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More than Fun and Games

September 24, 2014

Five years ago there were many skeptics when the MHSAA redesigned its website and included twice-weekly blogs by the executive director and active Facebook and Twitter pages as well as YouTube channels, and gave constituents and critics alike an opportunity to post comments. Some skeptics said we were being distracted with frivolous fun and games, and others said all this interaction would be a persistent source of problems.
In fact, for the MHSAA, this constituent engagement has been about much more than fun and games and it’s been a means to solve problems.
Our primary use of social media and other means of constituent engagement has been to drive people to high school events and to the MHSAA website where the distinctive messages of educational athletics would stand out.
Rather than creating problems, allowing the crowd to enter scores on MHSAA.com has led us to post more accurate scores more rapidly than when we depended on school coaches or administrators alone.
More recently we have been reviewing our event emergency plans and our office business continuation plans, which had been developed before social media became a fact of life; and now we are revising those documents to make social media the primary means of communication during such problems.
It is entirely through social media, primarily Facebook and YouTube – that the MHSAA has caused people to be talking about sportsmanship and inciting larger, more positive student and adult spectator sections at high school contests. That’s our award-winning “Battle of the Fans” that moves into its fourth year in 2014-15.

The Multi-Sport Difference

July 26, 2016

If there was ever a poster child for what it means to be a high school athlete, recent Williamston High School graduate Renee Sturm might be the person to feature. She has said and done exactly what we would hope.

In an era when increasing numbers of high school athletes are graduating midway through their senior year in order to get an early start with the college teams that have recruited them, Renee is a breath of fresh air.

After four years of volleyball and basketball at Williamston High School, Renee just hadn’t had enough of the high school sports experience. So she joined the school’s girls soccer team this past spring.

Now bound for Ferris State University where she is scheduled to play only basketball, Renee had this to say to the Lansing State Journal about why she decided to play soccer to conclude her high school sports career: “I wanted to do something different because playing different sports helps me grow ... I was just hoping to come in and play some.”

She didn’t seek to star, but to play ... to be a part of a different sport and team and group of teammates who would help her develop as an athlete and person.

The richest school sports experience is found in multi-sport participation, both starring and subbing, both losing and winning. That’s what best prepares young people for life.

I suspect this young lady is ready.