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Rep Council Wrap-Up: Fall 2014
December 11, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The promotion of junior high and middle school athletics and possibility of allowing younger students opportunities to compete in certain sports highlighted topics discussed by the Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association during its annual Fall Meeting on Dec. 5 in East Lansing.
Although no action was taken, the Council heard findings of the Junior High/Middle School task force created at the 2013 Fall Meeting to consider how the MHSAA should continue to encourage multi-sport experiences at that level and review the possibility of serving sixth-grade students in addition to those in the seventh and eighth grades.
The task force met four times during the 2014 calendar year. It provided support for longer quarters in basketball and football that were recommended by the MHSAA’s Junior High/Middle School Committee and approved by the Representative Council in March. The Junior High/Middle School Committee will consider another task force recommendation in January that would allow sixth graders to participate against seventh and eighth graders in all sports except football and ice hockey without seeking annual waivers from the MHSAA in order to do so. The Council could then review that recommendation when it reconvenes in March. Currently, the MHSAA serves 725 member schools at the 7th and 8th-grade level.
The Council also continued to examine the impact of increasing numbers of international students and additional rules approved in March to equalize the treatment of J-1 and F-1 visa students and standardize their opportunities at both public and non-public high schools.
A package of proposals adopted at the Council’s March 2014 meeting in part allowed for the MHSAA to approve school-operated international student placement programs if they were not listed by the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel (CSIET). The MHSAA for 2014-15 approved five such programs, with the notion that all programs would require CSIET approval moving forward. However, the Council will determine in March if the MHSAA will retain the ability to approve non-CSIET school-operated programs again in 2015-16.
An update also was provided on work to determine if rules regulating out-of-season coaching by school staff should be changed to allow those coaches more involvement with student-athletes out of season. MHSAA staff discussed possible changes with member school administrators at league meetings and then athletic director in-service and update meetings this fall and surveyed athletic directors on the desirability of potential changes in late October. The Council reviewed results of the survey and input from meetings and a schedule of upcoming discussions with coaches associations and league and conference leaders. Further Council discussion is slated for March with possible action during its final meeting of the school year in May.
The Council voted on two matters concerning MHSAA tournaments. E-cigarettes and other smoking devices were added to the list of substances prohibited at MHSAA tournament events. The Council also approved the opportunity for presentation of awards by a sport’s coaches association at MHSAA Finals for that sport so long as awards are to recognize students.
The Fall Meeting also saw the addition of Pat Watson, principal at West Bloomfield High School, to the 19-person Council. He was appointed to a two-year term and previously served as his school’s athletic director and coached baseball and girls and boys basketball. He fills the position formerly held by Carmen Kennedy, principal at St. Clair Shores South Lake High School, whose term ended. Also, Orlando Medina, athletic director at Harrison Township L’Anse Creuse High School, was reappointed for a second two-year term. Don Gustafson, superintendent of St. Ignace Area Schools, was appointed to the Upper Peninsula Athletic Committee for 2015.
The Council elected Scott Grimes, assistant superintendent of human services for Grand Haven Area Public Schools, as its president; Buchanan athletic director Fred Smith was elected vice president and Vic Michaels, director of physical education and athletics for the Archdiocese of Detroit, was elected secretary-treasurer. Grimes was elected to fill the position of recently-retired Negaunee Superintendent Jim Derocher, who had served as Council president since 2008. Grimes had served as vice president since 2009.
The Representative Council is the 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 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.
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MHSAA's Roberts to Retire in August
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
April 24, 2018
For 32 years, Jack Roberts has served as much more than a caretaker of the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
In announcing his retirement Tuesday, he called working for 1,500 schools and hundreds of thousands of student-athletes over three decades his "purpose."
John E. “Jack” Roberts, who has served as executive director of the MHSAA since the fall of 1986, will retire in August.
Roberts will conclude his tenure as the second-longest serving full-time executive director during the MHSAA’s 94-year history. He is the fourth person to serve that leadership role full time, following Charles E. Forsythe (1931-42, 1945-68), Allen W. Bush (1968-78) and Vern L. Norris (1978-86). Roberts currently is also the nation’s longest-serving executive director of a state high school athletic association.
The MHSAA has enjoyed continued growth under Roberts’ guidance, particularly in the number of Michigan high school students participating in athletics and in the number of MHSAA-sponsored tournament sports available to them.
The Association also has made unprecedented advances in providing for the health and safety of athletes and promoting sportsmanship and the values of educational athletics and while working to preserve competitive equity for its more than 1,500 member high school and junior high/middle schools.
“I don’t think anybody could have been luckier than I to enjoy their work so much and to enjoy the people he worked with so much,” Roberts said. “It has been a blessing to be able to bring my passions to work every day and be able to act on my convictions. I don’t think anybody could ever feel more called to a job than I did."
