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Choices & Voices

September 16, 2016

How should a statewide high school athletic association operate?

In a general sense, it should give choices and voices to its membership. It should describe possible solutions to problems that face school sports, and it should provide a forum for members to express their opinions.

As we embark on the 39th year of Michigan High School Athletic Association Update meetings across the state, and 28th year of Athletic Director In-Service programs at many venues, our purpose is to enable this engagement through presentations, discussions, straw polls and formal surveys.

The top topics will again be those that are most important to the fabric and future of school-sponsored sports, even if they are not the fad of the day or the fetish of media. These are:

  • Defining & Defending Educational Athletics
  • Promoting & Protecting Participant Health
  • Serving & Supporting Junior High/Middle School Programs
  • Recruiting & Retaining Contest Officials

Schedule and Registration

Football Follies

October 7, 2014

Notice reached the MHSAA office of a so-called “2014 Michigan Youth Football Classic” that invites youth league teams to “a great weekend of youth tackle football.” For $450 per team, youth football teams will bang bodies for two days – Nov. 8 and 9 – with each team guaranteed at least three games. Three!

No level of football but this – for the youngest players who have the most vulnerable skulls – allows the idiocy of three games in a weekend. Most limit competition to a maximum of one game in a week!

In my opinion, this isn’t a football classic. It’s child abuse.

I wish the foolishness would stop there, but even an organization called USA Football seems to have lost its head. Initially and mostly with funding from the NFL, USA Football was focused on teaching youth football coaches and players safe blocking and tackling techniques. Good.

But now this pseudo-national governing body for amateur football is planning events for various age groups that will extend tackle football practices and games throughout what used to be an off-season. Multiple competitions in tackle football are scheduled for high school age players in January, February and July of 2015.

At a time when professional, college, school and Pop Warner football are all reducing contact during practices in-season, USA Football wants to expand the contact experience out of season. It makes about as much sense as three games in a weekend.