![](/sites/default/files/imported/DirectorSig2H.jpg)
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:
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
![](/sites/default/files/imported/DirectorSig2H.jpg)
Sixth-Grade Status
August 12, 2016
Membership Resolutions for the Michigan High School Athletic Association for the 2016-17 school year are now due. This is an annual rite of summer for school boards and governing bodies, intended to be a time when those entities recommit to following all the rules, all the time.
A new wrinkle in the routine is the opportunity to include 6th-graders in middle school membership. Approximately two-thirds of member middle schools are doing so.
What is not known to us through the Membership Resolution process is how those 6th-graders will be involved – where the school will have separate 6th-grade teams and where 6th-graders will be part of teams for 7th- and/or 8th-graders.
Junior high/middle schools which join the MHSAA at the 6th-grade level may allow 6th-graders to participate with 7th- and 8th-graders in individual sports (e.g., bowling, cross country, track & field, swimming & diving, tennis and wrestling). With the approval of their middle school leagues, this may occur also in team sports.
The MHSAA’s Junior High/Middle School Committee will depart from other standing committees by meeting twice during 2016-17 and subsequent school years. Its full agenda will include a review of how 6th-graders are being accommodated by middle schools and their leagues.
All of this is under the over-arching goal to involve more students in school-sponsored sports at younger ages, and to capture their interests and meet their needs within the philosophies of educational athletics.