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 Women In Sports Leadership Conference to Celebrate Multiple Milestones
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
September 14, 2022
A pair of milestones will be celebrated by the Michigan High School Athletic Association during this year’s Women In Sports Leadership Conference, to be presented Sunday, Oct. 9, and Monday, Oct. 10 at Crowne Plaza Lansing West for 600 participants, most of them high school female student-athletes from across the state.
A theme of “Power of the Past – Force of the Future” will recall opportunities created during the 50 years since the enactment of Title IX in 1972. This also will be the 25th WISL Conference, which remains the first, largest and longest-running program of its type in the country.
This year’s edition again will feature three keynote speakers and a variety of workshops. The opening address will be delivered by Ashley Baker, who serves as the chief diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) officer at Michigan State University. Baker, originally from Pontiac, earned bachelor and master’s degrees from Bowling Green State University and a doctorate in sport management and policy from the University of Georgia. She came to MSU in December 2020 from Xavier University (Louisiana) where she most recently had served as assistant vice president for student affairs and chief inclusion officer/deputy Title IX coordinator.
First-year Spartans softball coach Sharonda McDonald-Kelley will speak during the Oct. 9 evening general session. She coached Campbell University (N.C.) to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances and was a four-time all-Big 12 selection as a player at Texas A&M, appearing in the College World Series before playing professionally for seven years. McDonald-Kelley was named Big South Conference Coach of the Year in 2021, and previously also coached professionally and as associate head coach at Texas Tech University after serving as an assistant for multiple prestigious college programs.
University of Michigan women’s basketball coach Kim Barnes-Arico will speak during the morning session Oct. 10. She led the Wolverines last season to their first NCAA Tournament Elite Eight and is nearing 500 career victories, having won a U-M program-record 218 during her 10 seasons. She’s a two-time Big Ten Conference Coach of Year and was a semifinalist this past season for the Werner Ladder Naismith Coach of the Year honor. Michigan is her fifth college coaching stop; she came to Ann Arbor after 10 seasons at St. John’s. She played basketball one season at Stony Brook University (N.Y.) and then her final three including two as captain at Montclair State University (N.J.).
Workshops offered during the WISL Conference include topics on coaching, teaching and learning leadership; sports nutrition and performance, and injury prevention; and empowerment and goal-setting. Presenters are accomplished in their fields and represent a wide range of backgrounds in sport.
A complete itinerary is available on the MHSAA Website.
The Oct. 9 evening general session also will include recognition for the 2022 Women In Sports Leadership Award winner – recently-retired Livonia Stevenson athletic director Lori Hyman. A basketball standout at MSU during the second half of the 1970s, Hyman went on to coach college basketball for 17 years and then serve as a highly-regarded athletic director for 27 years including the last 22 at her alma mater Stevenson.
Follow the #WISL hashtag on Twitter and Instagram to learn more about the conference’s activities.