The Boomerang Effect
March 6, 2013
The image of football on all levels, and the future of football at the youth level, are both worse off today as a result of the NFL’s recent years’ public relations and political campaigns.
The constant barrage of negative publicity about youth football as the NFL advanced its agenda to pass concussion legislation in all 50 states has, to levels not seen before, kicked off the concerns of moms and dads and the media nationwide. In state after state, kids with concussions have been paraded before state legislators, in the company of NFL staff. The NFL has administered a self-inflicted wound, shot itself in the foot, and made FOOTBALL the face of America’s youth sports concussion problem. How the NFL brain trust ever thought this would promote the game of football in America is a wonder.
School-based football today has no greater obstacle to promoting a safe game than the NFL. No brand of football captures the game’s brutal aspects for video more than the NFL. No brand of football celebrates it more. No brand of football CAPITALIZES on it more – so much so that the NFL can donate several million dollars to youth football to buff its “caring” conscience, when in fact it’s a miniscule portion of its multi-billion-dollar business.
Moreover, one of the NFL’s favorite groups for its self-promoted “philanthropy” is USA Football which promotes itself as the national governing body for amateur football in America. One of USA Football’s initiatives is an international championship for high school players, which of course means more hitting out of season for these players. The very activity the experts are telling us to reduce – out-of-season contact – is being promoted by this NFL underwritten organization! And WE get criticized as being against the promotion of football in America when we don’t go along with this backward thinking?
Basketball Tournaments on the Move?
March 3, 2017
It is uncertain where the Michigan High School Athletic Association Boys and Girls Basketball Tournaments, currently at the Breslin Center of Michigan State University, will be conducted in 2018 and 2019; and after that, there are questions of when they will be conducted.
The most serious of several concerns is that MSU can no longer guarantee Breslin’s availability for the MHSAA Semifinals and Finals. This is the result of a change in the format of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament that assigns its 16 regionals to the top 16 seeded teams.
That schedule conflicts with the MHSAA Girls Basketball Semifinals and Finals in 2018 and 2020, and with the MHSAA Boys Basketball Semifinals and Finals in 2019.
In 2016, when MSU’s women’s basketball team was highly seeded, it had to travel to Mississippi State University because the MHSAA girls tournament was occupying Breslin. The contract that guarantees MHSAA priority ends with this year’s tournament, March 16-18.
The MHSAA is proceeding on two tracks. First, it has just distributed a “Request for Proposal” to MSU and other potential hosts for at least 2018 and 2019. There are options for venues to submit proposals for boys, girls or both.
Second, the MHSAA has begun what is likely to be a long discussion regarding dates. For example, if the girls season started and ended one week earlier, the NCAA conflict may not occur. However, this would likely require a one-week earlier end to the girls volleyball season in the fall, which some people have advocated but others are certain to oppose.
A flipside variation of this idea is to start and end boys basketball season two weeks earlier than is the case now, and to delay the start and end of girls basketball season by one week. This is a means of reducing the volleyball/basketball overlap for girls in November, and it would avoid that March weekend when the NCAA Division I women’s tournament can be a conflict.
Another option is to start the boys season one week earlier, extend the girls season one week later, and conduct the two tournaments simultaneously over four weeks – different days of the same weeks for Districts and Regionals; with Semifinals for both genders around the state on the weekend when the girls tournament has ended in the past; and then Finals for boys and girls at a single site on the Friday and Saturday when the boys tournament has traditionally ended.
Unless things change at the NCAA level, none of these models guarantees a schedule that is always free of conflicts with both the boys and girls MHSAA tournaments. Therefore, other innovative but possibly even more intrusive, changeable and tradition-breaking calendar adjustments could also be investigated that might provide a better long-term solution than merely changing venues.
Venue decisions are the responsibility of MHSAA management and should be made by early May. Calendar changes, if any, will be membership driven and may take more than 18 months to finalize.