Under Roberts’ leadership, overall participation in high school athletics in Michigan has increased 10 percent, and the MHSAA has added more than 200 schools in increasing its membership by more than 15 percent at the high school and junior high/middle school levels combined. Most recently, in 2016, 6th-graders were allowed to compete for member schools for the first time as a push was made to increase junior high/middle school membership and serve the state’s students earlier in their athletic careers.
His tenure has seen the addition of girls competitive cheer (1994), girls & boys bowling (2004) and girls & boys lacrosse (2005) to the tournament sport lineup, the creation of separate wrestling tournament to determine champions by team format (1988) and 8-player football (2010, first playoffs 2011) as many small schools across the state began having trouble fielding 11-player teams because of enrollment and population decreases. Meanwhile, also under his leadership, the 11-player Football Playoffs expanded, doubling to 256 teams in 1999.
A number of key rules changes came under Roberts’ watch and direction, including the addition of opportunities for multiple schools to create cooperative teams in sports where participation is lagging, as well as the creation of down time and dead periods (2006) to ease pressure for year-round activity. A comprehensive sportsmanship package enacted in 1996 set a statewide tone for appropriate behavior and perspective that continues to make an impact today.
But the most significant and arguably lasting work influenced by Roberts came on topics not related to specific sports or competition. The MHSAA has led nationally in concussion care with its first programming in 2000 and return-to-play protocols enacted in 2010, and with concussion pilot testing, mandated reporting and insurance for those who suffer head injuries rolled out in 2015.
A heat management policy and CPR requirements for coaches were introduced in 2013. The first program for coaches education was launched in 1987 and evolved into the Coaches Advancement Program that is now required for all newly-hired varsity head coaches, and all coaches (head or assistant) at all high school levels (varsity and subvarsity) are now required to take annual rules/health meetings.
The Women in Sports Leadership Conference was created in 1989 and remains the first, largest and longest-running program of its type in the country, regularly drawing upwards of 500 participants. The first of now-annual statewide Athletic Director In-Service Programs was conducted in 1992, and the MHSAA’s website – MHSAA.com – was launched in 1997. That same year the first of the now-annual Sportsmanship Summits was held, and Michigan remains a national leader in student services thanks to a variety of programs that have been introduced over the last three decades.
“We have accomplished a great deal over 32 years, but there is very much more to do – and it will always be that way,” Roberts said. “People ask me if I have any regrets, and I don’t have many. But two come to mind right now.
“I regret that I didn’t spend more time writing notes to the folks I’ve been serving at the local level who work so hard delivering the program every day, every week, every season, every year to the young people that we serve. I wish I’d done more of that – that encouraging word to people in the trenches doing the work.
“And I suppose the second regret is that in spite of everything that we’ve done, there’s still a lot more to do to keep school sports as safe, sane and sportsmanlike as it ought to be – as it must be for schools to continue to sponsor these programs. You see, school sports done right brings help and hope to parents and to schools who are trying as hard as they can to raise up and educate kids in very, very scary times. School sports helps parents and helps schools bring stability and engagement into young people’s lives that can provide them life lessons and turn some good athletes into great citizens down the road.”
Roberts privately made the decision to retire during May 2017. But even as he has prepared for his retirement this summer, he’s catalyzed a Multi-Sport Participation Task Force charged with promoting the benefits of playing more than one sport and led the facilitating of statewide discussion on a sport-based transfer rule proposal that will come before the MHSAA's Representative Council in May.
In addition to his work specifically in Michigan, Roberts has carried significant influence at the national level. With his retirement, he also will be leaving the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Board of Directors. He led the creation of the NFHS Network for video productions in 2012 and is finishing an extended term as that board’s chairperson. He also has served on the board of directors of the National Association of Sports Officials (NASO).
Roberts previously served as an assistant director for the National Federation from 1973-80. He came to the MHSAA in 1986 from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which he served as executive vice president. During the last 45 years, Roberts has spoken to education, business and civic groups in nearly every state and five Canadian provinces and continues to be hailed as one of the nation’s most articulate advocates for educational athletics.
"We have always felt that we had the best executive director in the United States. What he's done for interscholastic athletics in Michigan is incredible," said MHSAA Representative Council President Scott Grimes, who serves as assistant superintendent of human services for Grand Haven Area Public Schools.
"Jack has always had student-athletes' best interests in mind when making all decisions, and he's had tough decisions to make. We certainly will miss his leadership in our state."
In addition to his MHSAA work, Roberts has served as board president for the Refugee Development Center in Lansing for nine years and this year is the chair of the board of trustees for the Capital Regional Community Foundation. He is a 1970 graduate of Dartmouth College and taught English and coached football at high schools in Milwaukee and Denver before joining the NFHS staff. He and his wife Peggy reside in East Lansing, and his late father, John Roberts, served as the executive director of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) from 1957-86.
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.
PHOTOS: From left, Jack Roberts during an interview in 1986, at Ford Field in 2005 and during a Representative Council meeting in 2014.