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Longtime Official to Receive Medal of Honor
July 31, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
South Haven's James C. McCloughan, a longtime MHSAA wrestling official and coach of multiple sports, will receive the Medal of Honor this afternoon for service in 1969 in Vietnam.
McCloughan, also a retired teacher from South Haven High School, previously received multiple Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts among a number of awards and decorations. During battle May 13-15, 1969, McCloughan risked his life to rescue and treat wounded personnel despite being wounded himself by shrapnel and small-arms fire. A combat medic with the U.S. Army, the 23-year-old McCloughan refused medical evacuation to remain with his comrades.
His rank at the time was private first class. He was discharged from the Army with the rank of specialist.
After his service, McCloughan became a dedicated educator. His bio as a 2008 inductee to the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association credits him with 36 years coaching football and coaching 131 teams total from the South Haven athletic program. He also is a member of the Michigan High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame and Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He has served as well 25 years as an MHSAA official and is registered to continue this upcoming wrestling season.
The U.S. Army website produced a tremendous multi-media feature on McCloughan in advance of today's ceremony. To see that feature in full, click here, and watch below the Army's video that details McCloughan's service in receiving this high honor. (The photo above also is taken from the linked feature.)
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The Official View: All in This Together
By
Brent Rice
MHSAA Assistant Director
November 5, 2018
By Brent Rice
MHSAA Assistant Director
“The Official View” has received significant positive feedback, from both officials and non-officials – and we thank you for your interest in learning more about this essential avocation.
This week, we discuss a promising effort to recruit Legacy officials and another “get-to-know-you” opportunity at MHSAA Sportsmanship Summits, plus dive into rules scenarios in volleyball and swimming.
It’s Official!
MHSAA officials will be presenting over the coming weeks at the annual Sportsmanship Summits held around the state. Renewed focus will be concentrated on the effect that poor sportsmanship has on the challenge of recruiting and retaining officials. Discussions will be led by noted officials in those areas to allow students to discuss the concerns and solutions to these issues.
Improving sportsmanship is a priority of the MHSAA Officials Program, and officials should be looking for new initiatives to support this goal. They include new policies on protecting officials, providing schools with framework to institute a Game Day Ambassadors Program, “Official Thanks” nights and several others.
Some efforts already have proven successful. “The Official View” continues to serve its purpose in humanizing the folks that officiate MHSAA contests. On that note, keep sending those photos and stories to [email protected] for features in The Official View. Ideally, submissions will be for in-season sports and include photo(s). Don’t forget to add the who, what, where, and when.
Rule of the Week
VOLLEYBALL As A1 tosses the ball in the air to serve, she realizes she is the improper server and catches the ball in attempt to force a re-serve. The proper server (A2) then immediately takes her place and makes a legal serve, scoring a point. A2’s toss for her second serve is bad and she catches the ball.
Ruling: This is an illegal serve and loss of rally/point. The re-serve privilege was used up by A1 since this was during A2’s term of service.
It’s Your Call
SWIMMING In the clip, the swimmer in Lane 5 begins to stray in her backstroke and ends up incidentally contacting the lane divider. She ultimately continues and wins the race. What’s the call?
Last Week’s IYC Ruling: In the clip, as the attacker and the keeper approach the ball, the attacker strikes the keeper’s ear. Since this is outside of the penalty area, a direct free kick would be awarded and the attacker would be assessed a yellow card. (Click to see last week's video.)
Official View: We’re All in This Together
The MHSAA Legacy Program has produced some terrific officials since its inception in 1992, many of whom are still officials today. We feel that recruiting eager and qualified officials is a collective partnership between the MHSAA, schools and officials associations around the state.
For our part, the MHSAA offers a reduced registration fee for enrolled-student officials to get them started into officiating. We suggest that the schools and associations further alleviate these new officials from their startup costs by taking on this reduced fee. Schools benefit because they can then utilize these officials’ services at middle school and junior high school contests, and associations benefit because they are able to add a new official to their rosters for years to come.
Fowlerville has taking the lead in this area by recently hosting a Legacy clinic where veteran officials were paired with newly registered (paid for by Fowlerville Schools) Legacy officials and assigned to a volleyball match with local middle school Red Cedar League teams. This event allowed experienced mentor officials to provide on-the-spot constructive feedback in live game scenarios.
Other schools are following suit by hosting clinics and other events to draw new officials into the fold, including adding curriculum in officiating to next year’s course load. Schools interested in adding officiating to their curriculum can contact Brent Rice of the MHSAA for a curriculum outline and guides to make it a success.
PHOTOS: (Top) Fowlerville Legacy officials and mentors work a recent middle school volleyball match; left to right: John Garrison, Kelli Hart, Lindsey Darby, Jackie Jarvis, Dalaija Franklin, Rodney Horton and Tyler Hover. (Middle) Hart (mentor) instructs Franklin, far right, while Darby shadows. (Photos courtesy of the Fowlerville athletic department.)