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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.

The Safe Play Game Plan

April 21, 2015

On Feb. 10, bills were introduced into both the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives, together called the “Safe Play Act,” which addresses three of the four health and safety “H’s” described in my last posting: Heat, Hearts and Heads.
For each of these topics, the federal legislation would mandate that the director of the Centers for Disease Control develop educational material and that each state disseminate that material.
For the heat and humidity management topic, the legislation states that schools will be required to adopt policies very much like the “MHSAA Model Policy to Manage Heat and Humidity” which the MHSAA adopted in March of 2013.
For both the heart and heat topics, schools will be required to have and to practice emergency action plans like we have been promoting in the past and will be distributing to schools this summer.
For the head section, the legislation would amend Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments and would eliminate federal funding to states and to schools which fail to educate their constituents or fail to support students who are recovering from concussions. This support would require multi-disciplinary concussion management teams that would include medical personnel, parents and others to provide academic accommodations for students recovering from concussions that are similar to the accommodations that are already required of schools for students with disabilities or handicaps.
This legislation would require return-to-play protocols similar to what we have in Michigan, and the legislation would also require reporting and record-keeping that is beyond what occurs in most places.
This proposed federal legislation demonstrates two things. First, that we have been on target in Michigan with our four Hs – it’s like they read our playbook of priorities before drafting this federal legislation.
This proposed federal legislation also demonstrates that we still have some work to do.