Rep Council Wrap-up: Winter 2014
March 24, 2014
The addition of a training requirement for first-time high school varsity coaches and football practice policy changes focused on player safety highlighted actions taken by the Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association during its annual Winter Meeting on March 21 in East Lansing.
Raising expectations for coaches’ preparedness is one of four current thrusts of the MHSAA’s ongoing focus on health and safety issues in school sports. The Council voted to require every individual hired for the first time as a varsity head coach at an MHSAA member high school after July 31, 2016 to have completed the MHSAA’s Coaches Advancement Program (CAP) Level 1 or Level 2. CAP is a six-level MHSAA-administered educational regimen that aids coaches in their growth and development as they advance in the field of educational athletics.
This is the third action the Council has approved over the last year to enhance the preparation of coaches with respect to health and safety issues. The first action, adopted in May 2013, requires all assistant and subvarsity coaches at the high school level to complete the same rules and risk minimization meeting requirement as high school varsity head coaches beginning with the 2014-15 school year. The second, adopted during the Fall Meeting in December, requires all varsity high school head coaches have a current CPR certification beginning with the 2015-16 school year.
By adopting a series of football changes, the Council also advanced a thrust toward revising practice policies and game rules to improve player safety in all sports. The practice policy changes were proposed by a Football Task Force made up of coaches, administrators and MHSAA staff which met throughout 2013. The following were approved by the Council:
- During the first week of practice of the season, only helmets are allowed the first two days, only shoulder pads may be added on the third and fourth days, and full pads may not be worn until the fifth day of team practice.
- Before the first regular-season game, schools may not schedule more than one “collision” practice in a day. A collision practice is defined as one in which there is live, game-speed, player-versus-player contact in pads involving any number of players.
- After the first regular-season game, teams may conduct no more than two collision practice days in any week, Monday through Sunday.
- No single football practice may exceed three hours, and the total practice time for days with multiple practice sessions may not exceed five hours. Neither strength/weight training activities nor video/classroom sessions are considered practice for the purposes of the three or five-hour limits.
Additional details and explanations of the new football practice policies are found on the Football page of the MHSAA Website.
The Council also approved a series of proposals regarding the eligibility of international students, who by an estimate from the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel (CSIET) numbered more than 3,800 in Michigan in 2012. The Representative Council approved a change to a portion of the MHSAA’s transfer regulation to refer to international students, not merely “foreign exchange” students, and also approved a proposal that would grant an international student athletic eligibility at an MHSAA school only if that student is placed through an Approved International Student Program accepted for listing by CSIET or approved by the MHSAA.
Those international students placed through an Approved International Student Program would be eligible for a maximum of the first two consecutive semesters or three consecutive trimesters at any secondary school in the United States, after which the student is ineligible for interscholastic athletic competition at any MHSAA member school for the next academic year. International students who do not meet one of the residency exceptions recognized by the MHSAA or are not enrolled through an Approved International Student Program may become eligible to participate at the subvarsity level only.
Continuing its examination of athletics at the junior high/middle school level, the Council also approved changes to allow for longer competitions in two sports. The length of quarters in basketball may be increased from six minutes to a maximum of eight minutes, and the length of quarters in football may be increased from eight minutes to a maximum of 10 minutes.
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 1,500 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.
Record-Setting Coach, Championship Program Leader Selected for 2024 WISL Awards
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
January 23, 2024
On the basketball court, no woman in Michigan high school history has led her team to more victories than Bloomfield Hills Marian’s Mary Cicerone. And few schools have stacked more championships over the last decade than Ann Arbor Pioneer under the guidance of athletic director Eve Claar.
To celebrate those accomplishments, and more significantly their impacts on thousands of students over decades in those leadership positions, Cicerone and Claar have been named the 37th and 38th recipients of the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s Women In Sports Leadership Award.
Each year, the Representative Council considers the achievements of women coaches, officials and athletic administrators affiliated with the MHSAA who show exemplary leadership capabilities and positive contributions to athletics. Cicerone and Claar will receive their awards during this year’s WISL Conference, Feb. 4-5 at the Crowne Plaza Lansing West.
