Logo

A Can-Do Response

January 5, 2015

Michigan has a tradition of some of the nation’s most lenient out-of-season coaching rules, especially in the summer; and yet, the few rules we have are sometimes blamed for driving students to non-school programs.

Nevertheless, there is some validity to the criticism. It is observably true that non-school programs seem to fill every void in the interscholastic calendar. The day after high school seasons end, many non-school programs begin. The day a school coach can no longer work with more than three or four students, a non-school coach begins to do so.

The challenge is to balance the negative effects of an “arms war” in high school sports against driving students toward non-school programs. It’s the balance of too few vs. too many rules out of season.

The out-of-the-box compromise for this dilemma could be to not regulate the off season as much as to conduct school-sponsored off-season programs in a healthier way than they normally occur, i.e., to move schools back in control of and in the center of the non-school season. To not merely regulate what schools and coaches can’t do, but actually run the programs they can do and want to do.

Of course, this would require more of what schools have less of – resources. School administrators who may be in agreement that schools should operate off-season programs to keep kids attached to in-season programs still balk because they lack resources. At a time when resources are being cut for basic support of in-season programs, how could they justify spending more for out-of-season outreach?

Ultimately, in discovering the sweet spot for out-of-season interaction between school coaches with student-athletes, we need to give at least as much attention to providing more opportunity for what they can do together as for what they can’t do.
Second Half by MHSAA

Pulling Up the Welcome Mat?

September 8, 2011

Michigan’s welcoming foreign exchange program network and the MHSAA’s accommodating rules have caused there to be more placements in Michigan schools than any other state during each of the last two school years. But this open environment for foreign exchange students may change if the MHSAA is unsuccessful in defending its current rules through judicial proceedings in Michigan courts.

Presently under MHSAA rules, international transfer students are treated identically to domestic transfer students:  unless the student meets one of 15 stated exceptions, that student is ineligible for approximately one semester and then becomes eligible insofar as the transfer regulation is concerned until that student’s high school graduation.

If, however, this student is a foreign exchange student placed in an MHSAA member school through a program listed by the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel, that student is permitted immediate eligibility and that student’s eligibility is limited to one academic year.  This special exception for bona fide foreign exchange students is intended to maximize the benefits of their academic exchange year. 

The current court challenge is to the absolute limit of one year of athletic eligibility for foreign exchange students.  If the MHSAA is unsuccessful in preserving that one-year limit, schools may be forced to treat foreign exchange students as all other international transfer students who are ineligible for their first semester and thereafter eligible until graduation.

That solution may seem simple, but it would reduce the value of the academic exchange experience for bona fide foreign exchange students, and that would certainly drop Michigan from the top spot in the nation for foreign exchange student placements.