Logo

Health & Safety Journey

September 30, 2014

The Michigan High school Athletic Association is a bit more than halfway through an eight-year effort to shine the light on, and provide leadership for, four health and safety issues for school sports.
Four and five years ago our health and safety focus was adding more health history to the preparticipation physical examination process and printed forms. With the essential assistance of the Michigan Department of Community Health, this was done, and it earned widespread, positive reaction from Michigan’s diverse medical community.
Two and three years ago our focus was the head; and our early adoption of an all-sports return-to-play protocol after concussion symptoms became a national model.
Last year and this, heat and hydration has been the focus. The MHSAA imposed on its own tournaments, and recommended for member schools’ practices and contests, policies to manage heat and humidity that include a reduction or modification of activities when the heat index reaches a certain level and cessation of all activities when the heat index reaches an even higher level.
Next school year and in 2016-17 the focus will be the fourth “H”: hearts. Tests for heart defects are expensive and results are often misleading, and the triggers of sudden cardiac arrest are unpredictable. Therefore, we will be pointing to the two actions medical authorities appear to agree upon most: (1) the need for planned and practiced emergency procedures, and (2) the need to have AEDs nearby, in good working order.
We urge MHSAA member schools not to wait for the MHSAA focus to make this a local school focus, and we recommend the MI HEARTSafe Schools initiative. See the HeartSafe Action Plan or the HeartSafe School information for details.

When Seasons Matter

April 6, 2018

There are people who want to fuss with Michigan High School Athletic Association tournament structures because, they say, they “want the regular season to mean something.” We need to guard against that thinking and such talk.

In school sports done right, the regular season always means something, even for a team which loses every game.

In school sports done right, practice means even more, because coaches and athletes interact in practice far more than games.

People who want to provide tournament postseason perks to teams which win more games than others are likely to reward the wrong things, like the teams that gathered transfers from other schools.

They are likely to miss the right things, like the teams that started slowly but improved over a truly meaningful season of practices and contests.

They are likely to miss the fact that some teams lost key players due to ineligibility or injury or gained them late in a season and where, in either case, team records are not a meaningful measure of the season.

Let’s not be fooled. Let’s not be trapped in the mindset of sport models that are more about business than education.

Gerrymandering postseason tournaments does more to undermine the integrity of the postseason than honor the regular season.