Cicerone retired from coaching the Bloomfield Hills Marian girls basketball team after the 2021-22 season with a record of 707-233 since taking over the program in 1983 – making her the fourth-winningest coach in MHSAA girls basketball history, and the winningest woman to lead a program.
She guided the Mustangs to six Finals championships, in Class A in 1988, 1992, 1996 and 1998 and back-to-back in Division 1 in 2014 and 2015. Her teams also won 19 Catholic High School League Central division championships, 20 overall CHSL League titles and reached the MHSAA Semifinals seven times, also finishing Class A runner-up in 1997.
“Mary Cicerone is a legend because she’s won hundreds of games and many championships, and those measurables of her success speak for themselves,” MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said. “But her commitment to her teams, her sport, and leadership in women’s athletics as a whole contributed just as significantly to her tremendous legacy.”
In addition to receiving several local and statewide coaching awards over the years, Cicerone has been inducted into Halls of Fame by the University of Detroit Mercy (2007) as a player and as a coach by the Catholic High School League (1998), Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan (2017) and Marian (2022).
She has served as an officer for the Catholic League Women’s Coaches Association and in 2009 received the CHSL’s Ed Lauer Person of the Year Award.
“Being a young girl wanting to play all kinds of activities, we never had much opportunity and I participated in whatever I was able and just felt like that was something that was important to me, my friends and everybody I was associated with was always part of the same group,” Cicerone said. “I felt like (advocating for women’s sports) was something I should do because it was so important for me, and I appreciated everything everybody did for me and my friends to be able to play.
“It’s not something I needed to do – just something I wanted to do. I stepped into that role, cherished it, worked really hard at it, and hopefully made great memories – for me, for sure – and for others.”
Claar is in her 21st year as an athletic director, and over the last decade has guided one of the state’s largest athletic programs in terms of both programs and student-athletes, with 36 varsity teams and nearly 1,110 participants. The Pioneers have had ample local and statewide success during her tenure, including claiming 16 MHSAA Finals championships across seven sports over the last eight school years (including this one). Most recently, Pioneer tied for most Finals championships among Lower Peninsula schools in 2020-21 with four, were second in 2021-22 with four more, and last school year tied for most in the Lower Peninsula again with three titles.
Claar began in athletic administration as Pioneer’s assistant director from 2003-06, and she became athletic director at Bloomfield Hills Lahser at the start of the 2006-07 school year. She took over the program at Ypsilanti Lincoln as athletic director in 2009 before returning to Pioneer in 2012.
“Eve Claar continues to show the way for her programs to succeed on the field while keeping in mind the big picture of what’s important in school sports,” Uyl said. “She’s invested in providing the best experiences for Pioneer’s student-athletes, and athletes competing throughout the Southeastern Conference, while also providing support to AD colleagues and coaches who look to her for leadership and expertise.”
Claar has served as the Southeastern Conference secretary since 2009 and is the league’s sport director for softball and field hockey. She has been president of the Michigan Field Hockey League since 2018 and has served on several MHSAA sport and site selection committees and as part of the MHSAA/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award selection committee. Before becoming an athletic director, Claar worked five years in the Detroit Pistons/Detroit Shock community relations department.
She was named a Regional Athletic Director of the Year in 2019 by the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA). In 2021, she helped found the Southeastern Conference’s Women in Sports Leadership Conference for student-athletes from the league’s 14 schools.
“I started with (longtime Pioneer AD) Lorin Cartwright before me, and she was always a mentor for me. I’ve always had female leaders and mentors whether in sports for high school, over to Pioneer, with the Shock with Nancy Lieberman – I’ve been around amazing female leaders,” Claar said. “I feel at this point, 21 years into doing this, now it’s upon me to do the same. I’ve been honored when I’ve had other athletic directors reach out, other female ADs ask for support, and I’ve been able to give the support that (my mentors) gave me.”
