![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.
![MHSAA News](/sites/default/files/2021-02/MHSAANews_NEW_2H.jpg)
MHSAA Reports 2020-21 Participation; More than 240,000 Participants Counted Despite Pandemic
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
November 4, 2021
While COVID-19 surely played a part in reduced participation in sports at Michigan High School Athletic Association schools during the 2020-21 school year, a total of 244,012 participants continued to take part in athletics across the 28 sports for which the MHSAA sponsors postseason tournaments.
The overall MHSAA participation totals count students once for each sport in which they participate, meaning students who are multiple-sport athletes are counted more than once.
Generally, the MHSAA provides as part of its annual participation release a comparison of totals, both overall and per sport, to the previous school year. But a comparison of the 2020-21 overall participation total to that from 2019-20 cannot be considered relevant because the Spring 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19 before the start of competition, which likely affected participation counts from those spring sports. Similarly, the Fall 2020 season saw a number of schools put some sports on hold for that year, including in the highest participation sport football, which also affected identifying participation trends in those sports. Enrollment reported by MHSAA member schools did see a 2.1-percent decrease from 2019-20, to 444,085 students overall.
The participation figures are gathered annually from MHSAA member schools to submit to the National Federation of State High School Associations for compiling of its national participation survey (although the NFHS has not compiled national surveys for 2019-20 or 2020-21 amid the COVID-19 pandemic). Results of Michigan surveys from the 2000-01 school year to present may be viewed on the MHSAA Website.
The following chart shows participation figures for the 2020-21 school year from MHSAA member schools for sports in which the Association sponsors a postseason tournament:
BOYS |
GIRLS |
|||
Sport |
Schools (A) |
Participants |
Schools (A) |
Participants (B) |
Baseball |
656/11 |
16,035 |
- |
-/18 |
Basketball |
728/5 |
18,806 |
722 |
13,285/15 |
Bowling |
421/25 |
3,465 |
413 |
2,414/51 |
Competitive Cheer |
- |
- |
362 |
5,191 |
Cross Country |
667/4 |
8,372 |
667 |
7,248/16 |
Football -11 player |
543/103 |
30,630 |
- |
-/115 |
8-player |
104/18 |
1,737 |
- |
-/23 |
Golf |
531/51 |
6,075 |
358 |
3,585/108 |
Gymnastics |
- |
- |
102 |
613 |
Ice Hockey |
298/11 |
3,221 |
- |
-/13 |
Lacrosse |
174/8 |
4,497 |
121 |
2,777/13 |
Skiing |
121/0 |
818 |
115 |
778 |
Soccer |
504/16 |
13,129 |
486 |
11,130/60 |
Softball |
- |
- |
647 |
11,389 |
Swimming & Diving |
274/18 |
4,051 |
279 |
5,111/56 |
Tennis |
310/16 |
5,879 |
339 |
7,125/25 |
Track & Field |
702/0 |
17,390 |
692 |
12,739 |
Volleyball |
- |
- |
720 |
18,430 |
Wrestling |
491/158 |
7,296 |
- |
-/283 |
(A) The first number is the number of schools reporting sponsorship on the Sports Participation Survey, including primary and secondary schools in cooperative programs as of May 15, 2021. The second number indicates the number of schools that had girls playing on teams consisting primarily of boys.
(B) The second number indicates the number of additional girls playing on teams consisting primarily of boys and entered in boys competition.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,400 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.