A Different Play for Football?
April 30, 2013
Football is an original high school sport. It is one of the first sports sponsored that was by schools even before the MHSAA existed as an organization.
Because football started in schools, not communities, football has been the high school sport least affected by non-school sports programs. Until now.
Non-school seven-on-seven football threatens interscholastic football. Commercialized seven-on-seven football threatens to do to interscholastic football what AAU types have done to basketball, and other entities have done to volleyball, soccer and other school sports.
A national committee was convened last year to address seven-on-seven football. It recognized problems but could only wring its hands regarding solutions.
I’d like to see the MHSAA convene representatives of the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association and the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association to mine for more meaningful responses in Michigan.
A limited number of days of seven-on-seven football involving school coaches and their students is already permissible during the summer. If more days were allowed in the summer under tightly controlled circumstances (read “non-commercial”), would this tend to improve the environment of seven-on-seven football? Would it also help to allow a few days of seven-on-seven football practice and play in the spring? Or would that hurt the spring sports programs of schools?
Can we learn from what happened in non-school basketball and discern a different game plan for non-school football if we now respond differently (and more quickly!) for football than we did for basketball 20-30 years ago?
The Waiver Process
August 21, 2015
Last school year, over the course of 12 meetings, the MHSAA Executive Committee received 467 requests from member schools to waive either a minimum standard for student eligibility or a maximum limitation on competition. Three hundred sixty-two of these requests for waiver were approved. That’s 78 percent.
This was a typical year – neither a record high nor record low in the number of requests, or of waivers approved.
Under the MHSAA Constitution, to at least some degree, every Handbook regulation may be waived by the Executive Committee. However, it is an abuse of authority if there is not a compelling reason for the waiver – that is, a clear case where the rule works an undue hardship (not just any hardship) on a student or school, or the rule fails to perform its intended purpose in the particular and unique circumstances documented.
There are times when school administrators will disagree with an Executive Committee determination, and more times when parents will disagree – and sometimes the difference of opinion leads to unjustified attacks on the MHSAA or individuals. This is unfortunate, but inevitable when critics see their situation alone and not in the context of past and future precedent.
Nevertheless, in recent years, fewer than one in 400 waiver requests that is not approved has been appealed to the full MHSAA Representative Council. I believe this reflects not only that the Executive Committee has been getting the decisions right, but also that those who are making the requests have felt well heard and served.
We work hard to create that atmosphere, even in the presence of emotional, invested parents who are advocating for their children. From a real live receptionist who greets every telephone caller, to our associate director who helps administrators prepare each request to the Executive Committee, we strive to present every request for waiver in its best factual light and every rule involved in its complete educational and historical context.