Logo

Crime and Punishment

August 17, 2012

In my previous posting I identified three criteria that have helped the MHSAA decide what its responsibilities should be, which is worth re-reading in the context of the widespread debate about what the NCAA’s role should be in the wake of the Penn State tragedy.

In essence, my last posting stated that the MHSAA has neither the legal authority nor the resources to be involved in protecting young people at all times and in all places.  It is in the area of sports, and especially within the limits of the season and the boundaries of the field of play, that the MHSAA has a role and rules.

So obviously, if I had been asked about what the NCAA should do about Penn State, I would advise the NCAA to look at its Handbook.  If its member institutions have adopted policies and procedures to be followed and prescribed penalties to be enforced that apply in this matter, then by all means, follow the rules.  But if not, stay out of it.  You’ve got enough to do that’s not getting done where you have the requisite expertise and responsibility.

Clearly, the NCAA leadership took a different position, apparently preferring to absorb criticism for going too far rather than suffer criticism that it did too little in response to horrific behavior at one of its member institutions.

Unfortunately, in stating publicly that the severity of the penalties was intended to send the important messages that football should not outsize academics and that success on the field should not be at the expense of the safety and nurturing of athletes and that coaches should not be treated as larger-than-life heroes, the NCAA misses the point that the system the NCAA itself has created or allowed is much at fault for such excesses.

Any system that allows such lavish expenditures on the sports program and its personalities the way it is allowed in NCAA Division 1 football and basketball will continue to have serious problems, every year and at multiple institutions.  Penn State is not the first university to have screwed up priorities; it just has the most recent and tragic victims.

For its part, the MHSAA has rules designed to position athletics secondary to academics, keep the pursuit of success secondary to safety, and maintain administrators’ authority over coaches, whose pay may not exceed the supplementary pay schedule for teachers and may not flow from any source but the school itself.  We are striving to have policies now that will make it unnecessary to impose penalties later for sports programs that are out of control.

Upon Further Review ...

May 12, 2017

A veteran track & field coach wrote critically that the Michigan High School Athletic Association has erred by not implementing numerous proposals of his state coaches association over the years. So this year I was an even more careful than usual observer of the fate of proposals from coaches associations and our own coach-dominated sport committees.

Some proposals from coaches associations don’t even make it to a vote at the MHSAA sport committee level. Others fail to get an affirmative vote, while still others are passed by the committee as a recommendation to the MHSAA Representative Council.

Each of the sport committee recommendations that is received by the time of the League Leadership meeting in mid-February is presented to the league administrators in attendance so they will be aware of what’s flowing in the pipeline toward the MHSAA Representative Council for a vote. It is intended that these sport committee recommendations will be discussed at meetings by each league, and that the MHSAA staff will be notified of questions or concerns that any proposal generates.

MHSAA staff – most often Associate Director Tom Rashid – take some of the proposals on the road, to both league meetings and Athletic Director In-Service programs, where experienced practical minds praise some proposals and poke holes in others.

Many of the recommendations are also discussed at the March conference of the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, and some are made “Position Statements” on which the MIAAA members vote at the conclusion of their conference. It’s interesting to observe that some recommendations that passed coach-dominated sport committees with unanimous support fail to receive 50 percent support by the athletic directors as they make a more circumspect review of the issue.

All along the way, the MHSAA staff is watching, listening, and learning. We learn, for example, that some proposals have negative unintended consequences, that other proposals lack sufficient research or even essential facts, and that in both cases, approval should be denied or at least delayed for more complete development and study.

That was a major theme of this past week’s Representative Council meeting when many committee proposals were, if not derailed, at least detained for later departure. For example:

A proposal to revise the limited team membership rule for 6th-, 7th- and 8th-graders that would allow during the school season up to two dates of non-school participation in all sports except football was tabled in order to gather more membership input.

  • A proposal to alter the three-decade-old MHSAA Baseball Tournament schedule was delayed to consider the effects of and questions raised by the pitching limitation rule that is new this year – a late requirement of the national rules committee.

  • A proposal to seed and bracket District and Regional Basketball Tournaments raised more questions than answers and did not advance.

  • A proposal to require observers in each group at all Lower Peninsula Boys and Girls Regional and Final Golf Tournaments was at least slowed.

  • A proposal to require two days rest between the Semifinal and Final games of soccer Regionals received a yellow card, even though the proposal has good intentions and is part of an evolving package of proposals to make that sport a healthier experience – with more attention to practice and training and less competition.

  • A national soccer committee rule change regarding the color of undergarments was delayed indefinitely by the Council, to avoid both unnecessary confusion and new costs.

  • A proposal to allow additional teams to advance from Regionals to Finals in the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Tennis Tournaments was not adopted – perhaps a good idea in good weather, but problematic in bad.