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.
Jousting at Windmills
July 19, 2012
Charles Barkley uttered famously last month that the worst thing that ever happened to basketball was the AAU.
While it doesn’t all occur under the Amateur Athletic Union’s banner, Mr. Barkley is not the first “authority” to offer such a brash opinion and to blame the AAU for much of what is bad about the current state of non-school basketball, where street agents and shoe companies corrupt children and their coaches, and where basketball is played with little emphasis on fundamental skills and team play.
Certainly, there are others to blame, including all who have made college and professional basketball a business lucrative enough to encourage excesses and unethical practices. And all of this is bigger than any one state high school athletic association can change.
Nevertheless, the MHSAA is in its fourth year of quixotic jousting with the monster about which so many have been complaining so long.
Tomorrow for boys, and then eight days later for girls (July 26), the MHSAA is teaming up again with the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan (BCAM) to provide Reaching Higher, “an advance placement course” for students who have both the interest and potential to participate in college basketball on some level.
Through Reaching Higher we intend for players and parents to gain greater appreciation for the rules and realities of the college recruitment process and for what it takes both academically and athletically to qualify for and succeed in intercollegiate basketball.
Click here to view the details.