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.
Football’s Future
March 20, 2012
Many folks, including me, will too often focus on the destination more than the trip. More on results than process. The end more than the means.
This is epidemic in sports, on all levels. There’s so much focus on the postseason that it overshadows the regular season.
In contrast, in educational athletics, we are supposed to hold to the principle that opportunities for teaching and learning are as plentiful, maybe more so, in regular season as in tournaments, at subvarsity levels as at varsity, during practices as during games.
This disease affects football as much as any high school sport. There’s been too much focus on the end of the season – playoffs. Postseason tournaments have been the demise of many great Thanksgiving Day high school football classics across the country. Playoffs continue to ruin rivalries and collapse conferences nationwide.
And, disturbingly, the focus on the end of the season misses what is most wrong with football, and may be most threatening to its future. It’s practice. Specifically, what’s allowed during preseason practice and then at practice throughout the season.
We can predict that, in high school football’s future, two-a-day practices will be fewer, practice hours will be shorter and activities will be different. Among proposals we will be presented (and should seriously consider) will be:
If this all sounds silly or radical, remember that the NCAA and NFL are already making such changes. NFL players face contact in practice on only 14 days during a 17-week regular season. Meanwhile, many high school coaches have kids knocking heads and bruising bodies two to four days a week, all season long. Giving critics the impression that interscholastic football for teens is more brutal than the higher levels of football for grown men. Inviting interference from people who think they know better.
Actually, we know better; and we need to do better. Soon.