Storm Surge
September 29, 2017
We have all been glued to our video devices for gruesome scenes from hurricane-ravaged portions of this hemisphere. In terms of scope and duration, the devastation is unlike anything any of us can remember so close to home; and it’s hard to say this ... including Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Within a few weeks of destruction in Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005, the Michigan High School Athletic Association had established procedures for expediting the consideration of athletic eligibility of students who had evacuated uninhabitable areas and arrived in our communities without the usual records required to establish athletic eligibility in MHSAA member schools.
On Sept. 6 of this year, the MHSAA Executive Committee revisited the 2005 experience and set a course for making eligibility decisions for evacuees from Texas, Florida and other locations, should they arrive in Michigan communities. Key elements for making favorable eligibility decisions are:
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The student’s previous school has ceased to operate.
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The student’s previous residence is uninhabitable. Dwellings are presumed to have been uninhabitable for at least a brief time in specific zip codes to be designated.
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The student has been ordered to evacuate from his/her previous community.
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The student has relocated to Michigan in a permanent type of housing (not hotel) with his/her parents or only living parent and has enrolled at the public school serving that residence, the closest public school academy to the residence, or the closest nonpublic school to the new residence, pursuant to Interpretation 62.
Should Michigan schools receive a surge of storm victims this fall, we are prepared to act quickly on athletic eligibility.
Advancing CPR
November 24, 2015
This fall was the first for the requirement that all high school varsity head coaches have current certification in CPR.
If a coach was not CPR certified by the deadline (which was Sept. 17), that coach could not coach at or even be present at the MHSAA tournament where his/her team would be participating.
Only three of the MHSAA’s 750 member high schools failed to comply with that requirement. That’s progress.
But what we also hoped for was that schools which were not already doing so would use this new requirement as a means of providing or requiring CPR certification for assistant and subvarsity coaches as well. And it appears we’ve made some progress on this as well.
Of 640 responses received so far, 80 percent of schools arranged in-person CPR training for all high school varsity head coaches, and 67 percent included assistant and subvarsity coaches in this in-person training.
In the future, the MHSAA Representative Council will be considering refinements of the CPR requirement in order to increase the quantity of certified coaches and improve the quality of programs that are approved to fulfill the requirement. Continuing progress is imperative.