Update: Attendance, Broadcast Information

March 12, 2020

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

Postseason events sponsored by the Michigan High School Athletic Association and scheduled for March 12-14 will be conducted as scheduled. However, attendance will be restricted at all events through this weekend, with updates to be announced Monday, March 16, for the remainder of the girls and boys basketball tournaments.

The MHSAA Ice Hockey Semifinals and Finals will be played March 12-14 at USA Hockey Arena, with Lower Peninsula Boys Swimming & Diving Finals beginning Friday, March 13 and concluding March 14 at Oakland University and Holland Aquatic Center. Girls Gymnastics at Rockford High School also will be competed Friday and Saturday this weekend. Girls Basketball Regionals Finals are scheduled for tonight, March 12, across the state, as are Boys District Finals on Friday, March 13.

Based on recommendations from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer suggesting attendance limitations, no spectators will be allowed for the three Swimming & Diving Finals, both days, or Saturday’s Girls Gymnastics Individual Finals. These events have the highest number of participants of this weekend’s events.

However, for Hockey Semifinals and Finals and Gymnastics Team Finals – events with far fewer participants – a limited number of spectators will be allowed, as determined by participating schools, to include only parents, legal guardians and essential administrators. Basketball games during the next two days also will allow only limited spectators, as determined by participating schools and following these same restrictions. Each competing school will provide the entry list of parents, legal guardians and essential administrators to the host site prior to each contest.

To recap, here is a breakdown of sport-by-sport attendance stipulations and broadcast information.

Boys Swimming & Diving Finals
Rounds: Preliminaries on March 13, Finals on March 14
Attendance: No on-site spectators allowed.
Broadcast: Live streaming of prelims and Finals on MHSAA.tv. 

Girls Gymnastics Finals
Rounds: Team Finals on March 13, Individual Finals on March 14
Attendance: Limited to parents, legal guardians and essential administrators on March 13. No on-site spectators allowed March 14.
Broadcast: Live streaming of Team and Individual Finals on MHSAA.tv. 

Boys Ice Hockey Semifinals and Finals
Rounds: Semifinals on March 12-13, Finals on March 14
Attendance: Limited to parents, legal guardians and essential administrators.
Broadcast: Live streaming of all nine games on MHSAA.tv. Live audio on MHSAA Network.

Girls Basketball Regional Finals
Rounds: All scheduled for March 12.
Attendance: Limited to parents, legal guardians and essential administrators.
Broadcast: Live streaming of some games, with subscription, on MHSAA.tv. 

Boys Basketball District Finals
Rounds: All scheduled for March 13.
Attendance: Limited to parents, legal guardians and essential administrators.
Broadcast: Live streaming of some games, with subscription, on MHSAA.tv.

Bands, cheerleaders and gatherings in parking lots or elsewhere on-site will not be allowed. Restrictions on noisemakers, etc., will continue to be upheld for those fans who will attend.

For those allowed to be present, there will be no admission charged at any of these five events. Online ticket sales have been stopped, and all tickets that have been purchased are voided and will be fully refunded.

Fans not allowed to attend will have the opportunity to watch coverage of all three of this weekend’s Finals live on MHSAA.tv. Complete streaming of all nine Hockey Semifinals and Finals is scheduled, as is streaming of both the Team and Individual Gymnastics Finals and both preliminaries and Finals for swimming & diving. MHSAA.tv also will carry a number of girls and boys basketball games this weekend as part of its usual subscription coverage by members of the School Broadcast Program.

The streaming of all three divisions of the MHSAA Swimming & Diving Finals and both Team and Individual Gymnastics Finals will be provided FREE OF CHARGE. More details about access to these free feeds will be provided in the next update this afternoon. Also, free live audio of the Hockey Semifinals and Finals will be available on the MHSAA Network.

This remains a fluid situation, and another update will be released today, March 12, at 2 p.m. Updates will be posted to the MHSAA Website.

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.

Robichaud 3-Sport Legend Wheatley Selected to National High School Hall of Fame

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

March 11, 2024

The playing career of 1991 Dearborn Heights Robichaud graduate Tyrone Wheatley remains one of the most storied in Michigan high school sports history. His prestige gained during that early stage of his athletic stardom has been recognized nationally as well, as Wheatley was one of 12 honorees announced today as this year’s inductees into the National High School Hall of Fame by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).

Wheatley – who grew up in Inkster and is currently the head football coach at Wayne State University – will be inducted as one of 11 honorees selected for the 41st Hall of Fame class at a ceremony during the NFHS summer meeting July 1 in Boston. The rest of the class is made up of three more athletes, four coaches, two former state association administrators and a game official. Wheatley was nominated by the Michigan High School Athletic Association.

Wheatley will become the Hall of Fame’s 10th inductee from Michigan, joining the MHSAA’s first full-time Executive Director Charles E. Forsythe (inducted 1983), River Rouge boys basketball coach Lofton Greene (1986), Warren Regina athletic director, softball and basketball coach Diane Laffey (2000), Fennville basketball and baseball standout Richie Jordan (2001), Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett boys and girls tennis coach Bob Wood (2005), Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook hockey standout Jim Johnson (2007), Owosso football, basketball and baseball all-stater Brad Van Pelt (2011); Vermontville Maple Valley baseball national record holder Ken Beardslee (2016) and retired MHSAA Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts (2022).

