Time for Tough Topics
February 28, 2014
The daily deluge of calls and emails about issues that matter that day tempt us to take our eye off other issues that matter today, tomorrow and for many years. Good service requires that we respond promptly and pleasantly to the daily details, but good leadership requires that we give adequate attention to matters more fundamental to the mission of school-sponsored sports, and more critical to the future of educational athletics.
No matter how many times we’re contacted about today’s programs and problems, we must create our own time to dive deeply into the core philosophies and cornerstone policies of voluntary competitive interscholastic athletics.
We have attempted to do this with the “Four Thrusts for Four Years” campaign to address health and safety issues, especially but far from exclusively focusing on increased acclimatization and decreased head-to-head contact in football practices. The practice proposals of the 2013 Football Task Force – developed over a series of meetings by serious people, appear to have widespread support and should receive an affirmative vote by the Representative Council next month.
Similarly, we have appointed a task force to work throughout 2014 on junior high/middle school issues. Theirs is the difficult challenge of locating the sweet spot – the policies that protect the multi-sport experience in a learning environment for our younger students while still providing more competition, and for younger grades, to attract and hold the interest of junior high/middle school students and their parents who are seeking much more competition much earlier in life than the MHSAA’s current policies allow.
Out-of-season contact by high school coaches with their high school students is another of the topics that is often discussed and occasionally studied, and the rules governing out-of-season coaching are frequently tweaked. The result is a mammoth section of the Handbook that is difficult to read and follow, and invites widespread disrespect. MHSAA staff is conducting a series of two-hour sessions to try to reframe the discussion and present to the membership by next fall a new (and briefer) set of rules and interpretations. The goal will be to respect both the guiding principles of educational athletics as well as society’s changes since the current rules were first developed.
That’s the goal for all of this these tough, timeless topics.
Site Lines
April 17, 2017
It appears that everyone is talking about where the championship rounds of the Michigan High School Athletic Association basketball tournaments should be played.
This has become a topic because our traditional site, Michigan State University’s Breslin Student Events Center, is not available to host the Semifinals and Finals of the girls tournament in 2018 and 2020 or the boys tournament in 2019, in both cases because the facility must remain open for MSU’s women’s basketball team should it earn the privilege of hosting first and second round games of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament.
It is important that the people listening know that most of the people talking have little knowledge of what facilities are actually available in 2018 and beyond.
For example, The Palace of Auburn Hills, Little Caesars Arena in Detroit and Van Andel Arena are not available in 2018, nor is a sentimental favorite for the girls tournament, Central Michigan University.
By mid-May, the MHSAA will have announced decisions for 2018, and likely for that one year only. Between now and the end of 2017, the MHSAA will be evaluating site options for both tournaments, boys and girls, as well as potential scheduling changes for both the regular season and MHSAA tournaments that could alter what facilities are needed and when. This could increase opportunities to use NCAA Division I institutions, and/or this could reduce or eliminate the need for those facilities.
It would be unfortunate if we turn ourselves inside-out and upside-down to avoid NCAA conflicts. Some of the scheduling scenarios being studied would seriously stress District and Regional tournament sites and management as well as overwork the ranks of our tournament-ready basketball officials. Other scheduling scenarios would adversely affect other winter sports or increase overlap with fall sports or spring sports. We need to move carefully, and with broad consensus.
There is a desire to host the championships of the girls and boys tournaments at the same venue, but there is no legal obligation to do so. There is a desire to build on traditions established at Michigan State University, but conflicts and costs make that unlikely to continue. There is a desire to please everyone, but that won’t happen.