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The Power of the MIAAA
March 15, 2018
Athletic directors from all corners of Michigan are gathering this weekend for the annual conference of the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association. This MIAAA might be the most powerful organization of its kind in the USA.
The MIAAA is powerful in its professionalism, in its commitment to ongoing professional training for its members.
Michigan has ranked consistently among the top states in the number of NIAAA Leadership Training Courses completed by interscholastic athletic administrators. The MIAAA attracts a higher percentage of its members to its annual conference than most states. And the MIAAA also conducts a smaller workshop for its members in late June and a leadership academy especially for newcomers to the profession early each August.
The MIAAA is powerful in its partnerships, most of all in its connections to the Michigan High School Athletic Association. Most of the MIAAA’s board meetings are in the MHSAA’s facility. The majority of the MHSAA’s Representative Council are MIAAA members. Many MHSAA staff participate in MIAAA programs, and many MIAAA members serve on MHSAA committees. There is a powerful synonymy as we pull in the same direction to serve school sports in Michigan.
This winter, as we watched a member school go off the rails over a transfer student’s eligibility, we were given a reminder of the power of professionalism and partnerships in the conduct of both personal and corporate affairs. While poison spewed from that school and two celebrity attorneys, the MHSAA kept a low profile and stayed on the high road. We worried less about defending ourselves and more about encouraging others to defend the policies and procedures they had adopted for school sports in Michigan. As usual, the MIAAA and many of its individual members led the effort.
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Injuries and Specialization
December 29, 2017
Editor's Note: This blog originally was posted July 6, 2010, and the topic continues to be of prime concern today.
There’s an excellent website to which we now link from the health and safety page of MHSAA.com. It’s stopsportsinjuries.org.
Under “Sports Injury Prevention,” in each of a dozen categories from baseball to volleyball, are numerous articles about injury prevention and treatment and additional resources.
The website is the most public presence so far for a campaign begun in 2007 by the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM).
Sports Illustrated in June quoted AOSSM’s president, Dr. James R. Andrews, as saying the focus is really on youth sports and overuse injuries. “I don’t think epidemic is too strong a word,” said Dr. Andrews. “We’re seeing kids hurt before they even have a chance to become athletes.
“You just have this enormous pressure nowadays on kids to play that one sport year-round.
“Encourage your child to be involved in more than one sport. Cross-training helps develop their bodies. Don’t allow your child to play in more than one league in the same sport in the same season. That’s how they get burned out.”