Rep Council Wrap-Up: Spring 2012
June 28, 2012
In addition to authorizing a vote of its membership to allow for waiver of its maximum age rule under certain circumstances, the Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association also approved a variety of regulations and sports activities policies during its annual Spring Meeting, May 6-7, in Gaylord.
The Spring meeting of the 19-member legislative body of the Association’s over 1,500 member schools is generally the busiest of its three sessions each year. The Council considered 33 committee proposals and also dealt with a variety of eligibility rule, post-season tournament and operational issues.
A couple of the most visible changes will take place in ice hockey beginning with the 2012-13 school year, which will see longer games in the MHSAA post-season tournament and the addition of a regular-season contest. Tournament games will now have 17 minute periods, something which had been allowed by local adoption for regular season games previously. The regular season game limit was also raised, as the Representative Council approved a Hockey Committee recommendation to reduce the number of scrimmages to one in exchange for the addition of a 25th contest.
Here is a summary of other actions taken at the Spring Representative Council Meeting which will take effect during the 2012-13 school year:
Handbook/Administrative Matters
- By prior mutual consent of competing teams, schools may agree to vary the color of game uniforms to commemorate events or causes important to those schools, provided all other uniform specifications are followed. The wearing of pink and camouflage uniforms, for example, to show support for breast cancer awareness or members of our armed forces wounded in action, among others, have become popular; but previously required advanced approval from the MHSAA.
- The Council approved a revision of the sections of the MHSAA Handbook addressing the sanctioning of meets conducted by non-school organizations or individuals and large interstate meets. They now reflect the requirements of the National Federation of State High School Associations, as well as previously unstated policies and procedures of the MHSAA.
- In junior high/middle school matters, the Council revised the Handbook so that schools may decide to allow student-athletes in the 7th and 8th grades to be members of an interscholastic team in more than one sport at the same time; and to allow a student who will exceed the maximum age limit as a 7th or 8th grader to apply for “Eligibility Advancement” while in 6th grade to begin a maximum of two years of junior high/middle school participation.
Sports Matters
- Responding to situations where celebrations by student-athletes and spectators have resulted in property damage at MHSAA post-season tournaments, the Council approved the following language for inclusion in participating team and tournament managers materials addressing team and spectator conduct.
- During contests, officials will penalize under applicable sportsmanship or playing rules those student-athletes or coaches who leave the field of play and contact or approach spectator areas for celebration.
- Each tournament manager or the MHSAA Staff may determine an acceptable number of crowd supervisors necessary for each school, dependent on the situation, including inappropriate celebrations and other crowd control issues.
- The cost for repair of replacement to facilities damaged as a result of participant and/or spectator conduct shall be paid by the school involved directly to the host facility within 30 days of the bill being submitted to the school. MHSAA reimbursement or revenue sharing will be withheld until paid by the offending school. Future tournament hosting privileges or school reimbursements to offending schools may be withheld if payment is not made.
- In Golf, the Council approved a committee recommendation to allow coaching contact for one designated coach during MHSAA tournament competition on all areas of the course, except when players reach the green. The school designated coach must be identified and approved by the school prior to the MHSAA tournament. Coaching privileges may not be transferred to persons not approved and designated by school administration. A committee recommendation to exempt one qualifying round of the Michigan Amateur Tournament from the limited team membership rule beginning in 2013, replacing the exemption approved in 2010 for the two U.S. Open qualifying stages, was adopted.
- In Boys Lacrosse, a committee recommendation to limit entry in the MHSAA post-season tournament beginning in 2013 to those schools that play no fewer than 50 percent of their regular season schedule against other MHSAA member school teams was approved.
- In Soccer, the Council did not adopt a National Federation rule adoption that eliminates a substitution for a player who receives a second yellow card. This action affects the 2012-13 school year only during which the Soccer Committee will consider this rule change further and its impact on Michigan’s ten-minute sit-out rule following a yellow card.
- A second day of weigh-ins will take place at the MHSAA Team Wrestling Finals, which will be independent of the previous day’s weigh-in, and all competitors would be given a one-pound growth allowance for consecutive days of weigh-in. The Council also approved a Wrestling Committee recommendation to permit wrestling practice to begin two Mondays before Thanksgiving. The first day of competition does not change.
The Council also reviewed reports on membership, with 763 senior high schools and 768 junior high/middle schools in 2011-12; eligibility advancement applications, which totaled nine for the year; the use of Educational Transfer Forms, which was stable this year; school violations, which declined significantly; attendance at athletic director and coaches in-service workshops; officials’ registrations, topping the 12,000 mark again; rules meeting attendance; and officials reports submitted for the past three sports seasons. The Association’s $9.8 million budget for the 2012-13 school year was also approved.
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.
Sailor Nation Works Together to Save Life
December 12, 2019
By Tom Kendra
Special for Second Half
Bob Mirkle calls it a miracle that he’s still alive.
The 74-year-old Norton Shores resident had a brush with death Oct. 18 in front of 7,000 fans packed into Sailor Stadium for the blockbuster Muskegon at Mona Shores football game.
Just as the huge crowd stood for the national anthem, Mirkle was slumping back onto the bleachers from cardiac arrest, later identified as the failure of a heart stent which had been implanted 18 years ago.
