Making (Health) Histories Every Year
July 23, 2015
By Rob Kaminski
MHSAA benchmarks editor
Tom Minter, recently retired from the MHSAA as assistant director, wore many hats while serving the Association and donned official’s gear in numerous sports outside of business hours.
But one of his finest refereeing efforts might have come during the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years when he guided approximately 60 individuals representing 25 medical and professional organizations through an arduous process to upgrade the antiquated Physical Form to what is the standard today: the Pre-participation Physical Examination/Health History Form.
The form highlighted Stage 1 of the MHSAA’s 4 Hs of Health and Safety – Health Histories – and the current form is much more comprehensive, answering questions previously not asked during the quicker, more brief, evaluations.
Sudden cardiac death claims the lives of more than 300 Michigan children and young adults between the ages of 1-39 years annually. Yet, many of these deaths could be prevented through screening, detection, and treatment. One such way to detect high risk conditions that predispose to SCDY is through pre-participation sports screening of student-athletes, and the current physical form provides a mechanism.
While much more detailed, schools report that parents are more than willing to take the extra time and effort to complete the lengthier version.
“When the expanded form came out, people kiddingly made comments about its length; yet in today's day and age everyone understands we need all the information we can cultivate regarding health histories of our student athletes,” said Mark Mattson, athletic director at Traverse City Central.
Down state, feelings have been similar. “We don’t have a problem at all here,” said Anna Devitt, athletic secretary at Hartland High School. “Our parents take care of it, and haven’t balked at the length at all.”
Both agree, and are joined by many others across the state, that the next logical step is for the form to be converted to a fillable, online document so that records can be accessed by those in need via mobile, laptop or desktop.
Thus, in the “No H left behind” mantra that the MHSAA has assumed, an electronic option of the Health History form is in the early planning stages.
“As an increasing number of our schools strive to be ‘paper-free,’ or at least as much so as possible, it is time to re-invent the delivery method for perhaps our most downloaded or distributed document,” MHSAA Executive Director Jack Roberts said. “Once again, as we move forward with our ‘Heart’ initiative for the coming school year, we are also intent on bringing other projects up to speed.”
The masses are certainly enthused.
“That would be heavenly. An online version that would prevent people from submitting the forms until all the required information was in place would be fantastic,” said Mattson, who has had to turn back, or hold out students while waiting for completed forms, whether at Marquette, Maple City Glen Lake, or his current post in Traverse City. “It’s always been the same; people move too quickly and overlook required fields. It would prevent two things: one, having to hold kids out while waiting for a signature, and two, prevent parents from having to drive in to the athletic office to sign or fill in that last field. We’d know we were getting a completed form.”
At Hartland, where athletic director Jason Reck created an online emergency contact form, a system is in place which allows coaches, administrators and trainers to share necessary data for all student-athletes in addition to the MHSAA forms.
“Our parents love the online emergency contact form, and we require them to fill it out every season, not just once a year,” Devitt said. “Sometimes an athlete gets injured during one season and the next season's coach wants to know about it.”
The information on the form is populated into an Excel spreadsheet which Reck, Devitt, the school trainer and all coaches can access. They can tailor the data by sport and pull it to their mobile devices.
“We’re trying to go completely paperless, and the MHSAA physical form would be another step,” Devitt said. “Our parents and doctor’s offices would love it.”
Flivver Finds Home at Home of the Flivvers
April 25, 2018
By Dennis Grall
Special for Second Half
KINGSFORD – A wide variety of animals exist as high school mascots in Michigan, ranging from Bison to Gators, to Eagles and Hawks and to Tigers and Panthers.
You can also watch a variety of fighters prowl the sidelines, from Patriots to Warriors, Titans to Swordsmen, to Nimrods and Roughriders, Crusaders and Fighting Irish, and Knights and Trojans and Gladiators.
There are also unusual mascots like Dux and Chix, Wykons and Hematites, Pharaohs and Technicians, Navigators and Gryphons, Achievers and Dreadnaughts, Saddlelites and Railsplitters, Battling Bathers and Flying Gs, Griffons and Shorians.
But Kingsford is among the few schools with a genuine vehicle for a mascot, which maybe could be used to transport any of these others to the playing field.
The Flivvers are the mascot of the Upper Peninsula school on the northern border of Wisconsin, just blocks from the neighboring Mountaineers of Iron Mountain. Two downstate schools – Boyne City and Perry – have Ramblers as their mascot in honor of the old Nash car.
"This was one of the best days I've had at Kingsford," Flivvers' athletic director Al Unger said of having a restored 1923 Ford Model T brought into the middle school building by the main entrance in September 2017.
The idea began to chug along two years ago when a handful of people were chatting about a school mascot. Unger said the group thought "how cool it would be to have a real-deal mascot" for the school.
The Berlinski/Hosking family happened to have an old Model T and were willing to donate it to the school. Unger's uncle, Clyde Unger of nearby Spread Eagle, Wis., was asked to use his restoration and rebuilding skills to renovate the car. He spent about 1,200 hours tearing it down and putting everything back together.
"The car really came back together," said Al Unger.
The Flivvers have been Kingsford's nickname since the early 1930s, coming from the old Ford Motor Co. plant in the area. The plant, which opened in 1925 and once employed 7,000 people, built cars and later used leftover wood to make Kingsford charcoal barbecue briquettes.
Al Unger said an Iron Mountain Daily News sportswriter during that time began using Fords as the school nickname, and it soon adjusted to Flivvers, or Flivs – a nickname for the old Model T vehicles.
Developing school spirit was one of the goals the group talked about when it discussed finding an old vehicle, Unger said.
The car's renovation included a new paint job, breaking from the standard Henry Ford refrain of all black to a spiffy blue to match the maize and royal blue school colors. "There have been a lot of positive reviews," said the Kingsford athletic director.
The car was unveiled to the students and some community members at the adjoining football field/track, perhaps the first time all of the students in the three buildings were released for a specific event, Unger said.
It was then shown to the public when the Flivvers hosted the Escanaba Eskymos for the regular-season finale football game in October. "It was awesome," Unger said of the night that included coverage from the Upper Peninsula's three television stations.
The vehicle now is displayed in a three-sided glass enclosure with a gate. Unger said plans are in the works to place the vehicle in the community’s July 4 parade "and we will consider rolling it out for special occasions.
"You can't help but walk by and stare at it and feel a sense of pride," he said.
Unger said 95 percent of the project was donated. "We spent a few dollars on the enclosure," adding everyone "has been ecstatic" about the unique mascot.
Denny Grall retired in 2012 after 39 years at the Escanaba Daily Press and four at the Green Bay Press-Gazette, plus 15 months for WLST radio in Escanaba; he served as the Daily Press sports editor from 1970-80 and again from 1984-2012. Grall was inducted into the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 and serves as its executive secretary. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Upper Peninsula.
PHOTOS: (Top) The Flivver, on display at the Kingsford middle school building. (Middle) Kingsford’s restored Model T, a 1923 “Flivver.” (Photos courtesy of the Kingsford athletic department.)