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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.

UP Power

November 29, 2016

About five hours after leaving the Michigan High School Athletic Association office building late in October, I pulled into the parking lot of Munising High School on the edge of Lake Superior. It was just after 7 p.m. on this Thursday evening, I saw that there were many cars in the parking lot, and I guessed that there was a high school volleyball game about to be played.

Indeed. It was the last regular season match of the season, and senior night. I was greeted warmly by the match referee and the school's two veteran administrators. And one of Munising's senior players, a member of the MHSAA Student Advisory Council, interrupted her warmups to jog over to welcome me. After the match, we hugged and posed for pictures together. Between the greeting and the posing, I enjoyed a marvelous evening of educational athletics.

There was plenty of cheering, and never a "boo." Not once did I hear a complaint about officiating. In fact, on two occasions the Munising coach corrected officials' calls that resulted in a point being awarded to his opponent.

For a time, every player on the floor for Munising had played more than one sport that season. Every one of the six played tennis as well as volleyball, and one of them also ran cross country this season. At the same time, the other team's participants included two girls who were also playing on their school's 8-player football team this past season.

Here the multi-sport student-athlete is not an endangered species; it's an essential fact of life. Here a school sports event draws the community together in good spirit and sportsmanship. Here is the power of school sports.