“Something’s wrong with grandpa!” screamed his grandson, causing a ruckus in the Mona Shores reserved section, about 10 rows below the press box.
What transpired over the next 30 minutes was an incredible performance by the Mona Shores fans, coaches, media and entire community to save Mirkle’s life. It was a textbook reaction which was lauded by Norton Shores public safety officials – and the Mirkle family.
“We live in a great community,” said Cheryl Mirkle, Bob’s wife, who stayed home that night to babysit two of her grandchildren. “In a lot of other places, he wouldn’t have made it. We were told that 1 out of 9 people who have that situation happen don’t make it. So we believe it was nothing short of a miracle.”
The immediate family surrounding Mirkle – many of whom were at the game to support Shores starting junior linebacker Karsen Marihugh, Bob’s great-nephew, and two other family members who are cheerleaders – helped clear a small area in the packed stands and get Mirkle down flat on his back.
A woman sitting four rows back, who was well trained in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, was able to clear Mirkle’s airway and immediately start chest compressions.
Mark Konecny, a Mona Shores assistant coach and part-time Norton Shores fireman, recognized what was going on and grabbed the automated external defibrillator (AED) on the sidelines and headed up into the stands. Konecny, who was an all-state quarterback for Shores in 1980 and went on to play two years in the NFL with Miami and Philadelphia, was able to connect the defibrillator and shock Mirkle’s heart back into action.
Joe Kinnucan, who was in the press box about to go on the air with a Sailor Nation Sports Network broadcast of the game, threw down his headset and made a beeline for Mirkle, leaving his son Noah to make his unplanned broadcasting debut.
“There was no second thought,” explained Kinnucan, whose full-time job is Deputy Fire Chief for the Norton Shores Fire Department. “You ask any first responder who is truly vested in their work, and they will tell you that they are always on call. I was just happy to be able to help out.”
The huge crowd and both teams, who were wired for one of the state’s biggest regular-season prep football games of the year, briefly put aside the intense rivalry and went dead quiet out of respect. Shores public address announcer Dan Vandermyde even asked those in attendance to say a prayer as Mirkle was carried underneath the bleachers, where Konecny and Kinnucan and others continued working on him as the game began.
Cheryl Mirkle, meanwhile, who was at home and receiving cryptic, panicked phone calls and texts from friends and family, believed that her husband had died. That is until she got a call from her niece, screaming: “He’s breathing! He’s alive!”
Cheryl first saw her husband at Mercy Hospital in Muskegon where, like a true fan, the first words out of his mouth were: “What’s the score?”
The score of that night’s game was surprisingly one-sided: Muskegon 53, Mona Shores 0. Since that shocking night, both Mirkle and the Sailors have been on the recovery trail.
Mirkle underwent heart bypass surgery Oct. 23, five days after the game, and ended up spending 11 days in the hospital. He is back home and even mowed the lawn one day, and will start his therapy sessions this week.
“I’m doing great,” said Mirkle, a retired truck driver and devout fisherman. “I’m getting better and getting ready to start going to therapy. My story has a happy ending.”
As Mirkle was recovering, the Sailors and Big Reds were putting together long playoff runs, with both culminating Thanksgiving weekend in MHSAA Finals appearances at Ford Field in Detroit.
Muskegon’s run came to a disappointing end in a 30-7 loss to River Rouge in the Division 3 championship game.
Mona Shores, meanwhile, continued its magic run under diminutive junior quarterback Brady Rose, upsetting Detroit Martin Luther King, 35-26, in the Division 2 title game.
It capped an amazing rags-to-riches story for Mona Shores, which until recently had become synonymous with losing on the football field. Shores had only one winning season during a 14-year stretch from 1998 to 2012, but ended its playoff drought in 2013 and then made it all the way to the Division 2 championship game in both 2014 and 2018, before taking it all this time.
“We have waited all of these years for Shores to win some football games, and now it’s happening,” said Cheryl, who has been going to games with her husband since the late 1980s when their nephew, Sam Wakefield, was playing for the Sailors. “It really has been an amazing season in so many ways.”
At the community celebration at the school’s gym on Dec. 1, Mona Shores athletic director Todd Conrad praised the community for its support of the team and for rising up and raising funds to help defray the cost of travel en route to the championship.
It was actually the second time this season that the Mona Shores community responded quickly in a time of need.
“The saving of that man’s life was a textbook example of an entire community responding in the right way,” said Kinnucan. “People responded in a split-second with training which they had acquired somewhere along the line.
“Sure, we went on to win a state championship, which is incredible, but it still doesn’t top that moment and how everyone worked together to save his life.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS: (Top left) Bob and Cheryl Mirkle sit for a photo with their three grandchildren during Christmas 2017. (Top right) Joe Kinnucan, far right, returns to the press box Oct. 18 to share with play-by-play partner Nick Davros and their viewers that a man in the stands who was experiencing a cardiac event was “breathing and had a pulse.” (Top below) The Sailor Nation Sports Network crew, from left: Nick Davros, Noah Kinnucan, Connor Fritz, Joe Kinnucan and John Hall (with videographer Kimon Kotos on the roof). (Middle) Bob Mirkle. (Photos courtesy of Joe Kinnucan and Bob Mirkle, respectively.)