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New Football Practice Policies

March 25, 2014

Last Friday, the MHSAA Representative Council adopted the proposals of the Football Task Force revising practice policies that take effect this fall, helping Michigan schools keep pace with an advancing standard of care – a standard that is reducing head-to-head contact in football practice on every level and in every league.

Michigan’s Football Task Force proposal – the result of four meetings during 2013 and much research and work between them – reduces collision practices to one a day before the first game and to two per week after the first game.

A collision practice is one in which there is live, game-speed, player-vs-player contact in pads (not walk-throughs) involving any number of players. This includes practices with scrimmages, drills and simulation where action is live, game-speed, player-vs-player.

A non-collision practice may include players in protective gear. Blocking and tackling technique may be taught and practiced. However, full-speed contact is limited to players versus pads, shields, sleds or dummies.

The new policies also increase the acclimatization period at the start of fall practice from three days to four days – helmets only permitted on the first two days, helmets and shoulder pads only on the third and fourth days.

Click this link for the Complete policy and FAQs.

Investing in Kids

May 31, 2016

Tom Farrey, the journalist and author who now serves as executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, included this comment in his opening remarks at the “Project Play” Summit on May 17 in Washington, D.C.: “Invest in kids who aren’t your own.”

Upon hearing that, I thought this is precisely what coaches do ... the good ones anyway. They pour their lives into the lives of athletes. And in school sports, they do it not so much to improve students’ chances to be successful in an athletic contest as to be successful in life after competitive sports.

This is why the Michigan High School Athletic Association pours so many resources into coaches education. The MHSAA’s Coaches Advancement Program is delivered face to face anytime and anywhere schools, leagues or coaches associations can gather 20 or so learners.

For 2016-17, the MHSAA is offering every member junior high/middle school and senior high school $300 in free CAP training – six $20 vouchers and three $60 vouchers. Visit the CAP administrative page in July. (Users must be logged in as administrators to access the vouchers.)

Organized sports without trained coaches can do more lifetime harm than good. Coaches education, infused with the core values of educational athletics, is a necessity, not a luxury. And sports without purposefully trained coaches can be a liability.