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Sweating the Small Stuff - #2
June 1, 2018
Seeding of Michigan High School Athletic Association tournaments, especially basketball and ice hockey, is a topic that routinely finds its way to MHSAA Representative Council agendas.
In May of 2017, the Council rejected a comprehensive proposal to seed the District and Regional levels of MHSAA Basketball Tournaments; but the Council instructed MHSAA staff to examine ideas for limited seeding at the District level only, using an MHSAA-controlled system.
In May of 2017, it appeared there was a small number of Council members who supported the proposal submitted for that meeting by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan, and that there were two larger groups – one open to seeding on a more limited basis than BCAM proposed and another group opposed to seeding of any scope by any system.
MHSAA staff responded to the Council’s request by presenting in March of this year and again in May a plan for seeding only the top two teams of each District, to which teams would continue to be assigned by geographic proximity, and then placing top seeds on brackets that would assure those two teams could not meet until the District Finals.
The staff provided answers to the many obvious policy and practical questions, including the system to be used, the games to be included and the placement of teams on brackets.
The effort to arm the Council with these answers had the effect of turning some advocates into opponents of seeding. It was as if the more questions staff anticipated with answers, the more people objected to the plan.
This brought defeat to the plan to seed basketball Districts, and the same to plans to seed ice hockey Regionals and Semifinals.
The questions now are: Do we vote on a fully vetted plan, knowing the details before we move forward; or do we buy a pig in a poke, voting in a concept without details, surprising others and ourselves with how seeding would be implemented? And do we vote on anything at all until we have answered the large philosophical questions as well as the dozens of smaller practical questions that seeding requires we address.
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Concussion Concerns
May 29, 2012
The MHSAA has been concerned for many years with the need for heightened awareness of concussions. For example:
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In 2000 the laminated card “Head Injury Guide for Trainers and Coaches,” provided by St. Johns Health Systems, was distributed in quantities to every MHSAA member school.
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The following fall, 20,000 laminated “Management of Concussions in Sports” cards, a joint project of the American Academy of Neurology and the Brain Injury Association of Michigan, were distributed to schools.
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In the summer of 2005 the video “Concussions and Second Impact Syndrome” was provided at no cost to every MHSAA member high school.
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In the fall of 2007 the DVD “Sports Head Injury,” a project of Henry Ford Health Systems, was provided to every MHSAA member junior high/middle school and high school.
All of this and many other efforts have been provided at no cost to our member schools, and continue to be provided at no cost to these cash-strapped institutions.
In 2010, the MHSAA adopted strong return-to-play protocols for students with concussions and suspected of being concussed. Under our rule, any athlete who exhibits signs, symptoms or behaviors consistent with a concussion must be removed from competition. Furthermore, our rule clearly states that if a student is removed from play due to a suspected concussion, that student cannot return to play that day and must be cleared in writing by an MD or DO prior to returning on any later day. And the rule has a strong enforcement mechanism: if a school allows a concussed student to return to play without the written authorization of an MD or DO, that is the same as playing an ineligible athlete and results in forfeiture of the contest.
The MHSAA’s website posts training tools for athletes, parents and coaches, including those of the Centers for Disease Control, and three free online courses – one from CDC, one from the National Federation of State High School Associations and the third from Michigan NeuroSport at the University of Michigan. The “Parent’s Guide to Concussion in Sports” has been widely distributed to school administrators, coaches, students and parents.
During this school year alone, nearly 20,000 high school coaches and officials will complete a rules meeting requirement that, beyond basic playing rules, is dominated by information regarding head trauma prevention, recognition and after care.
We welcome help in this effort from professional sports organizations. However, if professional sport leagues want to make a meaningful contribution to this topic in this state and other states, they must do more to change the culture of their programs. All of our collective efforts on this topic are undermined when a professional player gets his “bell rung” in a nationally-televised game and returns later to that game, or is carried off the field or court one day and returns to play the next. These nationally-televised tragedies-in-waiting may send the message to our youngest athletes and their parents and coaches that concussions are not serious.
This is not merely a football issue. For us, it’s also an issue for soccer, ice hockey, wrestling, lacrosse and almost every sport we serve. Furthermore, this issue is but one of several compelling health and safety issues in school sports that deserve our attention and must receive it every year to help local schools whose resources have been so severely reduced in recent years.