Summer School Sports
October 14, 2014
We are talking statewide about changes in MHSAA policies that some constituents think are overdue but that many other constituents find are over the top. For example:
- Permitting MHSAA member junior high/middle schools to engage students prior to the 7th grade, and to schedule longer contests, more contests and even MHSAA Regional tournaments; and
- Permitting member school coaches to engage more with their student-athletes outside their defined school sports seasons.
From my perspective, these are the kinds of moves to make to assure a future for school-based sports, for wherever and whenever we have paused or imposed a restriction, there and then non-school coaches, programs and “handlers” have moved in; and some of them have not played nicely. And the more I’ve seen non-school currents pollute the waters of school sports, the less I’ve wanted to restrict the engagement of school coaches out of season or confine school sports to traditional seasons.
What we are talking about today are not only overdue changes, they are insufficient if we really want to return school sports to the central, most coveted and compelling sports experience for youth. To more certainly assure that future role, we should be doing more than merely adjusting our outdated junior high/middle school programming to fit the modern world where children begin to play at younger ages and compete at higher levels than is currently allowed for MHSAA member schools. Our 1950s philosophy for the junior high/middle school level does not fit 2014 reality.
But we shouldn’t stop there. We should also be rethinking and retooling the high school level with an innovative school-sponsored and conducted summer season that includes school seasons and MHSAA tournaments in ...
- Coed team tennis.
- Coed golf in the Ryder Cup format.
- Non-contact 7-on-7 football for boys, and flag football for girls.
And there obviously could be much more that would be fun and engaging and educational for our students.
Certainly, there will be objections, and most will center on finances. But if non-school sports have figured out ways to finance programs in what are now our off seasons, we too can figure out ways to pay for our new summertime programs.
Transfers
January 10, 2017
When it comes to transfers, the staff of the Michigan High School Athletic Association gets lots of advice, but it comes from opposing directions.
One camp thinks MHSAA rules are inadequate. This group suggests that we expand the basic period of ineligibility from approximately 90 days to 180 days and/or it wants the MHSAA to eliminate most or all exceptions that allow for immediate eligibility of a transfer student.
This first camp is so frustrated with high-profile athletic-motivated or related transfers that they want to clamp down on all transfers.
The other camp thinks parents have the right and responsibility to send their children to any school they wish and have immediate access to the full benefits of that school’s curricular and extracurricular offerings.
This second camp is encouraged by the laws of Michigan which have gradually extended “schools of choice” as an option that all school districts may exercise. And this camp will be emboldened if the Secretary of Education under the new regime in Washington, D.C. is the long-time schools of choice advocate who has been nominated by the President-Elect for this position.
This second camp is on the right side of history, no matter how much I dislike it and no matter how convinced I am that the better way to have improved public education would have been to invest more in neighborhood schools. Improving them builds most communities. Ignoring them, as we have for 25 years, sends surrounding communities into downward spirals that worsen poverty and public health.
The ill-advised efforts to improve education by enticing students out of their neighborhoods to attend schools elsewhere has undermined “local ownership” in schools; and it has had the side effect of encouraging more transfers motivated by or related to athletics. Monitoring and managing such transfers is made more difficult by these educational reforms; but the new world will not tolerate transfer rules that are seen as too broad and contrary to what has become public policy, however poorly conceived and executed.
The fact is, the future of the transfer rule will be less about extending its reach and more about retaining its existence.