Athletes: Prepare to Beat the Heat
August 4, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Despite unseasonably cool temperatures this summer in Michigan, high school athletes should prepare for the heat that usually accompanies August and the beginning of Michigan High School Athletic Association fall practices as they kick off next week.
Each year, the MHSAA provides information to its member schools to help them prepare for hot weather practice and game conditions in the late summer and early fall. Football practice can begin August 11, followed by first practices for all other fall sports August 13.
The topic of heat-related injuries receives a lot of attention at this time of year, especially when deaths at the professional, collegiate and interscholastic levels of sport occur, and especially since they are preventable in most cases with the proper precautions. In football, data from the National Federation of State High School Associations shows that nationally 41 high school players died from heat stroke between 1995 and 2013.
Many MHSAA schools this fall are expected to again follow the MHSAA’s Model Policy for Managing Heat & Humidity that directs schools to monitor heat index prior to and during activity and recommends actions based on those readings.
Also this school year, for the first time, the MHSAA is requiring all assistant and subvarsity coaches at the high school level to complete the same rules and risk minimization meeting requirement as high school varsity head coaches, or, in the alternative, one of several online courses designated for this purpose on MHSAA.com.
“It’s not an accident that causes severe heat illness and death. It’s a lack of attention to what should’ve been taking place, a lack of preparation,” said John E. “Jack” Roberts, executive director of the MHSAA. “We’re trying to communicate to our constituents that if we make the precautions that we should, plan as we should, we will have none of these tragedies in school sports.”
The MHSAA Representative Council adopted in 2013 the Model Policy for Managing Heat & Humidity that, while not mandated for member schools, has been adopted by many at the local level. The plan directs schools to begin monitoring the heat index at the activity site once the air temperature reaches 80 degrees and provides recommendations when the heat index reaches certain points, including ceasing activities when it rises above 104 degrees.
The model policy is outlined in a number of places, including the publication Heat Ways, which is available for download from the MHSAA Website. Heat Ways not only provides the model policy, but addresses the need for proper acclimatization in hot weather.
Heat, hydration and acclimatization also are again focuses of the MHSAA’s required preseason rules meetings for coaches and officials. The online presentation discusses the need for good hydration in sports, regardless of the activity or time of year.
The Health & Safety Resources page of the MHSAA Website has a number of links to different publications and information and a free online presentation from the National Federation of State High School Associations. Visit MHSAA.com, click on “Schools” and then on “Health & Safety Resources” to find the information.
Roberts said the first days of formal practices in hot weather should be more for heat acclimatization than the conditioning of athletes, and that practices in such conditions need planning to become longer and more strenuous over a gradual progression of time.
He added schools also must consider moving practices to different times of day, different locations, or change practice plans to include different activities depending on the conditions.
“I think all schools need to prepare themselves in these ways,” Roberts said. “They need to educate participants, parents and coaches about proper hydration and the dangers of practicing and competing when the heat and humidity are too high.”
MHSAA ‘AD Connection Program’ Debuts with Start of 2023-24 School Year
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 7, 2023
A first-of-its-kind mentorship program is greeting more than 100 first-time high school athletic directors who are officially beginning their tenures at Michigan High School Athletic Association member schools with the start of the 2023-24 school year.
The “AD Connection Program” has matched those first-year high school athletic directors with one of eight mentors who have recently retired from the field and will now provide assistance as those new administrators transition to this essential role in school sports.
A total of 102 first-year high school athletic directors are beginning at MHSAA schools, meaning a new athletic administrator will be taking over at nearly 14 percent of the 750 member high schools across the state. Athletic director turnover at MHSAA high schools has reached 10 percent or more annually over the last few years, and it’s hoped that this additional mentorship will support athletic directors adjusting to the high pace and responsibilities of the position for the first time.
The AD Connection Program will build on training received at the required in-service program all new athletic directors must attend each fall. There is also a strong connection to programming from the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA), the professional development organization for the state’s athletic administrators.
"When you crystalize it, the AD Connection Program is an attempt for us to give a true year-long in-service to new athletic directors with people who have done it,” said MHSAA Assistant Director Brad Bush, who is coordinating the program and joined the MHSAA staff in January after more than two decades as an athletic administrator at Chelsea High School. “This also connects new ADs with a larger professional group, and it will culminate in March at the annual MIAAA conference, where there will be several face-to-face meetings with all ADs.
“These mentors are meant to become that first-year AD’s go-to person.”
Mentors will conduct frequent meetings with their cohorts. They also will meet monthly (or more) with each first-time athletic director individually via zoom, and at least once during the academic year face-to-face at the mentee’s school.
The eight mentors, noting their most recent schools as an athletic director, are Chris Ervin (most recently at St. Johns), Brian Gordon (Royal Oak), Sean Jacques (Calumet), Tim Johnston (East Grand Rapids), Karen Leinaar (Frankfort), Scott Robertson (Grand Haven), Meg Seng (Ann Arbor Greenhills) and Wayne Welton (Chelsea). Leinaar also will serve as the AD Connection Program’s liaison to the MIAAA, which she serves as executive director.
High school practices at MHSAA member schools may begin today, Monday Aug. 7, for the nine fall sports for which the MHSAA sponsors a postseason tournament. The AD Connection Program was approved by the MHSAA Representative Council during its annual Winter Meeting on March 24.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.3 million spectators each year.
-0-