New Member to Join Representative Council
October 23, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Elections were completed recently to fill positions on the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s legislative body, its Representative Council, and one new member was among those selected.
St. Ignace superintendent Donald Gustafson will join the Council to represent Junior High/Middle Schools. He was elected to a two-year team, as were five others who were re-elected and will begin terms during the Council’s fall meeting.
Kingsford athletic director Al Unger will continue to represent Class A and B schools in the Upper Peninsula, and Detroit Public School League administrator for athletics Alvin Ward will continue to represent the Detroit Public Schools. Gobles athletic director Chris Miller will continue to represent Class C and D schools from the southwestern section of the Lower Peninsula, and Adrian Madison athletic director Kristen M. Isom was re-elected to represent the Class C and D schools from the southeastern section. Karen Leinaar, athletic director at Bear Lake, will continue as one of two at-large statewide representatives.
The Representative Council is the 19-member legislative body of the MHSAA. All but five members are elected by member schools. Four members are appointed by the Council to facilitate representation of females and minorities, and the 19th position is occupied by the Superintendent of Public Instruction or designee. The Council meets three times annually, and five members of the Council convene monthly during the school year to form the MHSAA’s Executive Committee, which reviews appeals of Handbook regulations by member schools.
Additional elections took place to select representatives to the Upper Peninsula Athletic Committee. Gladstone athletic director Matthew Houle was re-elected to represent Class A and B schools, Iron Mountain athletic director Chris Hartman was re-elected to represent Class C schools and Rock Mid-Peninsula athletic director Gary Brayak was re-elected to represent Class D schools.
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.
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.