![This graphic shows Michigan high school athletes competing in boys basketball during the 1960s, girls volleyball during the 1970s, football during the 1990s and golf during the 2020s.](/sites/default/files/2024-08/240828_100_2H.png)
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.
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MHSAA Suspends Winter Tournaments
March 12, 2020
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Postseason events sponsored by the Michigan High School Athletic Association have been suspended immediately and indefinitely due to concerns related to COVID-19.
The Ice Hockey, Girls Gymnastics and Lower Peninsula Boys Swimming & Diving Finals had been scheduled for this weekend, while the Girls & Boys Basketball Tournaments are midway through earlier rounds of their playoff progressions.
On Wednesday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recommended a stoppage of large gatherings in order to assist in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
“Based on the events of the last 48 hours and with things changing by the minute, we believe we have no choice but to suspend our winter tournaments immediately,” MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said. “This is a suspension until we have a better handle on the situation. The health and welfare of everyone involved is our number one priority.”
Uyl added that more information and updates will be forthcoming over the next few days. No timetable has been determined for possible rescheduling for tournaments.
Click for a video statement from Mark Uyl.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.