Not the Critic
February 22, 2014
It is predictable; and it’s petty, not profound. Almost without exception, when a rule is enforced in one situation, the MHSAA will be criticized for not pursuing a similar penalty in other cases.
Of course, the critic is apt to draw parallels where they don’t exist. The critic is likely to assume facts that are not correct, and likely to call for the MHSAA to apply rules that the critic misunderstands, and to assess penalties that are in no one’s authority to impose. The critic can be unbothered by truth, accuracy and accountability. We cannot.
To be honest, MHSAA staff members have often been frustrated that the rules as they are written have no way to stop a particular transfer, or that people will not give testimony to enable a finding of undue influence. The reality is that rules cannot be written to stop everything bad without interfering with very much that is not bad.
And it is equally true that many people who have condemning information do not have the courage to share that information. And that some school administrators are too busy to get involved in such messiness. And that other school administrators are only too happy to have a malcontent athlete or parent move to another school.
Even at risk of irritating member school colleagues, the MHSAA ignores no allegations of violations by its member schools, their personnel or their students, even though we know that very many will be without merit – sometimes an innocent misunderstanding, other times a personal vendetta. And we know there may be just as many situations going unnoticed by or unreported to MHSAA staff.
And we also know that even when we do our job and we get it right – which is almost all the time – we may still be criticized by those who either have a personal agenda or do not have all the facts.
What is also true but unknown to the critic is the frequency with which MHSAA staff works proactively with schools to avoid problems, and how often MHSAA staff works privately with schools which self-report and quickly penalize their own constituents. A high percentage of violations have little publicity because we are intentional in efforts to keep a low profile for the unsavory side of educational athletics, and to keep the spotlight on the achievements of young people.
Seeking Input on Seeding
November 21, 2017
Seeding is a part of some levels of some Michigan High School Athletic Association tournaments, but no part of any level of MHSAA tournaments for other sports. The decisions are made sport-by-sport and level-by-level after sufficient understanding of a specific plan and broad support.
Seeding deals with logistics, not a fundamental value of educational athletics. It gets outsized attention for its importance, having nothing to do with the interactions that lead to learning and growing in interscholastic athletics. It’s another byproduct of the ever-increasing influence of the pervasively promoted and televised NCAA’s basketball tournaments over the past 25 years.
Michigan’s high school sport most engaged in the topic now is, in fact, basketball. Discussions and surveys have been conducted regarding seeding at MHSAA District tournaments.
We’ve learned this summer and fall that a majority of our local school athletic directors favor seeding and do not think it will make regular-season scheduling more difficult nor cause coaches to delay or diminish substituting during regular season games.
We’ve learned that a majority favor a system that maintains geographically determined District tournaments and merely separates the top two seeded teams in each District, and continues to use a blind draw to place other teams assigned to the District on the bracket.
We’ve learned that a majority favors having the best two teams determined primarily through objective criteria assessed by an MHSAA created or controlled ranking system.
We’ve learned that while the majority favors these moves toward District seeding, there are significant pockets of opposition to any seeding at all in MHSAA basketball tournaments. At two of six Athletic Director In-Service meetings and at two of seven Update meetings in September and October, large majorities in attendance opposed seeding of District basketball tournaments; and voters were nearly evenly split at several other meeting sites.
The discernible pattern is that seeding loses support as one moves out of the more densely populated areas of Michigan. We need to better understand why this is so, and what’s behind these regional or demographic preferences; then have the Representative Council make a decision at its meeting in March or May; and get this topic decided one way or the other.
There is so much else that is so much more important than seeding to the health of school-sponsored basketball that deserves the attention that seeding has been getting.