Nurturing Our Lower Level Programs
May 15, 2014
By John E. “Jack” Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director
When I’ve been faced with the most difficult choices as to different courses of action for the MHSAA, I’ve tried to face up to this reframing of the issue: “If we were creating the MHSAA for the first time today, would we do this, or would we do that?”
For example, would we or would we not limit coaches’ contact with athletes out of season? Would we have a 90-day period of ineligibility for transfer students or would it be 180 days?
There are other examples of such “either, or” questions I could provide, but none is as difficult or defining as this: Should school sports under the MHSAA’s auspices provide more opportunities for 7th- and 8th-graders and new opportunities for even younger students?
I won’t be coy about what I think our answer should be. I haven’t always felt this way, and I recognize it is a different opinion than some who are quoted in this publication; but today it’s my belief that if we were creating the MHSAA for the first time in 2014, the MHSAA would allow more contests and longer contests for 7th- and 8th-graders, and the MHSAA would have competition policies and programs for younger middle schoolers too.
I believe this is what parents want for their children and what students want for themselves; and I believe, within reason, that the better we serve these students in their junior high/middle school years, the stronger high school sports will be and the better these programs will support the educational missions of schools.
I believe we must begin to serve middle school students more comprehensively, and that our doing so today is the best hope we have for retaining comprehensive programs for high school students tomorrow. Not only does the lower profile and pressure of lower level programs nurture the highest ideals of educational athletics, they provide our highest hope for preserving those ideals at the high school level.
The Lasting Impact of First Impressions
The over-arching question before us is how to maintain policies that encourage multiple sport experiences for students at the junior high/middle school level while at the same time adjusting those policies in terms of grade level served and the numbers and lengths of contests allowed in order to be more attractive to junior high/middle school parents and to school districts which desire additional competition opportunities in the school setting for students prior to high school.
There is a good healthy discussion in our midst about the scope of junior high/middle school athletics – how much should occur and how young it should commence; and the result of these discussions may have long-lasting effect on students, schools and the MHSAA.
Here are two central issues:
1. Contest Limits
Many people over many years have contributed to developing the current season limitations for the number of contests permitted by MHSAA member junior high/middle schools. These good people have believed in a philosophy of sports at this level that encourages students to try multiple sports.
“Kids haven’t fully matured yet,” they say. “Kids haven’t been exposed to some sports yet. They don’t know what they might like or be good at. So let’s have policies and programs that encourage new opportunities and experiences at this level.”
The season limits that have been put in place allow some junior high/middle schools, or their entire leagues, to fit four distinct seasons in a nine-month school year, consistent with this over-arching philosophy to encourage these students to try new things and learn.
There is another educationally grounded and equally astute group of administrators and coaches who are concerned that the current limits are too severe in comparison to non-school youth sports programs. For example, community/club basketball or soccer programs may schedule 15 or 18 or more games per season versus the MHSAA limit of 12 at the junior high/middle school level.
These folks think these restrictive limitations create a disincentive for kids to play school sports, and that many of those who have no place in junior high/middle school sports have no interest later in high school sports.
2. 6th-Graders
Historically, the popular opinion among educators has held that 7th and 8th grade is early enough for schools to provide competitive athletics, early enough to put youth into the competitive sports arena, and early enough to pit one school against another in sports.
Today, however, many educators and parents point out that such protective philosophies and policies were adopted about the same time “play days” were considered to be the maximum exertion females should experience in school sports. Some administrators and coaches argue that both our severe limits on contest limits at the junior high/middle school level, and our refusal to serve 6th-graders, are as out of date and inappropriate as play days for females.
Today, in nearly four of five school districts with MHSAA member schools, 6th-graders go to school in the same building with 7th- and 8th-graders. But MHSAA rules don’t allow 6th-graders to participate with and against 7th- and 8th-graders. In fact, the MHSAA Constitution doesn’t even acknowledge that 6th-graders exist.
Today, in many places, 6th-graders have aged-out of non-school, community sports, but they are not permitted to play on MHSAA junior high/middle school teams.
Last school year, 50 different school districts requested this rule be waived for them, and the MHSAA Executive Committee approved 46 of 50 waivers, allowing 6th-graders to compete on 7th- and 8th-grade teams. During 2011-12, 37 of 40 requests for waiver were approved, in all cases for small junior high/middle schools. Many of these schools want, and some of them desperately need, these 6th-graders to fill out junior high/middle school teams.
Young people are starting sports much younger today than 100 years ago when the MHSAA was created. Younger than even 50 years ago when the MHSAA was incorporated. If the MHSAA were created today to serve any students before 9th grade, I’m certain it would not leave out 6th-graders who are walking the same halls with 7th- and 8th-graders, and who have been playing competitive sports almost since the first day they started walking at all.
