The Waiver Process
August 21, 2015
Last school year, over the course of 12 meetings, the MHSAA Executive Committee received 467 requests from member schools to waive either a minimum standard for student eligibility or a maximum limitation on competition. Three hundred sixty-two of these requests for waiver were approved. That’s 78 percent.
This was a typical year – neither a record high nor record low in the number of requests, or of waivers approved.
Under the MHSAA Constitution, to at least some degree, every Handbook regulation may be waived by the Executive Committee. However, it is an abuse of authority if there is not a compelling reason for the waiver – that is, a clear case where the rule works an undue hardship (not just any hardship) on a student or school, or the rule fails to perform its intended purpose in the particular and unique circumstances documented.
There are times when school administrators will disagree with an Executive Committee determination, and more times when parents will disagree – and sometimes the difference of opinion leads to unjustified attacks on the MHSAA or individuals. This is unfortunate, but inevitable when critics see their situation alone and not in the context of past and future precedent.
Nevertheless, in recent years, fewer than one in 400 waiver requests that is not approved has been appealed to the full MHSAA Representative Council. I believe this reflects not only that the Executive Committee has been getting the decisions right, but also that those who are making the requests have felt well heard and served.
We work hard to create that atmosphere, even in the presence of emotional, invested parents who are advocating for their children. From a real live receptionist who greets every telephone caller, to our associate director who helps administrators prepare each request to the Executive Committee, we strive to present every request for waiver in its best factual light and every rule involved in its complete educational and historical context.
Friday Night Football
September 23, 2016
There continues to be among high school athletic administrators a great gnashing of teeth over encroachment of televised college football on the Friday night turf that long tradition reserves for high school football games. Little by little and year by year, college games drift to all times of the day and all days of the week, and Friday night is no longer hallowed ground for the high school game alone.
The Friday night intercollegiate fare remains mostly irrelevant games by second tier teams, but televised nonetheless because of the overabundance of production entities and networks seeking live sports events. But high school leadership is right to be on guard.
Known to very few people is a million dollar offer in the 1970s by then NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers to the National Federation of State High School Associations if it would not oppose televised college football games on Friday nights. Clifford Fagan, then executive director of the National Federation, declined the offer from his good friend; and the mutual respect these two men enjoyed brought an end to the negotiation.
Then, as now, the National Football League was prohibited by law (part of its anti-trust exception) from televising games on Friday nights and Saturdays from mid-September through mid-December where the broadcast would conflict with a live high school or college game. Under Byers, and until the NCAA lost control of intercollegiate football broadcasting as a result of a legal challenge by what was then called the College Football Association, college football leadership voluntarily gave high school football the same deference on Friday nights that the NFL did under federal law.
Today, major college football is such a ravenous revenue beast that it will schedule play at any time on any day in any location, televising every game – on college conference-controlled networks if the matchup is not attractive enough for national or even regional broadcasts. The Friday night high school football tradition can expect to be trampled as college football swarms and grunts around the feed trough like hungry hogs.