High-Performing Programs
July 10, 2018
(This blog first appeared on MHSAA.com June 28, 2011, and was printed in the September/October 2006 MHSAA Bulletin, and in Lasting Impressions, which appears in the MHSAA's online Library.)
A study of 10 academically-oriented after-school programs in New York City funded by the After-School Corporation may provide some unintended guidance for interscholastic athletic programs.
Prepared in November 2005 by Policy Studies Associates, Inc. for the After-School Corporation and Southwest Educational Development Laboratory with support from the U.S. Department of Education, the report “Shared Features of High Performing After-School Programs” identifies the following characteristics of high performing after-school programs:
- A broad array of enrichment opportunities.
- Opportunities for skill building and mastery.
- Intentional relationship building.
- A strong, experienced leader/manager supported by a trained and supervised staff.
- The administrative, fiscal and professional development support of the sponsoring organization.
While competitive junior high/middle school and high school sports were not the subject of this study, here’s what I think these findings could mean for school sports:
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Interscholastic athletic programs should provide a wide variety of opportunities appealing to a diverse group of students.
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Interscholastic athletic programs should provide competitive opportunities for the highly skilled as well as learning opportunities for the less skilled so they too might progress to higher levels of competency, or just enjoy the fun, friends and fitness of school sports.
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Teamwork, sportsmanship and leadership should be outcomes as intentional as development of skills of the sport and strategies of contests.
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A full-time athletic administrator is essential, and it is imperative this person have authority to train and supervise staff and hold them accountable for performance consistent with the best practices of educational athletics.
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School boards and their administrators must provide sound policies and procedures, adequate financial support and opportunities for continuing education for the athletic director and every coach.
All in all, a pretty good blueprint for school sports in Michigan.
Best Practices
June 28, 2016
Two-thirds of concussions reported in Michigan high school football last fall occurred in games. Even though there are at least five times more hours of exposure during practices than games, there are half as many concussions during practice, according to the mandated concussion reporting requirement of the Michigan High School Athletic Association that is unmatched in the country in terms of its depth and breadth for a statewide requirement.
Michigan was among the handful of states to restrict contact in practice, in 2014, a full season prior to recommendations from the National Federation of State High School Associations and later action by most other statewide associations.
Some of those statewide organizations continue to operate without limitation on contact in football practices, while their counterpart organizations in other states have gone so far as to limit contact to a certain number of minutes in a day and/or week.
Entering mostly uncharted waters for high school football in early 2014, an MHSAA task force recommended that the number of practices be limited where collisions between players could occur – no more than one per day during preseason, no more than two per week after the first game.
This change was embraced by this state’s football coaches association and adopted by the MHSAA Representative Council. All parties liked the ease of administration of this policy, and all distrusted the idea of limiting the number of minutes of contact during practices.
If there is a 30-minute limit on contact in a day or a 90-minute limit on contact in a week, is it the same 30-minute or 90-minute period for all players, even if many are not involved in one or more of the contact drills? Or does the limit apply to each player individually; and if so, how is that tracked, and by whom?
These and other questions made coaches and administrators question how effective a limit on minutes might really be. Nevertheless, a 90-minute per week limit during regular season has been made an MHSAA recommendation for the 2016 season. This will provide an opportunity to address and possibly answer some of the questions that have been raised.
The MHSAA will survey schools this fall about their practice plans and the actual time spent in contact drills by players, assessing how that differs according to offense, defense, player position and grade in school, and determining best practices for how to track player contact minutes.
When Michigan acted in 2014 to limit contact in practice, it was one of the first states to do so. As Michigan takes additional steps to limit contact in practice, it will be one of the first states to do so after researching the best ways to actually do it.