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Stacking

December 19, 2014

Many in the interscholastic tennis community of this state have complained for years about the unethical practices of a small number of coaches who “stack” their lineups so that their better players compete in lower flights to increase their chances of success in advancing and earning points for their teams.
The current meet scoring system, which fails to reward teams for placing players at the highest levels, invites the problem. Appealing to personal integrity works with most coaches, but not all; so the issue of stacking festers, and it frustrates many coaches.
Hearing this pain, in 2009 the MHSAA convened a group of tennis coaches to discuss stacking. We utilized a paid professional facilitator. One obvious outcome was very little support to solve the problem by restructuring the tennis meet scoring system to disincentivize stacking.
The simple solution – to modify the meet scoring system to provide more team points for Number 1 singles than Number 2, and for Number 2 more than Number 3, etc. – was a double fault with the clear majority of the coaches assembled in 2009.
Of course, simple solutions rarely are so simple. And with this scoring system solution comes the likelihood that stronger teams move even further out of reach of their challengers. Other critics are uncomfortable with giving one student-athlete a higher potential team point value than another.
If those and other objections are the prevailing sentiment, then a new scoring system won’t be in our future. And stacking still will be.

Partners in Promotion

March 28, 2017

The Michigan High School Athletic Association and State Champs Sports Network are joining forces during the coming school year to define what school sports are, defend what they stand for, and distribute that message on a collective platform across the state every weekend, 12 months a year.

Beginning this fall, State Champs Metro Detroit-based high school football show “Extra Point” will move to Fox Sports Detroit on Saturday mornings and become the “MHSAA Extra Point.” Throughout the entire football season, this 30-minute show will feature a variety of statewide football highlights utilizing the expansive bank of State Champs Sports Network camera crews. This will also give a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students to have specially selected highlights reaching as many as 3.5 million homes. But only those MHSAA member schools participating in the School Broadcast Program will have that exclusive opportunity.

The longest running all-sports high school sports show in state history, “State Champs High School Sports Show” on Fox Sports Detroit, airs Sunday morning, nearly 40 times a year. Now, every episode will feature the MHSAA Minute – talking everything in the life of the association from coaches education to health and safety, officiating, breaking news and more.

We’ll also have special programming where we dig into the MHSAA vaults to bring old games, coaches and players back to life on State Champs Legends. We’ll also tackle important topics and issues in school sports, with the first special coming this August when “Concussions and the Modern Athlete” will focus on head injury and its impact in high school sports.

Every football Friday night, “State Champs Scoreboard” radio show airs on the number one ranked 97.1 – The Ticket in Detroit. Now, in partnership with the expansive MHSAA Network, affiliate stations across the state will jump on board to simulcast. During the winter we’ll take it all online for a Friday night statewide basketball show on Facebook live.

Finally, plans are in the works to further grow the next generation of sports media and production professionals. Working in conjunction with PlayOn Sports, a State Champs Sports Network crew will work hand in hand with high school students, conducting live demonstrations of the MHSAA School Broadcast Program by live streaming an event from their school.

In an era where high school sports coverage is at its lowest point in state history, a new team will continue to spotlight the life lessons school sports teach our children. This partnership between the State Champs Network and the MHSAA will do more than ever to champion that message.