Highlight Reel: Mona Shores/Caledonia
November 5, 2014
The Muskegon Mona Shores football team defeated Caledonia 42-14 on Saturday in a Division 2 District opener. Click the headings below for MHSAA.tv highlights and the final link to watch the game in full.
ROBERSON TAKES IT DOWN THE SIDELINE - Muskegon Mona Shores struck first in this Division 2 playoff game. Darece Roberson took a swing pass from Tyree Jackson down the near sideline for 52 yards.
CALEDONIA STRIKES BACK - Caledonia pulled to within a TD in the second quarter when quarterback Tanner Christian scored form eight yards out to make it 14-7 Mona Shores midway through the second period. The Sailors, however, scored four of the next five TDs.
BOMBS AWAY! SCHUITEMAN SCORES! - Muskegon Mona Shores increased its lead to 42-14 in the third quarter when Jackson hits Matt Schuiteman in stride for a 39-yard score. The Sailors went on to post a 49-14 victory over Caledonia in this Division 2 Pre-District game.
Watch the entire game and order DVDs by Clicking Here.
Attending to Football
November 29, 2013
The interscholastic football season comes to an end this weekend with the MHSAA Finals at Ford Field, but the most talked about sport in high schools today will continue to make headlines for many months into the future.
Some of the headlines will introduce topics that are merely footnotes compared to what is really most important, that being the efforts to keep school-sponsored football the safest and sanest brand of football in America.
At the center of these efforts has been a task force appointed by the MHSAA to work throughout 2013 to advance these two objectives: “To promote the value of interscholastic football and to probe for ways to make the sport safer in Michigan.”
The tangible results of the task force’s four meetings are these:
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- A proposal to the MHSAA Representative Council to revise football practice policies to improve acclimatization of players and to reduce head trauma. The proposal goes to the Representative Council Dec. 6 for discussion, then to the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association and MHSAA Football Committee in January and to the MHSAA League/Conference meeting in February, before returning to the Representative Council for action on March 22.
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Three proposals to the NFHS Football Rules Committee to modify playing rules to promote player safety.
- A variety of print, online and broadcast promotions on behalf of the value of interscholastic football and its safety record and to encourage healthier out-of-season activities by students in all sports.
MHSAA research informs us that participation in 11- or 8-player football in member high schools this fall was down 3.0 percent compared to 2012, and down 7.63 percent since the 2008 season. The biggest reasons cited by those surveyed are, in declining order, safety issues, declining enrollment, athletes playing other school or non-school sports, cultural changes and pay-to-participate.
It is important to note that participation is not declining everywhere, not even everywhere where enrollments are down and participation fees are up. It is important to note also that some other sports are in much greater decline than football in terms of high school participation.
It is difficult for me to imagine my life without football as a part of it. It’s difficult to imagine schools and communities without football. I very much doubt that the absence of football would have improved my life or the schools and communities I’ve been a part of. It’s a sport that needs our attention, not its extinction.