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.
Broadening the Scope
September 8, 2017
There are two categories of projects that deserve most of our attention in school sports, no matter where or on what level we work. They are important either because they deal with chronic problems or because they address core principles.
Among many, the chronic problems include declining numbers of registered officials and increasing numbers of athletic transfers, as well as football scheduling. It is mostly because these are persistent problems for many at the local level that they have become priorities for MHSAA management’s time and attention.
Addressing chronic problems can often feel like walking a treadmill. We can work up a sweat, but get nowhere. Arrive at no new and better place. But the effort is important and may keep things from getting worse. Which is why many hours are being spent on these three chronic problems this year: officials, transfers and scheduling.
Of potentially greater value and lasting impact are the projects most directly addressing core principles of educational athletics, such as sportsmanship, health and safety and the scope of our programs. Backsliding on these topics can be most damaging to school-sponsored sports, and the damage – or missed opportunity – can have devastating future effects.
So, while we deal with the chronic issues of the day, we are devoting ourselves daily to more effective sportsmanship resources, even more enhancements for promoting participant health and safety, and increasing the scope of school sports in ways that are consistent with the core values of educational athletics.
School sports does not need longer seasons and travel. It does not need more games and hype. In these ways, the scope of school sports is just fine ... consistent with the objectives of the sponsoring organizations – schools – which is to educate young people. Academics before athletics.
Where school sports must consider a larger scope is in who the programs are serving. There is both need and opportunity to reach younger students and provide more service and support to junior high/middle school sports – the feeder system of educational athletics.
There is both need and opportunity to reach students with athletic interests outside the 14 MHSAA tournament sports the MHSAA provides girls and the 14 for boys. Many thousands more students want to participate in other sports – the sports of their passion – under their school’s banner and in MHSAA tournaments. There may also be both need and opportunity to involve more students with disabilities in school-sponsored sports programs.
The scope is just fine for the sports we sponsor. Broadening the scope of whom we serve is a core principle project that deserves our attention.