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Tasks Before Us

May 20, 2014

A year ago the MHSAA convened the first of several task forces that are tackling the kind of complicated topics on which our annual committee meeting process seemed incapable of making sufficient progress.
We assembled a 16-member task force that met four times over six months during 2013 to develop policy proposals to enhance acclimatization and reduce head-to-head contact in football practices. Meeting multiple times, the group could delve more deeply into data and explore emerging trends in both school-based and non-school football. The task force would develop ideas at one meeting, test them with constituents for a few weeks and then tweak the ideas at the next meetings. Task force members had the time to be both philosophical and practical, to think about what would be ideal and then trim that idea to be workable in all sorts and sizes of schools across Michigan.
As a result of this focused, multi-session approach, the Football Practice Proposals sailed smoothly through a vetting process during the winter months, earned the MHSAA Representative Council’s approval in March and will be controlling MHSAA member school football practices this fall.
Meanwhile, we began 2014 with the appointment of another task force to tackle many thorny issues related to junior high/middle schools. Some of the issues are so fundamental that changes in the MHSAA Constitution could be required to change what the MHSAA should be doing with respect to school sports prior to the 9th grade. There is equal chance that the task force could propose some very large changes, or very little change. We don’t prescribe the result, we just provide the forum and facilitation – create focus that has been lacking for too long.
Later this year and during 2015 we see the likelihood that additional task forces will address other tough topics, like out-of-season coaching, redefining what subvarsity means, and possibly address more risk management issues, perhaps in ice hockey and soccer first and then other sports where health and safety questions are raised.

Upon Further Review ...

May 12, 2017

A veteran track & field coach wrote critically that the Michigan High School Athletic Association has erred by not implementing numerous proposals of his state coaches association over the years. So this year I was an even more careful than usual observer of the fate of proposals from coaches associations and our own coach-dominated sport committees.

Some proposals from coaches associations don’t even make it to a vote at the MHSAA sport committee level. Others fail to get an affirmative vote, while still others are passed by the committee as a recommendation to the MHSAA Representative Council.

Each of the sport committee recommendations that is received by the time of the League Leadership meeting in mid-February is presented to the league administrators in attendance so they will be aware of what’s flowing in the pipeline toward the MHSAA Representative Council for a vote. It is intended that these sport committee recommendations will be discussed at meetings by each league, and that the MHSAA staff will be notified of questions or concerns that any proposal generates.

MHSAA staff – most often Associate Director Tom Rashid – take some of the proposals on the road, to both league meetings and Athletic Director In-Service programs, where experienced practical minds praise some proposals and poke holes in others.

Many of the recommendations are also discussed at the March conference of the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, and some are made “Position Statements” on which the MIAAA members vote at the conclusion of their conference. It’s interesting to observe that some recommendations that passed coach-dominated sport committees with unanimous support fail to receive 50 percent support by the athletic directors as they make a more circumspect review of the issue.

All along the way, the MHSAA staff is watching, listening, and learning. We learn, for example, that some proposals have negative unintended consequences, that other proposals lack sufficient research or even essential facts, and that in both cases, approval should be denied or at least delayed for more complete development and study.

That was a major theme of this past week’s Representative Council meeting when many committee proposals were, if not derailed, at least detained for later departure. For example:

A proposal to revise the limited team membership rule for 6th-, 7th- and 8th-graders that would allow during the school season up to two dates of non-school participation in all sports except football was tabled in order to gather more membership input.

  • A proposal to alter the three-decade-old MHSAA Baseball Tournament schedule was delayed to consider the effects of and questions raised by the pitching limitation rule that is new this year – a late requirement of the national rules committee.

  • A proposal to seed and bracket District and Regional Basketball Tournaments raised more questions than answers and did not advance.

  • A proposal to require observers in each group at all Lower Peninsula Boys and Girls Regional and Final Golf Tournaments was at least slowed.

  • A proposal to require two days rest between the Semifinal and Final games of soccer Regionals received a yellow card, even though the proposal has good intentions and is part of an evolving package of proposals to make that sport a healthier experience – with more attention to practice and training and less competition.

  • A national soccer committee rule change regarding the color of undergarments was delayed indefinitely by the Council, to avoid both unnecessary confusion and new costs.

  • A proposal to allow additional teams to advance from Regionals to Finals in the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Tennis Tournaments was not adopted – perhaps a good idea in good weather, but problematic in bad.