Classification Caution
January 25, 2012
The classification of schools on the basis of enrollment for statewide high school athletic tournaments appears to have been born in Michigan in the early 1900s. Since then, there have been two irrepressible trends.
First, tournaments with multiple classifications have spread to every state. And second, the number of classifications expanded in each sport. In other words, once classification begins, requests for more classes or divisions never end.
One can speculate as to the reasons why people request more classes or divisions, but some results of expanding classification do not require any guesswork. For example:
- If the MHSAA Basketball or Volleyball Tournaments were expanded from four to six classifications or divisions, as some people suggest, it would require another day or separate venues for Semifinals, and the Finals would have to begin at 8 a.m. and would end near midnight.
- If the MHSAA Football Playoffs were expanded from eight to ten divisions, as some people suggest, it would require scheduling the first Final game at 8 a.m. each day, and we would anticipate ending after midnight both days.
More divisions means longer travel and later weeknights for teams and their spectators at Districts and Regionals, and longer days with absurdly early starts and late finishes at the Finals.
Classifying tournaments on the basis of enrollment is a good thing. But like many other good things, it is possible to get too much of it.
It’s Not Us
October 2, 2015
There are continuing and crescendoing complaints about “AAU ball” – the travel, the competition without preparation, the agents and hangers-on, the sleaze factor. Yet some of those same complainers are critical of the very rules that tend to keep that sleaze at a low level in school sports in Michigan.
If so many people agree that kids and parents are being sold a bill of goods full of empty promises by a growing number of youth sports zealots, recruiting gurus, and both club and college level coaches, then why should we provide passports that would expose more students to this atmosphere?
If so many people feel that what’s happening in youth sports is bad and what’s masquerading as educational athletics in major college sports is baloney, then why should we help high school students earn frequent flier points through relaxation of time-tested travel and television policies?
If so many people believe there are too many athletic-motivated transfers, then why should we throw fuel on the fire? Those schools which could afford it would try to make their programs more attractive with national travel and televised games as a magnet to suck the best players out of neighboring schools that cannot afford the same excesses.
There is more than enough travel and exposure opportunity for schools here in Michigan and Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Ontario and Wisconsin. Any more adds impure emphases and increased expenses to programs that are already overburdened or bankrupt.
When our school administrators and coaches say that national travel and tournaments are unaffordable and “It’s not us,” they mean it. They’ve got their priorities right.