The Usual Suspects
December 30, 2016
It is difficult to find a year when the 11-player Football Finals of the Michigan High School Athletic Association involved more teams from southeast Michigan than appeared at Ford Field in 2016. In fact, just two counties (Oakland and Wayne) produced seven finalists. But then two counties on Michigan’s west side (Kent and Muskegon) supplied four of the 16 finalists.
Four of Michigan’s 83 counties producing 11 of 16 finalists in the 11-player championship games doesn’t’ feel like a statewide event; but one team from the Upper Peninsula, another from the Leelanau Peninsula in the northwest portion of the Lower Peninsula, and a team located along the Michigan/Ohio border remind us how large and diverse our state really is.
The 2016 MHSAA 11-player Football Finals consisted of many of the “usual suspects,” including two teams pursuing their fourth straight titles and one team seeking its third consecutive championship. Four of the eight 11-player champions from 2015 returned in the attempt to defend their titles in 2016, and two of the runners-up in 2015 were back to try to reverse their fortunes from 12 months earlier.
What is being demonstrated here in Michigan high school football is the trend seen in many other states. That is, as the number of classes or divisions of tournaments expands, the more often you see the same teams in the final rounds.
The surest way to have the “usual suspects” on championship day is to put them in tournaments with fewer schools. And of all MHSAA tournaments, the football playoffs have the most divisions with the fewest schools in each. The result is predictable.
This is a cautionary tale for those who desire that the number of classifications and divisions be expanded in MHSAA tournaments for other sports.
Meanwhile, we are keeping an eye on the tournament format in a neighboring state that places schools into divisions for larger schools after they are too successful over consecutive years in the classification that fits their enrollment. Those in Michigan who have been assigned to review such policies have complained that such “success factors” penalize future students because of the achievements of previous students and/or because such factors do nothing about “chronic success” by schools in the largest classification.
Staying the Course
August 7, 2015
- Scholarship – meaning scholarship in high school, not athletic scholarships to college; maintaining school sports as a helper to the schools’ academic mission.
- Sportsmanship – meaning the environment at interscholastic events, shaped by the attitudes and actions of players, coaches and spectators; seeing good sportsmanship as a precursor to good citizenship.
- Safety – assuring parents that their children not only will be as safe as possible in school sports, but will develop habits that tend to encourage a lifetime of better health.
- Scope – placing borders around school sports that tend to assure a sane and sensible, student-centered educational experience.
I said in 1986 that these would still be our top topics in 1996, 2006 and 2016; and the “Four S’s” have stood the test of time. In fact, they stand even taller now than three decades ago.
On Monday, the first day of this 30th year, 95 representatives of 70 schools gathered for training to execute one of two pilot programs we have launched for 2015-16 to improve the process of concussion detection at interscholastic practices and contests.
When fall practices begin next week, they will do so with three other health and safety changes.
- All member schools, grades 7 through 12, must report all suspected concussions at practices and games to the MHSAA, utilizing a web-based reporting system on MHSAA.com.
- All high school varsity head coaches must have a current certification in CPR.
- All athletes in all levels of all sports in MHSAA member schools grades 7 through 12 will be provided, without charge to either their families or the schools, concussion care insurance aimed at assuring all students have access to prompt, professional medical care, regardless of family resources.