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We’ve Got This Right

March 1, 2013

This year's Super Bowl was an occasion for an unusual amount of commentary on the state of football safety, especially concussions.

One group called on state high school associations and football coaches associations to eliminate contact outside the defined interscholastic season.  That would mean spring football practice, and during summer leagues and camps, and at all-star games.

Michigan is one of a large majority of states where schools do not allow spring football practice.  Michigan is one of a minority of states where schools do not allow contact at summer camps, for which we are often criticized by out-of-state camp promoters.  And Michigan is one of a smaller minority of states where schools prohibit students, coaches, officials and administrators from being involved in all-star games involving undergraduates.

While we are well ahead of the curve on out-of-season contact policies, we are in the mainstream of state high school associations studying what the appropriate limits should be on contact during early season football practice and throughout the remainder of the season.  We have a task force that appears headed toward recommending that the Representative Council prescribe only one contact session per day during early season practice and only two contact practices per week after games begin.

There will be other ideas percolating and then simmering with these before any are proposed to the MHSAA Football Committee and Representative Council.

Large Topics for the Lower Level

December 22, 2017

Editor's Note: This blog originally was posted May 21, 2013, and the topic continues to be of prime concern today.

Sometimes our meeting agendas give the impression that junior high/middle school programs are unimportant or an afterthought; but that was not the case during the MHSAA Representative Council meeting May 5 and 6, and it will not be the case at many meetings throughout the next 12 months at least.

Here are just two of the tough multi-faceted topics that the Representative Council has asked to be addressed at constituent meetings from now through next February and will be studied by the MHSAA Junior High/Middle School Committee, Classification Committee and many of the MHSAA’s separate sport committees:

  • Are current season limitations for contests and limitations on the lengths of contests appropriate for the junior high/middle school level? Do the current limits reflect the correct philosophy for sports at this level? Do they accommodate the four-season approach many schools encourage? Do the limits drive some students to non-school programs? Do they cause some schools to not join the MHSAA?

  • Should the MHSAA provide rules, programs and services for 6th-graders who, in nearly 80 percent of situations, are located in the same buildings with 7th and 8th-graders? Does the MHSAA’s lack of involvement encourage the same by schools, and allow non-school programs to fill the resulting void; and does this drive those students away from school-based sports permanently? Or would the MHSAA’s involvement at this level pressure school districts to add sixth grade programs and services at a time of dwindling resources for the 7-12 grade program?

    • to benefit both kids and their schools at the junior high/middle school level as at the high school. Our agendas for the

We have always maintained that there is at least as much potential for school-based sports next year will have that belief as its foundation as these tough topics get the time they deserve.