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Second Half by MHSAA

Our Environment at Risk

October 18, 2011

My wife and I are passionate travelers.  We plan our own trips and we read about the history, music, art, government and food of the places we plan to visit.  I struggle to learn a few phrases to get by in other languages.

No matter how cramped airplanes have become and no matter how compromised we feel as we shed our belongings and submit to the frisking and fondling of airport security, we remain enthusiastic planners and pilgrims.  And the more exotic the destination, the more excited we are.

As we have traveled, it has been impossible to escape the realization that civilizations rise and fall; and it’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that one of the most compelling reasons why civilizations fail is that they ruin their environments.

Some civilizations have done this to themselves, poisoned their own environs; while other civilizations saw their environments contaminated by foreign influences.  Some were invaded by brute force; others peacefully introduced new customs or germs that weakened the people or their flora or fauna.

It is one or more of these influences that caused the Mayans, who built structures that still stun 21st century engineers, to be reduced from many millions to a few remnants.

The historical principle that civilizations collapse when their environments are contaminated is worth considering for our little niche in modern society:  the enterprise of school sports.

We cannot expect school sports to survive – these programs can only collapse – if we ruin the environment in which school sports breathes and lives.

This is an environment of comprehensive, community-based schools. 

But schools are losing both these characteristics – both their comprehensiveness and their community base.

That we have a few schools of narrow focus is reasonable; that we have a few schools of specialized populations is tolerable; that we have a few schools without strong neighborhood connection is acceptable. 

However, it does our neighborhoods no good, our communities no good, our state no good, nor our nation any good – in fact, in total, it does our nation much harm – as more and more schools trend further and further in these directions.

To abandon the school with comprehensive programs serving the invested neighborhood around it does us harm:  nation, state, community and child.

It is almost irrelevant that this is bad for high school athletics.  It’s bad for America.
 

Attendance on the Rise

December 23, 2016

One of the features of school sports that is unmatched by non-school youth sports travel teams is that school events usually draw crowds of spectators. Not just family members, but classmates and citizens of the local community are drawn to attend school sports events.

Among proof of the enduring importance and high profile of school-sponsored sports is that Michigan High School Athletic Association tournament attendance continues to climb despite all the distractions of modern society. Here are highlights reported by the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s Geoff Kimmerly in October:

  • Girls postseason events set a record for attendance for the third straight school year in 2015-16, and overall tournament attendance spiked to its highest total of the last five years.

  • Total attendance for 2015-16 was 1,484,095 fans, an increase of 6.8 percent over the previous year. Girls attendance was 473,241 fans, an increase of 10,141 (or 2.2 percent) over the record total from 2014-15. Boys attendance was 1,010,854 fans, a four-year high helped notably by an increased football crowd in 2015.

  • The third straight girls record showing got a boost from girls competitive cheer, which set an overall attendance record for the 13th straight season with 39,906 fans and also set attendance records at the Final (19,993) and District (12,867) levels. The track & field and bowling tournaments, which include attendance for girls and boys events combined, also set overall records. Track & field broke a 2011-12 record with 37,773 fans overall and a Regional record of 22,413, and bowling set an overall attendance record for the fifth straight season with 13,919 fans and a Regional record of 9,948.

  • Football attendance rebounded significantly after a snowy opening weekend in 2014 resulted in the lowest playoff attendance since the 256-team 11-player field was introduced in 1999. Overall football attendance jumped to a three-year high of 389,897, a 25.4 percent increase from the 2014 postseason and with increases seen at the Pre-District, District and Regional levels.

  • Ten more tournament series showed increases in total attendance over the 2014-15 school year: girls gymnastics (2.0 percent), girls softball (2.8 percent), baseball (0.5 percent), girls swimming & diving (12.7 percent), boys swimming & diving (14.6 percent), boys basketball (1.5 percent), girls and boys cross country (combined, 2.1 percent), boys soccer (2.4 percent), team wrestling (1.6 percent) and individual wrestling (1.7 percent) all saw increases in overall attendance from the previous school year. Girls Volleyball fell just shy of equaling the previous year’s record, drawing 110,638 fans, a decrease of 293 from the 2014 season but still the second-most since records first were kept in 1990-91. Girls volleyball did, however, set attendance records at the Regional (26,445) and Semifinal (4,765) levels of the tournament.

  • The Boys Basketball Finals draw of 47,407 was a five-year high and a 16.9 percent increase from 2014-15. The Girls Basketball Finals drew 22,301 fans, the most for a Semifinals/Finals weekend since 2004-05 and an increase of 12 percent over 2014-15. Girls basketball’s overall tournament attendance of 169,523 was a decrease of 1.2 percent from 2014-15, but still the second-highest attendance for the sport since 2005-06.

  • Overall girls softball attendance increased for the third straight year to 44,515, the highest total since the record-setting spring of 1994-95.

  • Team Wrestling Regionals reached a seven-year high and individual wrestling’s rise was fueled by increases at all three levels of that tournament, including five-year highs at the Regional and Final levels.

  • Boys Soccer Finals drew 4,906 fans, the most for that event since 2007-08.

Not included in these figures are those who attend MHSAA tournaments in golf, skiing and tennis for which admission typically is not charged and likely pushed the total attendance over 1.5 million for the 2015-16 school year.