Presidents Converge on MHSAA Office
January 29, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Coaches serving over three seasons and in a variety of different sports can have a variety of perspectives when it comes to most topics, including MHSAA rules.
The Coaches Association Presidents Meeting, an annual event hosted Monday at the MHSAA office in East Lansing, allows an opportunity to gather that valuable input as our staff works through pressing issues at the start of each new year.
Presidents from high school coaches associations representing nearly all of our MHSAA-sponsored sports met in East Lansing for an inside look at some of our latest efforts and how that work could affect their sports and the coaches they serve.
On the menu this time was an update on the MHSAA's drive to increase coaches health and safety training, followed by updates on recent research into how the association might better serve junior high and middle schools.
The entrée was discussion on out-of-season coaching rules, and how or if they should be altered to allow high school coaches more contact with athletes during offseasons than currently allowed.
This meeting allows for input on these topics, with the key, again, that the input comes from various sources who face differing circumstances but are all tied together under the umbrella of interscholastic athletics. Input from our coaches associations will be valuable as MHSAA staff and its Representative Council consider potential rules changes over the rest of this school year, and beyond.
Once A Coach
April 15, 2014
While I was doing some spring cleanup in the yard of my house a weekend ago, the legendary coach, Phil Booth, walked by with his wife. In response to his shout “Hi Jack!,” I replied “Hello Coach.”
Phil has been many things during his long life; and even now he is an accomplished painter. But as one of our state’s most winning high school baseball and football coaches while at Lansing Catholic Central High School before his retirement two decades ago, he is still “Coach” to me . . . as he is to very many other people.
Once a coach, always a coach.
At my father’s memorial service 15 months ago, several players from the high school and college teams he coached in the 1940s and 1950s paid their respects, still referring to Dad as “Coach.”
Once a coach, always a coach.
At the visitation and Mass for former MHSAA Associate Director Jerry Cvengros on April 7, many people referred to him as “Coach,” even though he had also been an English teacher, athletic director and principal. And in his eulogy for Jerry, the MHSAA’s current associate director, Tom Rashid, used the word “coach” at least 25 times, even though Jerry’s illustrious coaching career at Escanaba High School ended 30 years ago.
Once a coach, always a coach.
There are very many very important ingredients in educational athletics – students, officials, administrators, parents, media, and volunteers of all kinds – but the key ingredient always has been and still is the coach. The impact of the coach can be, and often is, deeper and longer lasting than all other contributing factors combined.