The Scholar-Athlete Profile
February 11, 2014
We are well aware that the multi-sport athlete is not as common today as a decade or two ago, but the species is far from extinct. And for the foreseeable future, the policies and procedures of educational athletics will be tailored much more to their needs than to the single-sport specialist.
There were 1,701 applications for MHSAA Scholar-Athlete Awards this year. Of the 120 finalists, 75 are three-sport participants. The average sport participation rate of the 1,701 applicants is 2.16 sports, while the 120 finalists average 2.70 sports.
All 1,701 applicants met the minimum required 3.50 grade point average during their busy lives as student-athletes and all-around student leaders. All found the time to complete the required 500-word essay on the importance of sportsmanship in educational athletics.
Thirty-two of the 120 finalists have been judged by a statewide committee to receive $1,000 scholarships underwritten by Farm Bureau Insurance. This is the 25th year of the MHSAA’s partnership in this program with Farm Bureau, a program that emphasizes the importance of well-rounded students who excel in the classroom.
These 32 students are a justifiable point of pride for their schools and families. All 1,701 are representative of our goals at the MHSAA. For more on the Scholar-Athlete program click here.
No Easy Fix
February 13, 2015
“If we don’t fix this problem, even our friends and allies may turn against us.”
That was the dire warning one of the MHSAA staff members gave to the rest of us at a weekly staff meeting recently, during which this staff member was receiving emails from people appalled over the mid-season transfer of a basketball player from one school to another.
The “fix” that some people want is a rule that makes every transfer student ineligible for a full year, regardless of the reason for the change of schools or the circumstances of the student. Of course, that rule would never survive judicial scrutiny, and legislators in every corner of the state would be advocating change for the sake of one child or another.
A more moderate remedy is to utilize a rule that applies the full-year period of ineligibility to those students whose circumstances do not fit one of the already established 15 exceptions that make a student eligible without delay following a transfer. That half-measure would not stop many transfers that would still frustrate people, and it would snag many transfers that would continue to anger people.
The rules we already have in place are tools for schools to use to stop many of the transfers that frustrate without snaring those transfers that anger: the athletic-motivated transfer rule and especially the athletic-related transfer rule (or links law).
Before our friends and allies turn their backs on us, they need to turn in the transfer situations where the rules already apply, and the undue influence (recruiting) they can document. They need to give the system a chance to work to the full extent of its potential. We should not make tougher rules if schools fail to utilize the rules they already have.
Adopting rules is usually easy for the organization. Applying rules is often much harder for the schools.