Three New Winter Tournament Venues
February 16, 2018
It is an unusual season when there is one big change for the finals sites of Michigan High School Athletic Association tournaments. This winter there are three really significant changes.
The MHSAA Team Wrestling Tournament begins the first of at least a four-year run on Feb. 23 and 24, 2018, at Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo. This event was held at Central Michigan University the past two years.
The following weekend, the MHSAA Individual Wrestling Tournament moves to Ford Field in Detroit, and it has also moved to a condensed schedule – two days, rather than three (March 2 and 3, 2018). This will reduce school and spectator costs. The demise of The Palace of Auburn Hills after the relocation of the Detroit Pistons necessitated the MHSAA’s site change.
The MHSAA Girls Basketball Tournament Semifinals and Finals moves to Van Noord Arena on the campus of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, March 15-17, 2018. The previous host, Michigan State University’s Breslin Student Events Center, could not commit to the MHSAA’s dates because of schedule conflicts with the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament.
A single venue change is a challenge. Facilitating three major changes over four weeks will make this tournament season especially “interesting.” What is even more interesting is the long-term forecast.
These changes demonstrate how new forces are putting pressure on old relationships. College venues are available on fewer dates and for fewer years; and as they become less available, they also become more costly for high school tournaments. Expenses at commercial arenas are also escalating at more rapid rates than in the past.
Making or maintaining traditions for MHSAA tournaments over future seasons will be a continuing challenge.
Scheduling Solution
September 27, 2016
One of our state's consistently best high school football programs needed a ninth game this season but could find no opponent within the state of Michigan. It was able to find a game with an equally prestigious football program in an adjacent state that was having the same problem – the "problem" of being such a formidable program year after year that other schools shied away from scheduling them.
Two different schools in two different states with two different football playoff formats and qualifying procedures, facing the same problem.
This helps to demonstrate that it is not any particular football playoff system that is at the heart of high school football scheduling difficulties. Much more at fault is human nature. One could change the qualifying system or double the number of qualifiers so that even winless teams make the playoffs, and some schools would still refuse to schedule others, which would then have to travel out of state to complete their schedules.
The solution to football scheduling will have very little to do with expanding the playoff field or changing the qualifying criteria. It is only when the scheduling of varsity football games is removed from the local level and assigned to the MHSAA that all teams will play the opponents that are closest to them in enrollment and location. Hard to fathom that will ever occur. But then, no team would have to travel out of state, or even across the state, to complete a varsity football schedule.