Eyes on the future
The most important thing we can do to enhance high school sports is to grow junior high/middle school sports programs. The earlier we disconnect young people from non-school sports and engage them in school-sponsored sports, the better our chances are of keeping high school athletic programs healthy, and the better our prospects are of keeping both participation rates and conduct standards high.
School sports are in competition for hearts and minds of young people. Our competition includes movies, jobs, cars, video games, boyfriends and girlfriends and club sports ... especially club sports. School sports needs to market itself better, and part of better is to be available earlier – much sooner in the lives of youth. More contests at the junior high/middle school level and more opportunities for 6th-graders should be parts of our marketing strategies on behalf of educational athletics generally.
For at least 50 years there have been predictions by people outside of our member schools that the system of school-sponsored sports that is almost unique to the United States would someday give way to the system of most countries where youth sports is provided by non-school community groups and private athletic clubs. Some people challenge school-sponsored sports on a program basis – for example, that competitive athletics creates a distraction to the core educational mission of schools. Others may challenge school-sponsored sports on a financial basis – that interscholastic athletics compete for the limited resources communities have to support their schools.
Today there also exists among our member schools a small percentage of administrators who have come to their leadership roles without involvement in school sports and who either desire and believe that interscholastic sports will be moved from schools to communities or who do not want but predict that such will occur as resources for schools continue to shrink.
I believe this is more likely to happen, or to happen sooner, if we do not change our approach to junior high/middle school sports. If we continue to restrict 7th- and 8th-graders to so few contests of such limited length compared to what those students have in non-school sports, and if we continue to offer nothing for younger students, we essentially and effectively force these students to non-school sports.
It is an often cited statistic that between 80 and 90 percent of all young people who ever begin playing competitive athletics stop playing before they reach the age of 13, meaning the vast majority of young people never, ever are involved in school programs. Thus, it is no mystery why people question the future of school sports. We’re doing nothing to make programs available to them. They have no experience in them.
Our restrictive and possibly outdated policies and procedures regarding contest limits and lengths and the age at which we begin to serve junior high/middle school students may assure that the dire predictions about school sports’ future will be accurate. We are doing too little, too late. It is marketing at its worst.
In my mind there is little doubt that we are doing too little too late with junior high/middle school students. Now the challenge before us is to think beyond “we can’t afford it” and make some necessary changes, while still avoiding a system that allows or even encourages schools doing too much too soon.
Przystas Helps 'Shape' Fitness for Future
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
December 20, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Scott Przystas had plans earlier this week to “crash” a Grand Haven schools party with vegetables grown in his classroom’s hydroponic garden. It may be winter outside, but in his physical education class, it’s time to harvest.
But the Michigan chill doesn’t mean his students – ranging from Young 5’s to fourth grade – will be restricted to the gym for the next three months. When they return in 2017, they’ll head outside and give snow-shoeing a try.
Teaching includes a lot more than daily dodgeball or rolling out the basketballs for Przystas, a member of the MHSAA Multi-Sport Task Force and this fall’s honoree as Michigan Physical Education Teacher of the Year by the state’s chapter of Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE).
The task force over its first few months has determined that the message on the many benefits of participating in multiple sports must be delivered to students and their families long before these students reach high school and even junior high – making passionate educators like Przystas especially key. He passes on a perspective that “PE is the most important thing we can teach kids, how to be physically active for life” while teaching students at Grand Haven’s Mary A. White and Rosy Mound elementary schools.
“That’s our goal with the elementary PE department in Grand Haven, to make it relevant again,” Przystas said. “Because it’s really easy in our profession (to say) here’s the ball kids, do you want to do. But it’s not gratifying at all. It’s not satisfying to the kid or the teacher.”
Przystas brings the MHSAA task force a wealth of experience as a coach – he’s in charge of the high school’s girls cross country team, serves as freshman coach and varsity assistant for girls basketball and leads the middle school track & field teams. But he also provides an important voice for physical education, an area the task force considers crucial to growing interest in playing many sports instead of specializing in one – which studies have shown can lead to chronic injuries when playing that one sport while leading those children to become adults who are less likely to be physically active and fit. He is in his eighth year in the Grand Haven district and has taught in nine buildings at the elementary, middle, high school and alternative education levels.
“Scott has been instrumental in leading changes to the PE program in Grand Haven,” Mary A. White principal Valerie Livingston said in a report for the Grand Haven Tribune. “His excitement about life-long fitness and nutrition is contagious in the school. Under Scott's direction we have students who look forward to smoothie bars at lunch and are excited to see our new tower garden grow.”
Many teachers
Przystas’ philosophy is deeply-rooted in the positive experience he had growing up in Gladwin, a much smaller community than Grand Haven located north of Midland and Mount Pleasant.
