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Turnover
October 21, 2016
Turnover in local leadership is one of the biggest challenges facing all of youth sports, and it’s partly responsible for the disconnect between the policies of state or national sports organizations and the actual practices of local programs. It is beginning to occur almost as rapidly in school sports as non-school youth sports programs, eroding yet another advantage that school-sponsored programs have enjoyed over non-school programs (other examples being that participation in school sports has generally been less expensive for families, and school coaches more often have been trained educators).
Turnover not only challenges local schools, it causes, or at least contributes to, many of the challenges the Michigan High School Athletic Association faces – everything from administering the transfer rule to conducting District and Regional tournaments.
One of every seven MHSAA member high schools has an athletic director this year who has not served in that role for at least the past five years. Each of these 108 new ADs attended a required orientation program at the MHSAA office in late summer. We provide a follow-up program in November.
More than 80 athletic department administrative assistants or secretaries attended a session at the MHSAA office in September. MHSAA staff conducts a second session for this appreciative audience every March during the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association conference in Traverse City.
MHSAA Athletic Director In-Service programs are conducted at several league meetings during late summer and in conjunction with most MHSAA Update meetings across the state during September and October. Attendance will exceed 500 persons.
Given the increasing complexity of life and the effect on school sports, more needs to be done. Our next efforts may include quick electronic tutorials to help coaches, athletic directors, principals and superintendents keep abreast of what is most important in school-sponsored, student-centered sports.
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Big Ten TV
November 11, 2016
The Big Ten Conference likes to say it "appreciates" high school football within its footprint; but the evidence is otherwise.
First, in 2010 the Big Ten adopted a "bye week" to stretch its scheduling that pushed the final game of the Big Ten regular season – with its great rivalries, including Michigan v. Ohio State – to the day on which the high school Football Finals have been scheduled in Michigan for more than three decades. A periodic problem became an every-year plague.
Now the Big Ten has announced it will play and televise games on Friday nights; and in its first year of this new deal, Michigan State will play at Northwestern in a televised game on Friday night, Oct. 27 – the first night of the MHSAA Football Playoffs all across our state.
So, in 2017 we can thank the Big Ten for damaging the first as well as the last weekend of our high school Football Playoffs.
The Big Ten's reaction? "We are only playing six games on Friday nights. It could have been much worse."
I expect it will get worse. The greed of college sports knows no limits.