To the greater public, Wheatley surely is best known as a star running back for University of Michigan who went on to play 10 seasons in the NFL for the New York Giants and Oakland Raiders. However, he is arguably most glorified in Michigan high school athletics for his accomplishments on the track, where as a junior in 1990 he became the first (of still only two) athletes to win four individual events at an MHSAA Lower Peninsula Finals – placing first in the 100 and 200-meter dashes, 110-meter hurdles and long jump. He led Robichaud to the Class B team title that day, scoring 40 of its 49 points. Wheatley completed his high school career in 1991 with three more Class B individual track & field championships and nine total over his final three seasons; he was injured in the 100 during that senior-year meet and could not run his final race to attempt another four-title day.

Wheatley’s meet records of 13.7 seconds in the 100 at the 1991 LP Class B Final and 23-10¾ in long jump in 1989 still stood when the four-Class track & field format was retired after the 1999 season. He also remains the only athlete to win the 100 three times at the prestigious Mehock Relays in Mansfield, Ohio, also finishing first in the 110 hurdles and 200 and runner-up in the long jump at that meet in 1991.

Wheatley was similarly accomplished on the high school football field, leading his team to a state championship in 1990 and earning a Parade All-America honor. Over three varsity seasons total he ran for a combined 4,257 yards and 67 touchdowns, including 2,010 yards and 33 scores on 208 carries as a senior in 1990 – the latter despite playing quarterback half of that season (and throwing five touchdown passes). He played quarterback, running back, defensive back, punter, kicker and returned kicks, and he scored 252 points over 13 games as a senior and 484 over 38 career games.

Wheatley also was a standout on the basketball court for Robichaud, averaging 14 points and 16 rebounds per game as a senior in earning all-state recognition in that sport as well.

“My city where I come from, Inkster, means the world to me. I grew up in an incredible era of sports in Michigan (with successful University of Michigan and Detroit pro teams) … but if you ask me who my idols were, they were the guys I grew up with playing on the playground,” Wheatley said. “After you come from a basketball game where you see Jarvis Walker drop 30, or Earl Jones running the last 200 of a race backwards … you hear people talk about them, you hear their reverence about them, and I just wanted to be put in the conversation of the best to come out of Inkster, forget the state. I can tell you this for sure: I’m not the best athlete to come out of Inkster, just the person who got the recognition. And my foundation was built watching, taking notes, preparing, working out and just trying to be one of the guys.

“(Robichaud was) the step. Because without Robichaud … Michigan, the NFL, me coming back to coach, it doesn’t happen,” Wheatley said. “Without the Robert Yaucks (his football coach at Robichaud), the Coach (Leit) Jones (his Robichaud track coach), the Coach (Mercer) Brysons, the (coach) Wade Cooks, the (coach Jeff) Flounorys, the Millie Hursins (his academic advisor) of the world, this doesn’t happen. Without my high school teammates, none of this happens. So it’s not just a step. What’s the saying – the first impression is the lasting and best impression? Robichaud was it.”

Wheatley returned to Robichaud as its varsity football coach in 2007 and led that team to a 9-2 record and the MHSAA Playoffs for the first time since 1994 – after Robichaud had finished 0-9 the previous season. He has served as an assistant football coach at four college programs including U-M and Syracuse, and with the Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars and Denver Broncos.

He also served as Morgan State University's head coach from 2019-21 and just completed his first season as head coach at Wayne State, which finished 3-8 – an improvement of two wins from 2022 and the program’s best record since 2019.

Wheatley graduated from University of Michigan in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology. He and wife Kimberly have five children: Tyrone Jr., Terius, Tyrique, Tiana and Tamari. Tyrone Jr., an offensive tackle, played this past season for the New England Patriots.

“Many of us who grew up in Michigan grew up as fans of Tyrone Wheatley because of what he accomplished at the college level – but his legendary story begins at Dearborn Heights Robichaud, where his outsized athletic ability was on full display in every sport he played,” MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said. “Michigan has produced several professional athletes in a variety of sports and nearly 50 Olympians in track & field alone, and what Tyrone Wheatley achieved as a high school athlete remains a standard few have approached. We are ecstatic that he will deservedly take his place among the all-time elite high school athletes nationally as well.”

The National High School Hall of Fame was started in 1982 by the NFHS. The 11 individuals were chosen after a two-level selection process involving a screening committee composed of active high school state association administrators, coaches and officials, and a final selection committee composed of coaches, former athletes, state association officials, media representatives and educational leaders. Nominations were made through NFHS member associations. Also chosen for this class were athletes Joe Mauer (Minnesota), Takeo Spikes (Georgia) and Dot Ford Burrow (Mississippi); sport coaches Paula Kirkland (South Carolina), Gary Rankin (Tennessee), Roy Snyder (Pennsylvania) and Ronald Vincent (North Carolina); former state association administrators Mike Colbrese (Washington) and Marie Ishida (California), and baseball/football game official David Core (Oklahoma).

For more on this year’s Hall of Fame class, visit the NFHS Website.

PHOTO Tyrone Wheatley crosses the finish line first during one of his nine MHSAA Finals track & field championship victories. (MHSAA file photo.)