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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.

Engagement

October 31, 2017

In addition to daily calls, texts, emails and old-fashioned mail delivery, Michigan High School Athletic Association staff engaged face to face with its core constituents in these ways from August of 2016 through July of 2017:

  • More than 350 local school visits, including:
    • Approximately 120 to attend regular season local contests to evaluate officials for MHSAA tournament readiness.
    • More than 60 to support or evaluate MHSAA pre-Final tournament events.
    • More than 60 to speak at or support MHSAA CAP sessions (plus 25 CAP sessions at the MHSAA building).
    • 12 for MHSAA.TV, NFHS Network or School Broadcast Program.
    • 6 for Second Half website features.
    • 6 for new school orientation.
    • 5 for Battle of the Fans (each involving 3 MHSAA staff).
    • 5 for officiating classes.
    • 2 for Reaching Higher (each involving 4 or more staff).

  • More than 60 local officials association visits, including:

    • 45 for rules meetings/presentations.

Plus 8 visits to officials camps,
         5 presentations to college officiating classes, and
         9 officiating recruitment events.

  • More than 50 coaches association meetings.
    • 24 for MHSAA rules meetings/presentations.
    • 6 for CAP programs.

Plus the Coaches Association Presidents dinner at the MHSAA office involving 9 MHSAA staff.

  • More than 50 league meetings, including:
    • 8 to conduct student leadership or sportsmanship events or for team captains clinics (usually involving multiple MHSAA staff).
    • 8 to provide event marketing assistance.
    • 7 to provide MHSAA information/updates.
    • 6 to provide MHSAA rules meetings/presentations.
    • 3 for ArbiterGame training (usually involving 2 or more MHSAA staff).

Plus the League Leadership Meeting at the MHSAA office involving most MHSAA staff.

  • More than 15 MIAAA meetings.
    • 10 MHSAA staff at the March conference.
    • 2 MHSAA staff at the summer workshop.
    • 2 to 4 MHSAA staff at most board meetings.
    • At least 1 staff at multiple committee meetings, strategic planning, etc.
  • More than 50 standing committees, task forces and ad hoc study groups convened at the MHSAA office, and several did so multiple times.

What is abundantly clear here is that the MHSAA staff does not operate from an ivory tower or information vacuum.