Rethinking Spring
May 5, 2014
Those states that conduct high school softball in the fall of the year or conduct high school baseball during the summer months may be laughing at our attempts to force these summer games into the least hospitable season of all for school sports: spring.
After an extra-long winter, there has needed to be extra attention during early season baseball practices and games to assure that throwing arms have been brought gradually into condition for the rigors of a year that is likely to compress a full schedule of games into a shortened playing season.
While baseball pitchers continue to be protected during games by a rule that does not allow a student to pitch for two calendar days that follow the day when he pitched his 30th out, no other players are similarly restricted, nor are there any rules that apply to any players during practices, or to softball.
Meanwhile, Major League Baseball recently reported an increase in elbow injuries among its players. Some commentators, both inside MLB and out, were quick to suggest that at least part of the blame is that pitchers are throwing harder than ever, doing so on a year-round basis, and starting at an earlier age.
It could be, then, that long winters are not such a bad thing, provided we’re patient when spring finally arrives, and use common sense for all players all season long, in both practices and games.
We look forward to the culmination of this year’s reluctant spring when the MHSAA hosts the Semifinals and Finals of both baseball and softball at a new venue, Michigan State University. Hope you’ll join us June 12-14.
A Change Narrative
October 13, 2017
Here are five points to describe the essence of possible changes being processed by the Michigan High School Athletic Association for its transfer rule.
-
We would move from a rule designed years ago for three-sport athletes to a rule that’s equally effective for regulating single-sport athletes.
-
We would be treating all sports the same, regardless of season – fall, winter, spring. No longer would the transfer rule have a greater impact on winter sport athletes than fall or spring sport athletes.
-
We would be getting out of the way of more “school of choice” parents who want to move a child from one school to another. If the student has not played a particular high school sport before, then eligibility is immediate in that sport ... at any level, and without any MHSAA Executive Committee action.
-
We would be causing students who have played a high school sport (and their parents) to pause before they transfer. They would miss the next season in that sport unless one of the 15 stated exceptions to the transfer rule applies. (There is significant sentiment that this apply only to students who have played previously at the varsity level – i.e., if the student has participated previously only at the subvarsity level in a sport, that student could transfer and remain eligible at the subvarsity level; but this would be allowed one time only.)
-
We would make it even tougher on students (and their parents) to circumvent the athletic-motivated and athletic-related transfer rules by eliminating the automatic residency exception in those special cases. (This is the most hotly debated of the changes being considered.)
The theme is “get out of the way of the benign transfers and get still tougher on the really bad ones.”