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New World, New Needs

October 3, 2017

The core of our current transfer rule was debated by a predecessor organization 20 years before the Michigan High School Athletic Association existed, in 1904. The MHSAA’s first handbook stated the rule in 1925: a one-semester wait to play after a change of schools, unless accompanied by a residential change by the student and parents or guardians. A one-semester wait, with one exception.

In 1971, the number of stated exceptions went from one to twelve.

It’s in 1981 when sentiment seemed to shift toward a harder line when the exception from a “broken home” approved by both school principals was toughened to require a completed divorce decree and a form signed by both principals and the MHSAA executive director.

When the transfer rule was adopted, the world was different than today. In 1904, 1925, 1971, even 1981, it was both a different society and youth sports landscape.

There were many more three-sport athletes then than today and many more three-sport coaches. There were many fewer non-school youth sports programs then than now, and many fewer nonfaculty coaches. And, of course, there was no school of choice.

Increasing year-round single-sport specialization by both students and coaches; ubiquitous specialized sports camps, clinics, trainers, travel teams and leagues – where both students and parents are making friends; more reliance on drop-in, nonfaculty coaches for school teams; and expanding open enrollment laws have combined to change our world.

And they combine to suggest the need for more changes in the MHSAA transfer rule.

Internal Medicine

March 20, 2018

When I express concerns for the health of high school basketball, I’m not confusing our problems with the corruption of major college men’s basketball that is under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yes, there are some tentacles that reach us, and taint us; but the problems that plague us most are more basic and local.

The concerns I have for high school basketball are captured in scenes that play out much too often across the membership of the Michigan High School Athletic Association. For example:

  • Declining participation, with JV and varsity rosters too small to practice 5-on-5 at either level.

  • Increasing forfeits.

  • Ugly mismatches, with scores so lopsided that it is hard to imagine much teaching or learning can occur.

  • Starters transferring; reserves dropping out.

  • Confrontations between parents and coaches.

  • Faculty coaches becoming a vanishing breed.

These kinds of concerns do not flow from the top down – we can’t blame these issues on the NCAA and NBA. No, our more persistent and perplexing problems percolate up from the youth level.

Often the students who come to our programs have participated in youth sports programs for five to 10 years before they join a school team. They arrive with expectations that often differ from what is intended for school-based programs. They’ve been in a different environment; they have different expectations.

And much of what is coming with youth sports begins to infect school sports. 

There is no vaccination that will be 100 percent effective in immunizing us. There is no single solution that can quickly reverse these negative trends in school-based basketball and other school sports. The efforts must be systemic and long-term. And among the efforts that must be made are these

  • More attention to coaches education – every coach, every year – where the ethics of educational athletics and the meaning of success in school sports provide the core of the curriculum; and

  • More attention to junior high/middle schools – more opportunities for 6th- through 8th-graders to sample school sports and to savor an experience that puts team before individual and learning ahead of winning.