our more highly touted and seeded Michigan State Spartans back home early in the tournament.

Meanwhile, low-seeded Loyola-Chicago upset four teams on its way to the Final Four, and became the favorite of fans nationwide. Which argues for upsets. Which argues for randomness.

Which argues against seeding. Why pick the No. 1 seeds of four regions and have all four glide to the Final Four? What fun would that be?

A local sports columnist who is an outspoken advocate for seeding our state’s high school basketball tournament actually wrote a published column advocating for “more Loyolas” in the NCAA tournament, and he explained how to make that happen. Which, of course, seeding is designed to not make happen, but instead, to grease the skids for top-seeded teams.

When the NCAA Final Four brackets for San Antonio resulted in two No. 1 seeds on one side, playing in one semifinal game (Kansas and Villanova), while the other side of the bracket had a semifinal with a No. 3 seed (Michigan) and a No. 11 seed (Loyola), there was a call for more finagling ... for reseeding the semifinals so that the two No. 1 seeds wouldn’t have to play until the final game.

It was poetic justice to watch one No. 1 seed clobber the other No. 1 seed in a terrible semifinal mismatch.

The point is this: Seeding is flawed, and advocates of seeding are never satisfied. If we take a small step, they will want more steps. If we seed the top two teams of Districts, they will lobby for seeding all teams of the Districts. If we seed all teams of Districts, they will ask for seeding Regionals. And, if we seed the start of the tournament, they will want a do-over if it doesn’t work out right for the Finals.

Seeding is a distraction, and an addiction.