His father Ronald – who formerly worked at the Lansing State Journal and Cadillac Evening News before becoming a reporter, editor at later publisher at the Gladwin County Record – died in a car crash in 1996. But he left his then 10-year-old son a love for sports photography – Scott minored in journalism at Michigan State University – and also plenty of familiarity with athletics. A track & field meet hosted by Gladwin Junior High School bears Ron’s name.
Sports provided an outlet during that tough time. During middle school, Scott would go from a basketball game to hockey practice that same night, filling his time with those sports, golfing and a variety of other like activities.
A few years after his dad’s death, Przystas became a manager for the Flying G’s boys basketball varsity coached by Kirk Taylor, who had gotten to know Ron well over the years. Ron had made sure Kirk understood the importance of Gladwin beating county rival Beaverton – they play for a trophy dating back to 1937 – and so it was memorable when Scott, as a senior during the 2005-06 season, scored a career-high 25 points to help the Flying G’s beat the Beavers despite the fact he really wasn’t a scorer as much as a solid all-around player.
“Scott was part of the best group of captains I have had here at Gladwin in the past 23 years,” Taylor said. “One of his co-captains was quiet and out-worked everybody. Another of his tri-captains was very direct with players. Scott was a little of both, but he always delivered the message with the most positive manner.
“I did not know that Scott would become a teacher and/or a coach, but I did know that he would be very successful at whatever profession he chose.”
Przystas made the all-Jack Pine Conference second team as a senior in 2004 while also earning all-league honors in golf and serving as a pinch-runner in baseball for a couple of seasons – but that was just a start on his athletic endeavors. At MSU, as he was studying toward a degree in kinesiology, Przystas played on the practice scout team that daily took on the women’s basketball team as the Spartans prepped for multiple NCAA Tournament runs. He knew he wanted a career in sports, and that experience got him interested in coaching. He also participated on the MSU triathlon club team, which got him into endurance sports.
He graduated from MSU and before the fall of 2009 latched on at Grand Haven. His first call was to Buccaneers girls hoops coach Katie Kowalczyk-Fulmer, and he was on her bench as an assistant for the program’s back-to-back Class A championships in 2012 and 2013 – while also for a time living in her basement before marrying his wife Renee.
Przystas also inherited the high school’s girls cross country program, which he coaches with Renee, and which has made the MHSAA Finals 17 straight seasons. In addition, he became the Lakeshore Middle School track & field coach – and he sees all of these as being related.
“At a Class A school like this, I’d like to say having most (students) participating in high school sports is because of the elementary PE teachers rocking it,” Przystas said. “Our numbers in cross country are up there (50-60 athletes the last few seasons), our numbers in track are getting up there, and the kids are seeing a familiar face and enjoying the process and sticking with it.”
Passing those lessons on
In addition to Taylor and Kowalczyk-Fulmer, Przystas credits his high school golf coach Ben Ball and Gladwin’s former girls varsity and boys subvarsity boys basketball coach Andy Miceli among those who helped shape his growing up. He also gained valuable experience during his student teaching as an assistant with the Bath High School girls under Craig Poppema, and retired longtime Grand Haven boys hoops coach Craig Taylor – Kirk’s dad – has provided plenty of mentoring.
Przystas – who has served a two-year term on the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness, Health and Sports – teaches from a philosophy based on a pyramid. The bottom level is health and knowing how to take care of oneself, with the middle level physical literacy and the body’s ability to solve movement problems to avoid injury. The top of his pyramid is adventure, and that’s what he’s trying to deliver to his students.
But to do so, he also has to be able to relate and communicate with them.
“Scott makes it fun. He’s just very organized – and he connects with whatever age group, whether it’s kindergarten kids or high school girls,” said Kowalczyk-Fulmer, recalling how excited her 5-year-old son was to have “Coach P” as a teacher. “Freshman girls can sometimes be an interesting group to coach … but he never changes who he is. I’ll stand in the locker room after games and listen to the things he says. Just the quality of person he is, he’s a role model, he and his assistant Kelly Kieft. He’s just a good, positive role model for young people.”
Przystas noted how SHAPE America is pushing for the generation of children being born now becoming an “active” next generation, and as a newer father this hits home – and also helps fuel his desire to help.
He said it’s harder to plant that seed when students are older – but that’s where his responsibility as a cultivator at the elementary level comes in.
“I had a great childhood experience,” Przystas said. “That was the big thing. I fully remember all of the pickup games we had in our neighborhood, the outdoor adventures exploring, playing ping-pong on a chipped-up table.
“(That’s why) I promote to kids in middle school, elementary school, to go check out a lacrosse game. Go to swim camp. Be active this summer. Don’t just be sitting around. We’ve just got to get them outside more and have kids be active.”
PHOTO: (Top) Teacher Scott Przystas (kneeling) works with one of his elementary school classes in Grand Haven. (Middle) Przystas (back row, second from left) has been an assistant on two Class A girls basketball championship teams. (Top photo courtesy of the Grand Haven Tribune.)