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Less Means More
June 4, 2013
About a decade ago a trend began that is nearly a tidal wave today. An exceptionally drastic act a decade ago is now an expected rite of each spring and summer. Beginning in April and extending to September, trained and experienced athletic directors leave their jobs, and no one really replaces them.
Casualties of burnout and buyouts – in either case caused by a reduction of discretionary resources for local schools – full-time athletic directors retire or resign or are reassigned. Replaced by part-time personnel or a school district employee with more hyphens in the job title than digits in the take-home pay.
The natural first reaction of the MHSAA was to think about ways to simplify and reduce the responsibilities it asks athletic directors to handle. To dumb-down the expectations, if you will.
But lately, we’ve realized that first reaction is the wrong response to the cutbacks at the local level. The better response – the necessary response – is for the MHSAA to both demand more and do more, in each case, to assure schools are maintaining a program worthy of the label “educational athletics.”
Here’s just some of what’s been happening as the MHSAA attempts to plug the holes that school districts have been opening in interscholastic athletic programs as they reallocate their precious resources:
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First-year athletic directors are required to attend an in-person orientation at the MHSAA. For other athletic directors, the MHSAA conducts league-based programs each August and six regional Athletic Director In-Service programs in September and October. For athletic department secretaries the MHSAA began a separate in-service program in 2012.
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Beginning in 2012-13, the MHSAA has provided athletic department management software to member high schools free of charge, and two dozen face-to-face training sessions have been conducted. The software is progressively integrating local tasks with MHSAA policies and procedures, both to reduce the workload and improve rules compliance at the local level.
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While frequent coaches meetings and meaningful mentoring were once the expectation of athletic directors, their lack of time and experience has resulted in less effective supervision of coaches. This led a decade ago to a retooling of the MHSAA’s coaching education program – the Coaches Advancement Program – which the MHSAA delivers anytime to school districts anywhere they can assemble their coaches. Currently, the MHSAA is advancing three enhancements to the preparation of coaches in the critical area of participant health and safety.
o On May 5, 2013, the Representative Council adopted the requirement beginning in 2014-15 that all assistant and subvarsity coaches complete the same online rules meeting as varsity head coaches or, in the alternative, one of the free online health and safety courses posted on MHSAA.com.
o The next two enhancements to be considered are (1) the requirement that all varsity head coaches hold current CPR certification (as of 2015-16); and (2) that all varsity head coaches hired on or after July 1, 2016 have completed CAP Level 1 or 2.
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The MHSAA’s adoption of a “Model Policy for Managing Heat & Humidity” is another example of pushing forward on critical issues of school sports and not assuming that under-resourced and understaffed school athletic departments will have the time to develop and adopt their own policies and procedures that are appropriate for school-based, student-centered sports.
As schools find they must do less, the MHSAA sees it must do more. That wasn’t the design for school sports in Michigan, but now the times demand it.
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Basketball Tournaments on the Move?
March 3, 2017
It is uncertain where the Michigan High School Athletic Association Boys and Girls Basketball Tournaments, currently at the Breslin Center of Michigan State University, will be conducted in 2018 and 2019; and after that, there are questions of when they will be conducted.
The most serious of several concerns is that MSU can no longer guarantee Breslin’s availability for the MHSAA Semifinals and Finals. This is the result of a change in the format of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament that assigns its 16 regionals to the top 16 seeded teams.
That schedule conflicts with the MHSAA Girls Basketball Semifinals and Finals in 2018 and 2020, and with the MHSAA Boys Basketball Semifinals and Finals in 2019.
In 2016, when MSU’s women’s basketball team was highly seeded, it had to travel to Mississippi State University because the MHSAA girls tournament was occupying Breslin. The contract that guarantees MHSAA priority ends with this year’s tournament, March 16-18.
The MHSAA is proceeding on two tracks. First, it has just distributed a “Request for Proposal” to MSU and other potential hosts for at least 2018 and 2019. There are options for venues to submit proposals for boys, girls or both.
Second, the MHSAA has begun what is likely to be a long discussion regarding dates. For example, if the girls season started and ended one week earlier, the NCAA conflict may not occur. However, this would likely require a one-week earlier end to the girls volleyball season in the fall, which some people have advocated but others are certain to oppose.
A flipside variation of this idea is to start and end boys basketball season two weeks earlier than is the case now, and to delay the start and end of girls basketball season by one week. This is a means of reducing the volleyball/basketball overlap for girls in November, and it would avoid that March weekend when the NCAA Division I women’s tournament can be a conflict.
Another option is to start the boys season one week earlier, extend the girls season one week later, and conduct the two tournaments simultaneously over four weeks – different days of the same weeks for Districts and Regionals; with Semifinals for both genders around the state on the weekend when the girls tournament has ended in the past; and then Finals for boys and girls at a single site on the Friday and Saturday when the boys tournament has traditionally ended.
Unless things change at the NCAA level, none of these models guarantees a schedule that is always free of conflicts with both the boys and girls MHSAA tournaments. Therefore, other innovative but possibly even more intrusive, changeable and tradition-breaking calendar adjustments could also be investigated that might provide a better long-term solution than merely changing venues.
Venue decisions are the responsibility of MHSAA management and should be made by early May. Calendar changes, if any, will be membership driven and may take more than 18 months to finalize.