Watch Volleyball, Football LIVE

November 4, 2014

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

District and Regional Volleyball action will be featured over the next two weeks on MHSAA.tv, while Football Playoff coverage moves into its second round and will be available live via multiple online channels this weekend.

Coverage of Girls Volleyball includes District Quarterfinal/Semifinal Matches each evening for four straight. Football this weekend can be viewed Friday from Fox Sports Detroit and Saturday from MHSAA.tv.

Volleyball

Here’s the complete District schedule, with links to each game's page on the MHSAA.tv site (all coverage available with subscription):

Monday – Class C Quarterfinals at Hanover-Horton
East Jackson vs. Michigan Center, 5:30 p.m.

Napoleon vs. Vandercook Lake, 7 p.m.

Tuesday – Class C Semifinals at Calumet
Ironwood vs. L’Anse, 6 p.m.
Calumet vs. Hancock, 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday – Class B Semifinals at Frankenmuth
Frankenmuth vs. North Branch, 6 p.m.
Caro vs. Mt. Morris, 7:30 p.m.

Thursday – Class A Semifinals at Hudsonville
Jenison vs. Grandville/Holland West Ottawa winner, 5 p.m.
Hudsonville/Holland winner vs. Wyoming/Zeeland East winner, 7 p.m.

Regional Semifinal coverage takes place next Tuesday (Nov. 11) at two locations:

Class A at Mason
Okemos District winner vs. Dexter District winner, 5 p.m.
Holt District winner vs. Portage Central District winner, 7 p.m.

Class C at Morley-Stanwood
Shelby District winner vs. White Cloud District winner, 6 p.m.
Muskegon Western Michigan Christian District winner vs. Pewamo-Westphalia District winner, 8 p.m.

Football

It’s the fourth season for the popular PrepZone on FoxSportsDetroit.com, which will provide free live coverage of four Football Playoff games each week for the first four weekends of the tournament. Games to be covered this week are:

Division 1 – Lapeer at Clarkston
Division 4 – Saginaw Swan Valley at Lansing Sexton
Division 5 – Clare at Freeland
Division 5 – Almont at Marine City

All games will take place Friday at 7 p.m., with short-term archives available on FoxSportsDetroit.com and long-term archives and DVDs available through MHSAA.tv.

Football Friday Overtime is in its fourth season on FOX Sports Detroit, airing at Midnight each Friday and running for 13 weeks. Mickey York and Rob Rubick host this 30-minute highlights show. The show re-airs Saturdays at 11 a.m. and Sunday mornings – check your local listings (this week at 7 a.m.).

The following games are scheduled to be highlighted this week:

  • Wyandotte Roosevelt at Brownstown Woodhaven
  • Trenton at New Boston Huron
  • Southfield at Oak Park
  • Walled Lake Central at West Bloomfield
  • Detroit East English at Warren DeLaSalle
  • Detroit Cass Tech at Dearborn Fordson
  • Plus coverage from the Prep Zone games

MHSAA.tv also will cover two Football Playoff games live each Saturday the first three weeks of the tournament, and 12 Semifinal games on Nov. 22.  Here’s this week’s District Final schedule (all coverage with subscription):

Division 1 – Grand Ledge at East Kentwood, 1 p.m.

Division 7 – Pewamo-Westphalia at Hudson, 1 p.m.

A Day Pass subscription to MHSAA.tv is $9.95.  A Month Pass subscription is $14.95, enabling purchasers to watch all of this week’s action plus two more weeks of coverage of the Girls Volleyball Tournament, weekly Football Playoff coverage, and the Preliminaries and Finals of the Lower Peninsula Girls Swimming & Diving Finals. All events become available for free on demand viewing three days after the date of the contest.

MHSAA Highlights: This week's package includes clips from the Okemos/East Lansing volleyball match and the Plainwell/Battle Creek Harper Creek and Watervliet/Niles Brandywine football games.

Diversionary Tactics Backfire

September 24, 2013

Placing a stone in your left shoe will take your mind off a blister on your right foot; but it does not solve the problem.

Faced with domestic starvation and civil unrest, many dictators have created external enemies in hopes of distracting their countrymen and women and rallying their support. Think of North Korea as just one of dozens of examples, recent to ancient. It has even ocurred in the US, recently and throughout our nation’s history: strawmen vilified to distract us from other more pressing problems.

Closer to home, it is something like this strategy that may be at work in many school districts as they restructure and rename schools, or resort to closings and charters. And something like this is behind the state and federal emphases on standardized testing and schools of choice.

And really close to home, it was something like this at work in football. Faced with thousands of former players with alleged concussion-related illnesses filing suit against the National Football League, and bad publicity mounting, the NFL focused instead on youth football. We told them this strategy would backfire; but a professional league with more money than many nations was not inclined to listen to little guys like us.

The NFL went state by state to advance concussion legislation which was long on symbolism and low on substance, and totally lacking any enforcement capabilities. In state after state, the NFL paraded young people with sad stories in front of state legislators looking for good headlines.

So today, 49 states have new “concussion” laws; and participation rates in youth football are plummeting. Big surprise. But ironically, it’s plummeting at a time when school-sponsored football is the safest it has been since it was introduced to schools 100 years ago. The equipment is the best ever, the rules the most protective ever, the coaches and officials the best trained and most safety conscious ever.

Take a look at this quick video that tells the true story about school-sponsored football.