Unjustified
December 11, 2015
The MHSAA has taken some unjustified criticism about the last-minute cancellation or relocation of several boys basketball games scheduled for the University of Detroit-Mercy earlier this week.
Unjustified because we would have liked the event to have been successful for our schools involved and a venue (Calihan Hall) we use often for MHSAA events.
Unjustified because the failure to follow interstate sanctioning rules was not our fault.
Unjustified because those who were in charge failed to respond to several outreaches well in advance of the event that were intended to inform or remind the organizers to seek and obtain proper approvals.
Unjustified because those approvals are a required part of the sanctioning policies and procedures of the national organization to which we belong, and which applied as much to the out-of-state schools as to our own.
Unjustified because critics now blame the problem on travel distance restrictions, which was not the issue at all. The travel was well within the generous limitations that exist.
What was at issue was the requirement that interstate events that are sponsored or co-sponsored by entities other than member schools must have the prior approval of each of the state high school associations involved, as well as the approval of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). This flows from the original purpose of the NFHS which was to bring accountability to interstate events at the high school level operated by colleges and commercial organizations.
We expect our schools to follow established rules of their state association, and we try to model that expectation by following the rules that apply to the MHSAA within its national organization.
Official Results
August 15, 2017
We enjoy some privileges serving on the Michigan High school Athletic Association staff. However, one privilege we do not have is to ignore rules when we don’t enjoy their application.
One of the rules of Michigan school sports for very many years is that there is no protest of or appeal to the decisions of contest officials. Whether it is a traveling call in basketball, a safe/out call in baseball or softball, a five-yard illegal motion call, a 10-yard holding call, or a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct call in football with player or coach ejection, the call is final; and if the penalty calls for next-game disqualification, that is final too.
If after a contest, an official wishes he or she could take back a call, it’s too late. If after a contest, folks pressure an official to rescind the next-game disqualification, the outcome is unchanged: ejection from one contest for unsportsmanlike conduct requires suspension from the next day of competition.
The finality of high school officials’ calls has been challenged multiple times in courts across the country – twice in Michigan – and the nearly unanimous result nationwide has been that judges will not allow themselves to become super-referees, second guessing onsite contest officials.
On some higher levels of sports – e.g., college and professional – where there are dozens of cameras covering a handful of contests each week, league offices may review some decisions. But our level of sports lacks sophisticated cameras positioned at all angles, and it involves many hundreds of contests in several different sports every week. We have neither the time nor the technology at every venue to be involved in reviewing the calls of contest officials.
Last school year, there were nearly 1,000 player ejections and more than 200 coach ejections. School sports is not equipped to review 30 to 40 of these situations that arise each week; nor should we do so.
Officials see a play and make an instantaneous decision. Their calls are final; and living with the outcome is one of the valuable lessons we try to teach and learn in school-based sports.