Cicerone is a 1978 graduate of Coopersville High School, where she was a basketball all-stater and ran track, and she then starred on the basketball court at Detroit Mercy, leading the Titans to three Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) state titles and graduating as Mercy’s all-time career assists leader while earning a bachelor’s degree in education. She won the 1982 President’s Award as U-D’s most outstanding female student-athlete.
She taught primarily physical education at Marian beginning with the 1983-84 school year through her retirement 39 years later, and also coached track & field for a season at the start of her teaching career.
Claar is a 1991 graduate of North Farmington High School and earned her bachelor’s degree in business administration from Central Michigan University and master’s from Detroit Mercy. She received a teaching certificate from Wayne State University and education leadership certificate from Eastern Michigan University, and earned her certified athletic administrator (CAA) designation in 2008. Claar played basketball, volleyball and softball at North Farmington and was a BCAM Miss Basketball Award finalist in 1990. She continued as a standout at CMU, finishing her playing career in 1995, and remains among the most accomplished 3-point shooters in program history. She also served as a graduate assistant women’s basketball coach at U-D for two seasons.
More than 800 participants – mostly female high school student-athletes from across the state – have registered to attend this year’s sold-out WISL Conference, the 26th in the series that remains the first, largest and longest-running program of its type in the country.
The opening address Feb. 4 will be presented by Cathy George, the all-time winningest volleyball coach in Michigan State University history and the first head coach of the newly-created Grand Rapids Rise professional volleyball franchise. Current MSU volleyball coach Leah Johnson will speak during the morning’s general session Feb. 5 on the conference’s theme “Share the Vision” – she finished her second season leading the Spartans in the fall after coaching Illinois State University from 2017-21 and taking ISU to the NCAA Tournament her last four seasons before leaving for East Lansing.
Several workshops will be offered over the two days, with topics including coaching, teaching and learning leadership; sports nutrition and performance, and empowerment and goal-setting. Presenters are accomplished in their fields and represent a wide range of backgrounds in sport. A complete itinerary is available on the WISL page.
The first Women In Sports Leadership Award was presented in 1990.
Past recipients
1990 – Carol Seavoy, L’Anse
1991 – Diane Laffey, Harper Woods
1992 – Patricia Ashby, Scotts
1993 – Jo Lake, Grosse Pointe
1994 – Brenda Gatlin, Detroit
1995 – Jane Bennett, Ann Arbor
1996 – Cheryl Amos-Helmicki, Huntington Woods
1997 – Delores L. Elswick, Detroit
1998 – Karen S. Leinaar, Delton
1999 – Kathy McGee, Flint
2000 – Pat Richardson, Grass Lake
2001 – Suzanne Martin, East Lansing
2002 – Susan Barthold, Kentwood
2003 – Nancy Clark, Flint
2004 – Kathy Vruggink Westdorp, Grand Rapids
2005 – Barbara Redding, Capac
2006 – Melanie Miller, Lansing
2007 – Jan Sander, Warren Woods
2008 – Jane Bos, Grand Rapids
2009 – Gail Ganakas, Flint; Deb VanKuiken, Holly
2010 – Gina Mazzolini, Lansing
2011 – Ellen Pugh, West Branch; Patti Tibaldi, Traverse City
2012 – Janet Gillette, Comstock Park
2013 – Barbara Beckett, Traverse City
2014 – Teri Reyburn, DeWitt
2015 – Jean LaClair, Bronson
2016 – Betty Wroubel, Pontiac
2017 – Dottie Davis, Ann Arbor
2018 – Meg Seng, Ann Arbor
2019 – Kris Isom, Adrian
2020 – Nikki Norris, East Lansing
2021 – Dorene Ingalls, St. Ignace
2022 – Lori Hyman, Livonia
2023 – Laurie Glass, Leland
PHOTOS Bloomfield Hills Marian coach Mary Cicerone, left, huddles with her team during an MHSAA Finals weekend, and Ann Arbor Pioneer athletic director Eve Claar welcomes John and Jim Harbaugh into the school's Pioneer Hall of Fame. (Claar photo courtesy of Ann Arbor Public Schools.)