We Get It
November 4, 2011
Participation in high school sports, both nationally and in Michigan, increased in 2010-11 versus the year before. It was the 22nd consecutive year of increases nationally, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.
The National Federation also conducted a first-of-its-kind attendance survey that tells us in 2009-10 that there were more than a half billion spectators at high school sporting events across the country. There were more than two and a half times as many fans attending high school basketball and football contests as attended college and professional contests combined in those sports.
We should be excited about our programs and encouraged by their historical popularity and continuing growth. But clearly, we are not. In fact, we are a discouraged bunch.
We are discouraged because, behind the good numbers that are reported, we see serious erosion – a subtle “slip-sliding away” of the principles and the popularity of school-based sports. In spite of the good numbers, we sense that all is not well in educational athletics.
In many places athletic directors are losing their full-time dedicated positions, which are essential to oversee a program of high participation, large crowds, great emotion and some risk of injury. In many places students are losing participation opportunities, which are essential components of a complete education necessary to prepare young people for the increasingly complicated and competitive world which they are about to enter.
We get it at the MHSAA. We know what’s happening. Not only do we get it, we also get the hundreds of calls from coaches who don’t have an athletic director available to answer their questions. And we get the hundreds and hundreds of calls from parents and others who can find neither a coach nor an athletic director available to address their concerns or answer their questions. Almost every time a school district dials down its oversight of the interscholastic athletic program, its constituents dial up the MHSAA to answer their questions and address their concerns.
Less money for and less oversight of school sports is a combination tailor-made for problems – for ineligible students and forfeits, for crowd control and sportsmanship problems, and for injuries; and in all cases, for the controversies that follow. There are smarter places to make cuts in our schools and still turn out smart kids.
Upon Further Review
November 6, 2015
Michigan was among the first dozen statewide high school associations in the U.S. to reduce the amount of contact during football practices. Since Michigan acted prior to the 2014 football season, the National Federation of State High School Associations has adopted recommendations, and all remaining state high school associations have adopted new restrictions.
The task force that acted early in Michigan to make the proposals that were supported by this state’s football coaches association and the MHSAA Representative Council wanted policies that could be clearly understood and easily enforced. The task force concluded that counting minutes of contact during a practice or a week was not the best approach.
Who would track the minutes for each and every player? Does the minute of contact count for a player who is only observing and not actually participating in the contact drill or scrimmage?
In limiting Michigan teams and players to one collision practice a day prior to the first game and two collision practices per week the rest of the season, the task force recommendation avoided the need to have coaches and administrators track and record the minutes of each and every player on each and every team each and every day and to determine what types of activities and what degree of involvement counted against 30- or 60- or 90-minute maximums.
It is anticipated that the MHSAA Football Committee will review in early 2016 what other states have done since the MHSAA acted in early 2014, but it is not assumed that changes are needed to existing practice policies. Further review may confirm earlier judgments about policies that are both protective of players and practical for coaches and administrators.