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
Middle School Membership
September 27, 2013
Of the approximately 2,000 schools serving 7th- and 8th-grade students in Michigan, according to the 2013 Michigan Education Directory that does not include home schools, only 731 are members of the Michigan High School Athletic Association. There are several reasons that explain this gap.
It is not a matter of cost. As with high schools, junior high/middle school membership is free. More likely reasons for the gap between the number of schools serving 7th- and 8th-graders and the number of those schools belonging to the MHSAA are these:
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The school district overlooks MHSAA membership. This is often the case when there is no high school connected to the junior high/middle school.
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The school district does not sponsor interscholastic athletics at the 7th- and 8th-grade level. At that level, sports are community run, so the school sees no need for MHSAA membership.
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The school district does sponsor 7th- and 8th-grade sports but does not want to follow MHSAA rules. And among the rules these school districts object to are these:
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The limits on the number of contests . . . they’re too few; and/or
The prohibition of 6th-graders on teams of 7th- and 8th-graders.
This third reason, and especially these two objections, are being reviewed throughout the MHSAA constituency again this year. And I’ll have more to say in our next three postings.