Adult Fans: HS Sports' Biggest Challenge
August 27, 2019
By Karissa Niehoff, NFHS Executive Director
and Mark Uyl, MHSAA Executive Director
Inappropriate adult behavior at high school athletic events in Michigan has reached epidemic proportion.
When more than 2,000 high school athletic directors were asked in a recent national survey what they like least about their job, 62.3 percent said it was “dealing with aggressive parents and adult fans.”
And the men and women who wear the black and white stripes agree. In fact, almost 80 percent of officials quit after the first two years on the job, and unruly parents are cited as the reason why. As a result, there is a growing shortage of high school officials here in Michigan, and in some sports like wrestling, swimming & diving and track & field, the shortage is severe. No officials means no more games.
If you are a parent attending a high school athletic event this fall, you can help by following these six guidelines:
1. Act Your Age. You are, after all, an adult. Act in a way that makes your family and school proud.
2. Don’t Live Your Life Vicariously Through Your Children. High school sports are for them, not you. Your family’s reputation is not determined by how well your children perform on the field of play.
3. Let Your Children Talk to the Coach Instead of You Doing It for Them. High school athletes learn how to become more confident, independent and capable — but only when their parents don’t jump in and solve their problems for them.
4. Stay in Your Lane. No coaching or officiating from the sidelines. Your role is to be a responsible, supportive parent — not a coach or official.
5. Remember, Participating in a High School Sport Is Not About Getting a College Scholarship. According to the NCAA, only about two percent of all high school athletes are awarded a sports scholarship, and the total value of the scholarship is only about $18,000.
6. Make Sure Your Children Know You Love Watching Them Play. Do not critique your child’s performance on the car ride home. Participating in high school sports is about character development, learning and having fun — not winning and losing.
Purchasing a ticket to a high school athletic event does not give you the right to be rude, disrespectful or verbally abusive. Cheer loud and be proud, but be responsible and respectful. The future of high school sports in Michigan is dependent on you.
The Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) is one of 51 members of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
Century of School Sports: MHSAA Summits Draw Thousands to Promote Sportsmanship
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
October 29, 2024
Next week, MHSAA staff and members of its Student Advisory Council will begin a 10-day trek with stops in Marquette, Saginaw, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids to talk sportsmanship with 750 students and administrators as part of its biennial Sportsmanship Summit tour.
Sportsmanship always is a significant topic in athletics, and providing training on proper behavior for athletes and fans is especially important at the high school level where entire schools turn over every four years.
The MHSAA became a national leader in promoting sportsmanship during the 1990s, and we’ll discuss more of those initiatives later in our “Century of School Sports” series. The Sportsmanship Summit was born from much of that early work.
The first was conducted Sept. 24, 1997, in Lansing, and several of the topics discussed during those first sessions remain relevant today – most notably fan behavior, training of team captains and the roles of game officials.
That first Summit was open to the public and designed primarily for administrators, coaches, athletes and other community leaders. Speakers at the event included Robert Kanady, the executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), and Iowa High School Athletic Association executive director Bernie Saggau. The Lansing State Journal reported in December of that year that schools individually and as leagues were adopting codes of conduct for spectators, based on ideas shared at that first Summit gathering.
And that was only the start. The first Summit was capped at 800 attendees; the second drew 1,200 and included among speakers retired Nebraska national-champion football coach Tom Osborne. After a year off, the Sportsmanship Summit returned in 2000 with more than 1,300 attendees. That started the schedule of conducting Summits every other year; the 2002 Summit was for adults only and focused on character building, and in 2004 Summits were held at four sites across the state.
That model remains in use today, but with a boost from the 16-member Student Advisory Council, which includes eight juniors and eight seniors from across the state who have led sessions over the last many years. Most of the Summits during the last decade focused on fan behavior and the “Battle of the Fans” contest that awarded the state’s top student cheering section from 2012-22. Student delegations spend the final part of Summits creating a sportsmanship campaign to take back to their schools.
Previous "Century of School Sports" Spotlights
Oct. 23: Cross Country Finals Among MHSAA's Longest Running - Read
Oct. 15: State's Storytellers Share Fall Memories - Read
Oct. 8: Guided by 4 S's of Educational Athletics - Read
Sept. 25: Michigan Sends 10 to National Hall of Fame - Read
Sept. 25: MHSAA Record Books Filled with 1000s of Achievements - Read
Sept. 18: Why Does the MHSAA Have These Rules? - Read
Sept. 10: Special Medals, Patches to Commemorate Special Year - Read
Sept. 4: Fall to Finish with 50th Football Championships - Read
Aug. 28: Let the Celebration Begin - Read
(Photos above are from various Sportsmanship Summits through the years, including the first in 1997 [top left and bottom right].)