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.
Tournament Scheduling
May 3, 2016
Scheduling of MHSAA tournaments in ways that minimize conflicts is a difficult task, made easier by following several principles, yet certain to be upsetting to some people.
Spring tournaments pose potential for more conflicts than fall or winter tournaments because of many school-year-ending activities that are important to students and parents – like graduations, proms, baccalaureates, honors banquets, open houses, etc.
The Michigan High School Athletic Association publishes a seven-year calendar of MHSAA tournament dates, first rounds through Finals, that provides schools and their constituents an early alert; and within most sports is a range of dates on which early round contests may be played so that hosts and participating schools can work out the best scheduling for the teams assigned to each site.
Those are two of the scheduling principles that guide the MHSAA – flexibility for the early rounds and firm dates set many years in advance for Finals.
Not only do these principles assist with avoiding all variety of local conflicts, they also assist with avoiding conflicts for students who participate in more than one sport during a single season. Schools can, and do, choose days and times that allow students to participate in the Districts of one sport tournament as well as the Finals of another. Not all conflicts are avoided, but most are.
Another principle that guides MHSAA scheduling is to minimize conflicts with the academic classroom day. While schools, students and parents often make choices that seem contrary to this principle, the MHSAA works harder to avoid academic conflicts than any other conflicts, including social or religious or ceremonial. This is, after all, educational athletics; and one of our core values is to support – not conflict with – the academic mission of member schools.
Not only does the MHSAA publicize its tournament dates seven years in advance, the MHSAA also identifies six to nine months in advance potential conflicts between MHSAA tournament dates and anticipated standardized testing dates, and publicizes the alternative dates for students to complete those tests.
The MHSAA is sponsoring nearly 2,000 tournaments during the 2015-16 school year. Some tournaments will conflict with other activities for some of the nearly 300,000 participants in those events – regretfully, but unavoidably and understandably.