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.
Misdirection
March 2, 2018
Our big problem is that we are distracted by small matters. For example ...
I don’t think there is any close, thoughtful observer who can honestly say high school basketball is in better shape today than any number of years ago that one might pick ... 10, 20, 30 or more years.
Changes in students, schools, sports and society have not been kind to school-based basketball. Charter schools, school of choice, non-school sports, migration into other sports and activities, specialization in a single sport, and burnout leading to dropouts from organized sports are a few of many factors contributing to declining participation. And there is more competition for attention away from schools and away from school sports every single day. So the fault is not one thing only.
Girls basketball has been particularly hard hit by specialization in volleyball that was supercharged after the switch of basketball and volleyball seasons a decade ago. Girls basketball participation declined in every school year since the change of seasons before a 2.2 percent increase for 2017-18.
The days when most schools sponsor three basketball teams each for boys and girls – 9th grade, JV and varsity – are long gone; and that’s not just because we were forced to cram both genders’ basketball seasons into the winter. Many of those same schools now struggle to support one subvarsity team, and many have very short benches – only two or three subs – at the varsity level.
Every week the gap between the haves and have-nots grows wider and more obvious to all, with final scores so lopsided that the games could not have been a good experience for anyone – players or spectators, home team or visitor.
One would think that these matters would be on the minds of those who love and lead high school basketball and that they would be working diligently on initiatives to address the declining interest and growing imbalance in what was once the centerpiece sport of interscholastic athletics.
They would be asking, “What can we do at the junior high/middle school level to engage students ... to start them or keep them on the path to high school basketball programs? How can we encourage and equip high school coaches to attract to and hold in their programs more high school students? How can we help coaches increase all players’ game time? How can we help coaches teach players to value and grow from the experience of being a backup player?”
Surprisingly, the only proposals related to basketball that are advancing toward Representative Council action at this time are (1) seed MHSAA District tournaments, and (2) expand the coaching box.
Sadly, these proposals do nothing to reverse the decline of high school basketball. They are distractions from the hard work of reclaiming a healthy culture for the most historically important sport to schools in Michigan.
The culture shift needed is away from an all-star event for a few graduating seniors and toward ongoing educational programs for all coaches, every year. Away from national events and toward city, county and conference rivalries. Away from “elite” travel teams to K-6 development programs out of season. Away from creeping commercialism and professionalism and toward a recommitment to amateurism. Away from gamesmanship and toward sportsmanship. Away from running up the score – a lot – to allowing every team member to play – a lot.
The clock is ticking on the life of student-centered school-sponsored basketball. And a lot bigger proposals are needed than what we’ve been generating of late.