Century of School Sports: Let the Celebration Begin
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 28, 2024
A milestone is an opportunity to look back, and we’ll surely dip into our history plenty during the 2024-25 school year as the Michigan High School Athletic Association celebrates 100 years of educational athletics.
But an anniversary of this magnitude also provides an ideal opportunity – at an ideal time in MHSAA history – to explain how we provide opportunities for students to participate in sports, and why that work remains vital.
Beginning next week and continuing through our final championship events next spring, we’ll be telling several of these stories as part of our “Century of School Sports” series on MHSAA.com.
School sports have advanced significantly over the last century, of course, but the values we strive to teach in educational athletics have remained consistent – and we’ll detail several of those efforts and how they’ve evolved over the years. There also are more high achievers and difference-makers worthy of recognition than we could ever highlight even during a year-long quest. But we will do our best to tell you about as many as possible.
Perhaps the most valuable lesson we at the East Lansing office learned during the COVID-19 pandemic is that school sports are just as meaningful to communities all over Michigan, and despite any perceived notion they are being pushed to the background by the multitude of non-school sports options that have sprouted over the last few decades.
We care about them enough to make them our life’s work – and we’re excited to tell many stories of what’s been, what we enjoy today and perhaps what’s to come for the next million student-athletes who will learn lifelong lessons studying in our extension of the classroom.
Council Approves Winter Finals Update
January 14, 2021
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The MHSAA’s Representative Council today approved a plan for adjusting schedules for the five Winter “contact” sports which may begin non-contact activities Jan. 16 but not full practice and competition until Feb. 1 per the recent update to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) epidemic plan.
The updated schedule for girls and boys basketball, competitive cheer, ice hockey and wrestling pushes Finals for those sports into late March or early April. The Council approved the following dates:
Girls Basketball
First non-contact practice: Jan. 16
First contact practice: Feb. 1
First contest: Feb. 4
Districts: March 22, 24, 26
Regionals: March 29, 31
Quarterfinals: April 5
Semifinals: April 7
Finals: April 9
Boys Basketball
First non-contact practice: Jan. 16
First contact practice: Feb. 1
First contest: Feb. 4
Districts: March 23, 25, 27
Regionals: March 30, April 1
Quarterfinals: April 6
Semifinals: April 8
Finals: April 10
Competitive Cheer
First non-contact practice: Jan. 16
First contact practice: Feb. 1
First contest: Feb. 8
Districts: March 15-20
Regionals: March 22-24
Finals: March 26-27
Ice Hockey
First non-contact practice: Jan. 16
First contact practice: Feb. 1
First contest: Feb. 1
Regionals: March 15-20
Quarterfinals: March 23
Semifinals: March 25-26
Finals: March 27
Wrestling
First non-contact practice: Jan. 16
First contact practice: Feb. 1
First contest: Feb. 8
Districts: March 15-20
Regionals: March 22-28
Team Finals: March 31
Individual Finals: April 2-3
Spring sports will continue with their traditional dates, with first practices March 15. With this updated schedule, the majority of Winter athletes will have completed their seasons by the end of March. The updated schedule does carry on through schools’ spring breaks – MHSAA research found that 63 percent of member schools have spring break the week of March 29-April 4, with the other 37 percent on break from April 5-11.