89 Schools Fill 2020-21 Parade of Champions
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
June 24, 2021
A total of 89 schools won one or more of the 132 Michigan High School Athletic Association team championships awarded during 2020-21, with two teams earning the first Finals championship in any sport in their schools’ histories.
Detroit Douglass celebrated its first MHSAA Finals championship by winning the Division 4 boys basketball title to conclude the winter, and Owosso claimed its first by earning the Division 2 softball championship this spring.
A total of 27 schools won two or more championships this school year, paced by Marquette’s five won in boys cross country, boys golf, boys swimming & diving, and both girls and boys track & field. Ann Arbor Pioneer and Grass Lake were next both with four Finals championships. Pioneer won in girls cross country, girls and boys swimming & diving and girls tennis, and Grass Lake was a champion in girls basketball, boys bowling and girls and boys track & field. Grass Lake also had participants on the Jackson Area girls gymnastics team that won its first Finals title.
Nine schools won three MHSAA Finals championships: Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood, Bloomfield Hills Marian, Detroit Country Day, East Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids Catholic Central, Hudsonville, Petoskey and West Iron County. Winning two titles in 2020-21 were Adrian Lenawee Christian, Birmingham Seaholm, Carson City-Crystal, Detroit Catholic Central, Dollar Bay, Grand Blanc, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern, Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett, Ishpeming, Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep, Montague, Norway, Richmond, Rockford and South Lyon.
A total of 39 teams won first MHSAA titles in their respective sports. A total of 42 champions were repeat winners from either 2019-20 or 2018-19 for sports that did not award championships in Winter or Spring 2020 because of cancelations due to COVID-19. A total of 15 teams won championships for at least the third-straight season, while six teams extended title streaks to at least four consecutive seasons. The Rockford girls lacrosse and Lowell wrestling programs own the longest title streaks at eight seasons.
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.
Click for a sport-by-sport listing of MHSAA champions for 2020-21.
MHSAA, NFHS Learning Center Team Up to Provide Online Student Leadership Series
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 10, 2023
Leadership always has been one of the most valuable and applicable life skills developed by student-athletes participating in educational athletics. To assist in that development, the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) and National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) have partnered to produce an online Student Leadership series designed to provide the latest research-based instruction to high schoolers throughout the United States.
The Student Leadership series is provided as part of the web-based NFHS Learning Center and includes two free courses focused on students – “Becoming a Leader” and “Leading Others” – with a third installment for coaches currently in production. All three are inspired by the latest research on how youth-aged athletes learn to lead.
This latest work builds on the MHSAA-produced “Captains Course” developed in 2015 with Michigan State University’s Institute for the Study of Youth Sports (ISYS). The “Captains Course” has been taken more than 100,000 times and is based on in-person “Captains Clinics” that MHSAA staff and ISYS conduct with thousands of students across Michigan each year.
Each student-focused segment of the new Student Leadership series takes 30-45 minutes to complete and includes frequent and quick activities designed to help students understand how they would apply leadership skills in real-life scenarios. Course instruction was created primarily in coordination with the MHSAA by a pair of nationally-recognized authorities on the subject: Jed Blanton, an assistant professor in kinesiology, recreation and sport studies at the University of Tennessee; and Scott Pierce, an associate professor in kinesiology and recreation at Illinois State University.
Both Blanton and Pierce have vast experience with youth athletics; both also formerly worked for the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports and served as graduate assistants at the MHSAA during their time at MSU, playing large roles in more than a decade of research conducted through coordination with the MHSAA’s 16-member Student Advisory Council. High school administrators, student leaders, and other researchers and mental performance consultants also contributed to the lessons taught in these courses. The NFHS produced the content, including all of the visuals and digital features, and the student-focused courses went live on the NFHS Learn website in mid-summer.
“We’ve taken a good program, and made it even better,” said MHSAA Assistant Director Andy Frushour, who coordinates the Association’s student services programs. “This is a program we do in person in Michigan, but our reach now is across the country – and these courses are free, hopefully allowing us to contribute to the development of even more student leaders.”
The “Becoming a Leader” course defines leadership styles and builds skills to help students consider themselves as leaders. “Leading Others” details how leaders put those skills into practice including during challenging situations. Blanton and Pierce worked closely with student advisory groups from various states to make the research content relatable to school sports participants. All voices heard in the courses belong to high school students – including athletes from Michigan, Illinois and Washington who provided 30 testimonials that describe leadership in action.
The “Coaches Course” will provide the same information as presented to high school students, but in a way that explains how coaches can use these tools to personalize leadership training among their athletes as they seek to recognize which types of leaders they have on a team, and which types are missing and need to be developed.
“The NFHS is grateful for the opportunity to work with the MHSAA as well as Dr. Blanton and Dr. Pierce,” said Dan Schuster, the NFHS’ director of educational services. “We believe these student leadership courses will provide valuable information across the country and will contribute to the improvement of the interscholastic experience for young people.”
Video previews provide additional information on both Student Leadership courses.Click for direct links to “Becoming a Leader" and “Leading Others.”