Advisory Council Names Class Of 2021
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
May 3, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Eight student-athletes who will be juniors at their schools during the 2019-20 academic year have been selected to serve two-year terms on the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s Student Advisory Council.
The Student Advisory Council is a 16-member group which provides feedback on issues impacting educational athletics from a student’s perspective, and also is involved in the operation of Association championship events and other programming. Members of the Student Advisory Council serve for two years, beginning as juniors. Eight new members are selected annually to serve on the SAC, with nominations made by MHSAA member schools. The incoming juniors will join the group of eight seniors-to-be appointed a year ago.
Selected to begin serving on the Student Advisory Council in 2019-20 are: Pierre Brooks II, Detroit Douglass; Macy Brown, Cadillac; Lydia Davenport, Ithaca; Freddy Kopplow, Traverse City St Francis; Colin McAuliffe, Salem; Avery Peters, Mason; Abigail Pheiffer, Novi; and Landen Thompson, Stevensville Lakeshore.
The first Student Advisory Council was formed for the 2006-07 school year. With the addition of this class beginning this summer, members will have represented 110 schools from 45 leagues plus independent schools that do not play in a league. Combined, the new appointees have participated in 12 MHSAA sports, and all eight will be the first SAC members from their respective schools.
The Student Advisory Council meets seven times each school year, and once more for a 24-hour leadership camp. In addition to assisting in the promotion of the educational value of interscholastic athletics, the Council discusses issues dealing with the 4 S’s of educational athletics: scholarship, sportsmanship, safety (including health and nutrition) and the sensible scope of athletic programs. There also is a fifth S discussed by the group – student leadership.
This school year, the Council selected the 2018-19 “Battle of the Fans VIII” champion and presented Sportsmanship Summits in front of more than 1,000 students from across the state, handed out championship trophies at Finals events and provided feedback to the MHSAA Representative Council on proposed rule changes.
The new additions to the SAC will join the Class of 2020 members who were selected a year ago: Grace Beardsley, Gladwin; Kaitlyn Bricker, Pellston; Nathan Eccles, Port Huron Northern; Jack Fairman, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood; Alexis Mohney, Mattawan; Trevin Phillips, Caro; Bella Lindsay, North Muskegon; and Lance Wiltse, Saginaw Michigan Lutheran Seminary.
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.
MHSAA's Roberts Elected to NFHS Board
July 12, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
MHSAA Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts has been elected to serve a four-year term on the Board of Directors for the National Federation of State High School Associations, the national governing body for high school athletics and activities.
Roberts has served as executive director since 1986 and is the longest-tenured active state association executive director among NFHS members. The MHSAA is one of the nation’s largest state associations with more than 1,400 high schools and junior high/middle schools. The NFHS, in its press release on new officers and board members, called Roberts "one of the nation’s most articulate advocates for education-based activity programs."
After graduating from P. J. Jacobs High School in Stevens Point, Wis., and Dartmouth College and attending graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, Roberts taught English and coached football at high schools in Milwaukee and Denver until 1973, when he joined the staff of the NFHS, which at that time was located in Elgin, Illinois.
From 1973 to 1980, Roberts developed the NFHS’ volleyball, swimming & diving and ice hockey rules programs, and re-codified the Soccer Rules Book. Later, as assistant director, he was in charge of public, legislative and judicial affairs for the NFHS.
Roberts joined the staff of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) in 1981 and was named executive vice president of the FCA in 1984. He served in that capacity until 1986, when he was named executive director of the MHSAA.
Roberts served a previous term on the NFHS Board of Directors from 1996 to 2000 and has been chairman of the NFHS Network Board of Directors since 2013. He also has served on two previous NFHS Strategic Planning Committees and is past chair of the board of directors of the Michigan Society of Association Executives.
PHOTO: MHSAA Executive Director Jack Roberts congratulates an MHSAA/Farm Bureau Scholar-Athlete Award winner at the Breslin Center.