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Money Matters

January 14, 2014

Every once in a while someone will take a potshot at the MHSAA by saying the organization is motivated by money.

My colleagues in leadership of high school associations in other states probably would get a chuckle out of reading that criticism because the reputation of the MHSAA and this executive director is the opposite. We’re seen as the conservative stick-in-the-muds who oppose national tournaments and promotions in spite of the money that could be made from them.

Here’s a good checklist to determine if “the almighty dollar” motivates a high school association:

  1. Does the association co-title its tournaments with the name of commercial sponsors?
  2. Do the association’s events, publications and websites look like a NASCAR production with corporate logos plastered everywhere?
  3. Does the association seed its basketball tournaments or gerrymander brackets to allow the teams with the better records (and usually larger crowds) to avoid playing each other for as long into the tournament as possible?
  4. Does the association charge admission prices that are more than a fraction of college and professional ticket prices, or just equal to the cost of a movie?

One or more “Yes” answers doesn’t mean an association has sold out; but if all answers are “No,” you can be sure that the association has other purposes for its decisions than making money.

And “No” is the correct answer to these questions in Michigan. In fact, the full answer to No. 4 is that the MHSAA has not raised ticket prices for either basketball or football at either the District or Regional tournament level for more than a decade.

Storm Surge

September 29, 2017

We have all been glued to our video devices for gruesome scenes from hurricane-ravaged portions of this hemisphere. In terms of scope and duration, the devastation is unlike anything any of us can remember so close to home; and it’s hard to say this ... including Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Within a few weeks of destruction in Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005, the Michigan High School Athletic Association had established procedures for expediting the consideration of athletic eligibility of students who had evacuated uninhabitable areas and arrived in our communities without the usual records required to establish athletic eligibility in MHSAA member schools.

On Sept. 6 of this year, the MHSAA Executive Committee revisited the 2005 experience and set a course for making eligibility decisions for evacuees from Texas, Florida and other locations, should they arrive in Michigan communities. Key elements for making favorable eligibility decisions are:

  1. The student’s previous school has ceased to operate.

  2. The student’s previous residence is uninhabitable. Dwellings are presumed to have been uninhabitable for at least a brief time in specific zip codes to be designated.

  3. The student has been ordered to evacuate from his/her previous community.

  4. The student has relocated to Michigan in a permanent type of housing (not hotel) with his/her parents or only living parent and has enrolled at the public school serving that residence, the closest public school academy to the residence, or the closest nonpublic school to the new residence, pursuant to Interpretation 62.

Should Michigan schools receive a surge of storm victims this fall, we are prepared to act quickly on athletic eligibility.