Committee Work
January 6, 2015
The winter months are the busiest for MHSAA committees, especially for those that must review or prepare recommendations for changes for the following school year.
Each year, up to 20 MHSAA committees consider proposals for Representative Council action relative to MHSAA tournament policies or procedures or Handbook regulations or interpretations.
During school year 2014-15, wherever applicable, the committees are being asked to address health and safety issues as well as policies and procedures relative to subvarsity and junior high/middle school students; and as a result of positive 2014 Update Meeting Opinion Poll responses, each sport committee is being asked to respond during calendar year 2015 and beyond to several concepts for MHSAA tournament seeding.
MHSAA committees are dominated by coaches, but they are not a rubber stamp for proposals that proceed from that sport’s high school coaches association. The difference of opinion often results from the committee seeing things differently than a coaches association leadership that the committee believes is not representative of schools of diverse size, location and demographics.
It is appropriate for committees to ask: Who was not in the room when this recommendation was drafted? Who will not be served well by this change?
When committees go through this process, they tend to reduce the quantity but improve the quality of recommendations to the Representative Council, which increases the percentage of recommendations the Council adopts.
Many Big Changes Ahead
April 25, 2014
The May meeting of the MHSAA Representative Council is usually the one that produces the most action leading to the most change in Michigan school sports. This year, however, the Council could skip this meeting entirely, and still school sports would be in for the greatest number of significant positive changes that we have ever seen over any previous two- to three-year period.
In the area of health and safety, schools will be in the second year of the “Model Policy for Managing Heat & Humidity” adopted in March of 2013 and the first year of new Football Practice Policies adopted in March of 2014. The practice policies lengthen the early season acclimatization period from three days to four and reduce collision practices to one per day prior to the first game and to two per week thereafter.
This fall, the first of three enhancements to the health and safety preparation of coaches takes effect. All high school assistant and subvarsity coaches must complete a rules and risk management requirement similar to high school varsity head coaches. In the fall of 2015, all high school varsity head coaches must be CPR certified. In the fall of 2016, all first-time high school varsity head coaches must have completed the MHSAA’s Coaches Advancement Program Level 1 or 2.
This fall brings two big changes in the transfer regulation. The athletic-related transfer rule adopted in 2013 takes full effect Aug. 1, 2014, as do rules that remove different treatment of J-1 and F-1 visa students and the disparate impact of Federal laws on public and nonpublic schools with respect to F-1 students.
Meanwhile, the MHSAA has already committed all of 2014 to a comprehensive examination of some very large junior high/middle school issues (e.g., should we be including younger grades and should there be Regional tournaments); while during the second half of 2014, there will be new looks at out-of-season coaching rules and broader application of “subvarsity” level opportunities to transfer and international students.
Even if the Representative Council makes no changes at its May 4 and 5 meetings, the fall of 2014 will be the busiest I’ve been a part of in 29 years.