NFHS Voice: Time for Teachable Moments
September 6, 2019
By Karissa Niehoff
NFHS Executive Director
Welcome to another year of educational opportunities through high school sports and other activity programs in our nation’s schools. These programs provide many teachable moments not available in the classroom, and we look forward to making an impact on the more than 12 million young people involved in these vital activities.
Many states opened their high school football seasons during the final weekends of August. Thousands of other high school students will be involved in volleyball, cross country, field hockey, soccer and other sports this fall. And then there are those boys and girls involved in speech, debate, music and other cocurricular activity programs.
The NFHS distributed its most anticipated news release of the year earlier last week – the Annual Sports Participation Survey. The number of boys and girls involved in high school sports has been spiraling upward annually since 1988 – an amazing 29 consecutive years. However, due to several factors, the 2018-19 figure dipped to 7,937,491, which is the third-highest total in the 50-year history of the survey.
We have been aware for some time that the number of kids involved in youth sports has been declining. In addition, a decline in the number of public school students has been predicted for a number of years, so there simply may be fewer students in schools.
Understandably, the focus will be on the sport of football. While there were no states with significant drops in boys 11-player football, most states reported slight declines, which amounted to 30,000 participants nationally. However, a comparison of the figures from the past two years indicates that the average number of boys involved in 11-player football on a per-school basis dropped from 73 to 70, which would include freshman, junior varsity and varsity teams.
In some cases, schools are starting and/or increasing programs in 6-player, 8-player and 9-player football as participation numbers were up in all three versions of the game. And participation by girls in 11-player football has doubled in the past 10 years to 2,404 participants last year.
The survey confirmed that schools are not dropping the sport of football, which is great news. We continue to work with our state associations and groups such as USA Football to reduce contact and teach proper tackling skills at the youth level to increase the interest level as kids reach junior high school and high school.
While we hope that the numbers will return in football, we are pleased with the continued growth in several other sports, including volleyball, soccer and lacrosse. Since 2012, participation in girls lacrosse and boys lacrosse has increased 19 percent with a combined 213,452 participants in 2018-19. Girls and boys soccer has gained 70,668 participants since 2012 (a nine percent increase) and now has a combined 853,182 participants.
Seemingly, schools have something for everyone as the survey indicated participation by high school students in 70 different sports, as well as numerous adapted and Unified sports for students with disabilities. Schools are providing opportunities in bowling, badminton, flag football, archery, Ultimate Frisbee, bass fishing, crew and many, many others.
Ultimately, the goal of the NFHS and its 51-member state associations is to ensure that all students have an opportunity to enjoy healthy participation, achievement and good sportsmanship in education-based activities. We are excited about these opportunities as another school year begins.
Dr. Karissa L. Niehoff is beginning her second year as executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the first female to head the national leadership organization for high school athletics and performing arts activities and the sixth full-time executive director of the NFHS, which celebrated its 100th year of service during the 2018-19 school year. She previously was executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools-Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference for seven years.
Century of School Sports: Why Does the MHSAA Have These Rules?
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
September 18, 2024
MHSAA administrators are two trips into their annual seven-stop fall tour that has become a tradition during nearly half of the Association’s “Century of School Sports” – and this year, a focus has been on answering a key question at the heart of educational athletics since long before the MHSAA was formed during the 1924-25 school year.
The MHSAA’s Update meeting series is in its 47th year and includes half-day conferences in seven locations – generally in the Kalamazoo, Metro Detroit, Grand Rapids, Saginaw, northern Lower Peninsula and mid-Michigan areas, and at Northern Michigan University in Marquette. The six Lower Peninsula sessions begin with an athletic director in-service during which MHSAA assistant directors explain recent rules changes and discuss challenges our administrators face on a daily basis (with Upper Peninsula athletic directors participating in a similar in-service during the spring).
Those in-services are followed by a session with executive director Mark Uyl, who speaks to athletic directors, superintendents, principals and school board members on a variety of topics including the MHSAA’s current objectives and ideas for the future, while also reinforcing the longstanding values that remain the bedrock of our daily work.
And that leads to the question he’s presenting across the state this fall:
Why does the MHSAA have these rules?
Frankly, the answer goes back to the beginning of school sports in Michigan – all the way back to 1895, when the first MHSAA predecessor organization was formed.
The first MHSAA Representative Council president Lewis L. Forsythe explained in his book “Athletics in Michigan High Schools – The First Hundred Years” how regulations always have been necessary:
“Eligibility rules are a necessity in interscholastic competition. It was common acknowledgement of this fact that led to the first State inter-school organization in 1895. The rules at first were few, simple and liberal. But with the passing of the years they came to be more numerous, more complex, and more restrictive, again through common acknowledgment of desirability if not of necessity.”
That necessity – and the reasoning behind it – has not changed.
Two main points explain why rules are absolutely imperative for educational athletics to thrive.
► 1. Participation – through providing as many opportunities as possible for students to play – has been the mission of school sports since their start. Rules contribute to the value of participation.
If there are requirements for children to participate in athletics – for example, an academic standard or rules that dissuade students from switching schools every year – then school sports programs mean more to all involved.
If we raise the bar, raise the standards of eligibility and conduct, we raise the value of our school sports programs. If we lower the bar, we lower the value of being part of school sports – because without rules, contest results are meaningless, and the value of participating is diminished.
► 2. We have rules where the stakes are higher, and agreement is lower – because where the stakes are highest, there is the greatest tendency for some people to try to gain an unfair advantage, and the greatest need for rules to curb possible dishonest activity.
This statement goes to the heart of the history, rationale and application of MHSAA rules. Obviously and simply put, school sports mean a lot to those who take part, and that significance is high enough to stoke disagreement – and we need rules to govern those disagreements. We have the most rules for high school sports, where championships are at stake and the possibility of disagreement is greatest.
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Finally – and perhaps providing the strongest reinforcement of the two points above – is this:
Schools choose to make MHSAA rules their own.
Quite literally, school districts vote annually to be part of the MHSAA – and confirming this voluntary membership comes with the requirement to follow all MHSAA rules.
When schools challenge our rules, they literally are seeking to break the rules they already have committed to uphold.
These rules, and this commitment, are the strength of our organization across 752 member high schools and several hundred more middle schools and junior high schools. They have been constructed on a century of precedents and after considerations by representatives of those same member schools – representatives those schools have voted to elect every school year during the MHSAA’s history.
Previous "Century of School Sports" Spotlights
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