League Leadership
February 15, 2014
This past Wednesday, we convened for the 28th year the leadership of the various high school leagues and conferences across Michigan. Our purpose is to provide a “heads-up” and stimulate feedback on many of the proposals heading to the MHSAA Representative Council in March or May.
Each of the substantive changes in Handbook regulations is presented. Every MHSAA committee recommendation to the Council is detailed.
This year’s higher profile topics are proposed changes in undue influence penalties, international student eligibility requirements, increasing requirements for coaches, new football practice policies to improve acclimatization and reduce head contact, and enhanced standards for officials assigners. A progress report on a year-long look at junior high/middle school policies was provided, and the athletic related transfer rule that takes full effect in August was reviewed.
The MHSAA asks the league leaders to provide written and/or oral reports to their league members and to relay reactions to MHSAA staff prior to the Council’s March and May meetings.
Of course, what we’re asking is a very small part of the important role that leagues and conferences have in the life of school sports. For most schools, leagues provide the core schedule for regular-season contests. They nurture healthy local rivalries in a competitive arena and provide opportunities for students to interact outside the arena during programs that promote student leadership and sportsmanship.
Secret Sauce
April 19, 2016
The MHSAA has appointed a task force to meet throughout 2016 to develop strategies to promote multi-sport participation by student-athletes. In that spirit I have departed from tradition and will be identifying current students by name in this space, approximately once each month, who are the Superstars of Multi-Sport Participation.
Last month (March 11) it was Plainwell High School senior Jessica Nyberg. This month’s “Superstar” is Saugatuck High School junior Blake Dunn, who is on course to earn 16 high school letters ... four years of four sports.
My first thought was that maybe four sports each school year is too many and might get in the way of academics. But Blake is carrying a 3.95 GPA so far; so he appears to have that priority in the right place.
My second thought was that he must be an abnormally large and gifted physical specimen. But no, Blake is a pretty normal 5-11, 180-pounder. It’s hard work that people have described as his secret sauce.
My third thought is that Blake is fortunate to have coaches who will accommodate his passions and be flexible with practice demands so that he can be a part of two teams at the same time during the spring and also during the inevitable overlap of seasons from fall to winter and winter to spring.
School sports is a team sport. It’s adults working together to allow students to learn and grow in a variety of activities. It’s placing adolescents’ needs above adults’ desires, which might be the secret sauce in promoting multi-sport participation.