2019-20 Parade of Champions
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
June 26, 2020
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
A total of 58 schools won one or more of the 69 Michigan High School Athletic Association team championships awarded during the 2019-20 school year, with two teams winning three or more titles despite the cancellation of 62 MHSAA Finals due to COVID-19.
Marquette led with seven championships, winning its divisions in girls and boys skiing, girls and boys swimming & diving, girls and boys cross country and girls tennis. Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern won the second-most titles, three, finishing first in its divisions in girls golf, boys tennis and boys soccer – the soccer championship its first in that sport.
Four more schools won two championships: Ann Arbor Pioneer, East Grand Rapids, Farmington Hills Mercy and Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central.
A total of 18 teams won first MHSAA titles in their respective sports, with Essexville Garber’s win in Division 3 girls bowling the school’s first Finals championship in any sport. A total of 23 champions were repeat winners from 2018-19 – and 11 of those won for at least the third straight season, while six extended title streaks to at least four consecutive years.
The Marquette boys skiing program owns the longest title streak at eight seasons, while Lowell wrestling joined Rockford girls lacrosse with a seventh consecutive championship. Rockford’s streak remains at seven after its season was canceled.
Sixteen of the MHSAA's 28 championship tournaments are unified, involving teams from the Upper and Lower Peninsulas, while separate competition to determine titlists in both Peninsulas is conducted in remaining sports. Because of COVID-19, the entire spring season was canceled as were Finals in girls and boys basketball, ice hockey, girls gymnastics and Lower Peninsula boys swimming & diving.
For a sport-by-sport listing of MHSAA champions for 2019-20, click here.
(NOTE: Included in the total of 58 schools above are both Zeeland East and West, which form the cooperative program that won the Division 1 girls bowling title. However, together they are counted as one of the 18 first-time championship teams.)
MHSAA High School Sports Participation Continues to Exceed Population Ranking Nationally
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
September 15, 2023
Michigan continued to rank 10th nationally in high school-aged population during the 2022-23 school year and continued to best that ranking in participation in high school sports, according to the annual national participation study conducted by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
Michigan ranked ninth for overall participation nationally, based on a total of 268,070 participants who competed in sports for which the MHSAA conducts postseason tournaments. The total counts students once for each sport played, meaning students who are multiple-sport athletes are counted more than once.
Michigan also ranked ninth nationally for both girls (111,569) and boys (156,501) participation separately, while ranking ninth for high-school aged boys population and 10th for girls according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
Michigan’s national rankings in seven sports improved from 2021-22, while nine sports saw lower national rankings than the previous year. The biggest jumps came in girls volleyball and boys soccer, which both moved up two spots – volleyball to fourth-highest participation nationally, and boys soccer to eighth. Girls golf (fourth), softball (seventh), girls track & field (seventh), girls swimming & diving and boys swimming & diving (both eighth) also moved up on their respective national lists.
Participation in several more MHSAA sports also continued to outpace the state’s rankings for high school-aged population.
For girls, participation in bowling (fourth), tennis (fourth), cross country (sixth), basketball (seventh), competitive cheer (ninth) and soccer (ninth) all ranked higher than their population listing of 10th nationally. Among boys sports, bowling (second), ice hockey (fourth), tennis (fifth), golf (fifth), basketball (sixth), track & field (sixth), cross country (seventh), football – all formats combined (seventh) and baseball (eighth) exceeded that ninth ranking for population.
Only 11 states sponsor alpine skiing, but Michigan ranked third on both the girls and boys lists for that sport. Wrestling, with boys and girls totals counted together, ranked eighth.
Participation nationally rose more than three percent from 2021-22 to 7,857,969 participants, the first upward movement in participation data since the all-time record of 7,980,886 in 2017-18, which was followed by the first decline in 30 years in 2018-19 and the two-year halt in data collection by the NFHS related to the pandemic. (The MHSAA continued to collect and report its data during this time.) The national total includes 4,529,789 boys and 3,328,180 girls, according to figures obtained from the 51 NFHS member state associations, which include the District of Columbia.
Eleven-player football remained the most popular boys sport, and most popular participation sport overall, with the total climbing back over one million participants. The total of 1,028,761 participants marked an increase of 54,969 and 5.6 percent from the previous year. This year’s increase was the first in the sport since 2013 and only the second increase since the all-time high of 1,112,303 in 2008-09. There also was a slight gain (34,935 to 35,301) in the number of boys in 6-, 8- and 9-player football.
Next on the boys list were outdoor track & field, basketball, baseball, soccer, wrestling, cross country, tennis, golf, and swimming & diving, respectively.
On the girls side, outdoor track and field (up 6.5 percent) and volleyball (3.6) remained in the top two spots, while basketball reclaimed the third position. Cross country ranked fourth, followed by softball, soccer, golf, tennis, swimming & diving and competitive spirit, respectively.
Texas remained atop the list of state participation with 827,446, but California closed the gap in second adding 25,000 participants to climb to 787,697. New York is third with 356,803, followed by Illinois (335,801), Ohio (323,117), Pennsylvania (316,587), Florida (297,389), New Jersey (272,159), Michigan (268,070) and Minnesota (219,094), which climbed into the top 10 past Massachusetts.
The participation survey has been compiled in its current form by the NFHS since 1971.