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Sixth-Graders’ Place

October 4, 2013

Historically, the popular opinion among educators has held that 7th and 8th grade is early enough for schools to provide competitive athletics, early enough to put youth into the competitive sports arena, early enough to pit one school against another in sports.

Today, however, many educators and parents point out that such protective philosophies and policies were adopted about the same time “play days” were considered to be the maximum exertion females should experience in school sports. Some administrators and coaches argue that both our severe limits on contest limits at the junior high/middle school level, and our refusal to serve 6th-graders, are as out of date and inappropriate as play days for females.

Today, in more than three of four school districts with MHSAA member schools, 6th-graders go to school in the same building with 7th- and 8th-graders. But MHSAA rules don’t allow 6th-graders to participate with and against 7th- and 8th-graders. In fact, the MHSAA Constitution doesn’t even acknowledge that 6th-graders exist.

Today, in many places, 6th-graders have aged-out of non-school, community sports, but they are not permitted to play on MHSAA junior high/middle school teams.

Last school year, 50 different school districts requested this rule be waived for them, and the MHSAA Executive Committee approved 46 of 50 waivers, allowing 6th-graders to compete on 7th- and 8th-grade teams. During 2011-12, 37 of 40 requests for waiver were approved, in all cases for small junior high/middle schools.

Many school districts choose not to join the MHSAA at the junior high/middle school level because of this issue – because 6th-graders can’t play with 7th- and 8th-graders. Just as many school districts choose not to join because MHSAA contest limitations are too restrictive at the junior high/middle school level.

Leadership Impressions - #1 (The Double Win)

June 8, 2018

I have tried to treat the staff I’ve hired at the Michigan High School Athletic Association the way I wanted to be treated as a staff member before I came to the MHSAA as executive director. I wanted to be given a job and be allowed to run with it, without interference.

This dislike I have for micromanagement turned out to be a double win. Staff have enjoyed their freedom, and I’ve enjoyed mine. By not spending time overseeing and second-guessing staff, the executive director has had time to work on other matters.

Those other matters have sometimes turned out to be unique and defining features of the MHSAA. For example:

  • The only state high school association to publish an issued-focused magazine, benchmarks.

  • The only state high school association to conduct a face-to-face, multi-level coaches education program anytime, anywhere across the state, the Coaches Advancement Program.

  • The only state high school association to conduct the true sport of girls competitive cheer.

  • The only state high school association to mandate reporting of all suspected concussions in practices or competition for all sports by all member high schools.

  • The only state high school association to pay for concussion care “gap” insurance for all students in grades 6 through 12, at no cost to schools or families.

  • The only state high school association with a Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation.

But at least as often, this time for reflection has helped the association identify areas of weakness that could be turned into strengths. For example:

  • It allowed us to be among the nation’s earliest adopters of concussion protocols, and then to see the need to appoint a task force to address contact/collision exposure during football practice.

  • It allowed us to be among the earliest adopters of regular-season recommendations and postseason requirements for managing high heat and humidity.

  • It allowed us to move from the back of the room to nearly head of the class in terms of state high school association health and safety training requirements for coaches.

It was only because the MHSAA operated with a talented and empowered staff that the executive director could devote time to the NFHS Network during the past five years, serving as the Network board chairman during its first five years of operation. This forward-looking initiative is arguably the most effective platform the National Federation of State High School Associations has ever had for promoting school-based sports and the values of educational athletics.

A hands-off, lead-by-example leadership style unlocks the time leaders need to look down the road and around the corner, to try to separate trendy fad from fundamental trend.

Sports is a slave to defined season and contest starting and stopping points that promote routine. But in today’s world, school sports requires anything but routine thinking. And breaking from routine thinking demands that high school athletic association leaders leave their staff alone and replace as many supervisory hours as possible with opportunities to learn from people in other places working in other disciplines ... and then to disrupt our routines with some of those ideas.