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Mountaintop Experience

May 15, 2018

Thinking that I’m younger than my almost 70 years, many people assume that I have another job lined up after my retirement in August. My response has been that if I needed or wanted to work full time, I would not leave the employment of the Michigan High School Athletic Association. It’s the best job – at least for me – in America.

Strong staff, supportive board, comfortable conditions, good benefits and – most of all – great mission. I’ve been at the top of the mountain; why would I ever go anywhere else?

And speaking of mountains ...

I depart for Peru next week to hike the Inca Trail. It’s not a long trek – 31 miles over four days – but there’s thousands of feet of up and down to deal with at very high altitude.

For a brief time I’ll be trading one mountaintop experience – serving the MHSAA – for another – hiking to Machu Picchu.

Sport Sponsorship Should Be Up

March 25, 2016

MHSAA member schools plan to sponsor significantly more sports during 2016-17 than they indicated a year ago they would sponsor in 2015-16.

As of March 8, with only one more member school than at the same time in 2015-16:

  • Lower Peninsula Track & Field expects 16 more boys teams and 12 more girls teams next year than this year.

  • Bowling anticipates 15 more boys teams and 11 more girls teams.

  • In LP Golf, the anticipated increase is 12 girls teams, but a decline of 5 boys teams.

  • In LP Cross Country, the growth is projected to be 7 teams for each gender.

  • Girls Competitive Cheer and Girls Volleyball each expect 5 more teams next year; both Boys Lacrosse and Girls Lacrosse plan on 4 more teams; in skiing, it’s 5 more girls teams and 3 more boys teams; in LP Soccer it’s 4 additional boys teams and 2 additional girls teams. Baseball may be up 4 schools, while girls softball expects no change. Football expects a net gain of 4 schools; in Basketball, boys may grow by 2 schools, and no change is the current projection for girls.

  • In LP Tennis, girls now expect a 1-team decline; but boys could continue its dramatic slide, down another 9 schools next year.

The overall theme may be that, no matter how much schools are struggling for resources and resorting to outside funding, they value the high school brand of sports. They see school sports as a magnet for attracting students and an igniter of positive school and community spirit. In short, sports make most schools better.