The Cool Thing To Do
November 9, 2012
Last year the MHSAA Student Advisory Council suggested the MHSAA conduct a “Battle of the Fans,” and under the supervision of Andy Frushour and assistance of Geoff Kimmerly, Andi Osters and other MHSAA staff, the campaign was a tremendous success.
Nineteen schools submitted applications, a process which required communication within the school district about what is and is not suitable behavior at school-sponsored events, and then a coordinated effort to produce a video of the school and its cheering section in action last winter.
These videos have been viewed on YouTube more than 25,000 times, and more than 8,500 voted on Facebook for the student section they most favored.
The result was not only better sportsmanship at these schools, it made being at the games the “cool” thing to do. Student attendance increased, and student behavior improved. A double win no matter what happened between the teams on the court.
With the attention being given to student cheering sections during the MHSAA’s 2012 regional sportsmanship summits – attracting 1,000 students from more than 100 schools at four sites during October and November – we expect dozens more schools to compete in the 2013 “Battle of the Fans” – building up student cheering sections, guiding students in positive ways and producing videos that try to convince Facebook voters and Student Advisory Council judges that theirs is the best student support group among MHSAA member schools.
Momentum
August 4, 2017
The 2017-18 school year holds great potential for the Michigan High School Athletic Association and for school sports in Michigan. Only time will tell us if the potential is greater for good than for bad.
There is positive momentum in promoting participant health and safety as the last of three advances in the health and safety preparation of coaches is implemented, as high schools’ mandatory concussion reporting and MHSAA-purchased concussion care “gap” insurance for 6th- through 12th-graders enter year three, and as higher limits of accident medical insurance is purchased by the MHSAA for all member junior high/middle schools and high schools, effective this month.
There is positive momentum in serving and supporting junior high/middle school programs where membership was up five percent last year over the year before. The MHSAA had an enjoyable, brand-broadening experience as “presenting sponsor” at a half-dozen junior high/middle school league track & field meets this past spring; and the MHSAA will be doing so during fall, winter and spring junior high/middle school tournaments during the 2017-18 school year.
The MHSAA’s Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation continues to develop strategies that focus on junior high/middle school students and their parents and to address the greatest health threat in youth sports – overuse injuries as the result of year-round sports specialization; and the Task Force is developing tools that help define and defend educational athletics.
Beneath these three over-arching themes, the MHSAA is addressing some pressing new problems – like what to do about venues that are no longer available to us for MHSAA tournaments in girls and boys basketball and individual wrestling – as well as some chronic concerns – like recruiting and retaining contest officials and athletic-related transfers. The loss of officials and the rise of athletic-related transfers are problems of nearly epidemic proportions.
The amount of resources the MHSAA will be able to bring to all these topics will be affected by the number of controversies that arise during the normal course of essential business in administering programs, policies and penalties. Such controversies can knock us off message, and rob us of resources that could allow us to be doing more of the positive things we know need to be done.
There is also the potential that we get distracted by the National Federation of State High School Associations, some of whose member state association CEOs want to talk more about NFHS sponsorship of national tournaments, even after decades of opposition to such events from both state and national educational associations, as well as clear and convincing evidence that no organization – from Little League to the NCAA – has been able to conduct national tournaments without adding to their existing problems and creating new pressures and new problems.
Excesses and abuses in school sports have their own momentum. We should not create more by NFHS sponsorship of the very events it was created to end.