Early Results
May 17, 2016
On May 3 we released a preliminary summation of results of winter season concussions reported by Michigan High School Athletic Association member schools. It was reported that 48 percent of the concussions reported were to female athletes, who make up only 38 percent of all winter season participants.
We will be digging deeper into the reports and providing a more comprehensive summary for all three seasons – fall, winter and spring; but we already see one suspected theme is being confirmed: more concussions reported for girls than for boys.
Even though girls’ participation in basketball is 36 percent lower than boys in MHSAA member high schools, there were 88 percent more concussions reported for girls than boys in that sport this past season.
We hope that researchers will step forward to inquire into the physiological, psychological, social and other reasons for the significant disparity in concussions reported by males and females; and perhaps they will be able to suggest what administrators, coaches, rule-makers and others might do in response to that research.
We expect that other themes suggested by the data from this first-year reporting requirement and then year-over-year comparisons will create interest in other research, all of which will help make school sports an even healthier experience for boys and girls than it already is.
Not So Great
February 7, 2017
The Michigan High School Athletic Association leadership can sometimes be like the leadership of the United States of America. We can boast a bit too boldly about how great we are.
That's why a trip to Europe, most recently for me to the country of Spain, can be a humbling reminder that no matter how good we may seem to be regarding some things, there is very much room for improvement on others.
The USA is a leader in many ways, but a distant laggard when it comes to community place-making and the quality of our roads and bridges and mass transportation systems. The USA is embarrassingly behind the needs and times in these important ways of improving life for millions of its citizens.
This obvious observation begs for consideration of ways and means the MHSAA may lag behind its counterpart organizations in serving and supporting school-sponsored sports. And these are the two most obvious observations:
We trail the nation's most progressive states with respect to requirements to coach and a few other most progressive states with respect to requirements to officiate.
It was no huge surprise that the 2016 MHSAA Update Meeting Opinion Poll demonstrated that attendees were more supportive of proposals to change those rules than any other policies or procedures of the organization.
The most popular proposal surveyed was a requirement that high school coaches who are disqualified from a contest more than once in a season must complete a free online sportsmanship course before they may return to coaching ... 94 percent of 602 respondents favored that policy.
The second most popular proposal surveyed would require all head coaches at the junior high/middle school level to have a valid (current) certification in CPR (same as the rule for high schools) ... 80 percent of 593 respondents favored that.
And the third most popular proposal surveyed would require an MHSAA registered official to attend an MHSAA-conducted or approved camp or clinic (three-hour minimum duration) during the first three years before that official may renew registration for a fourth year ... 75 percent of 601 respondents were in favor.
There are some obvious flaws in these requirements as stated on the Opinion Poll, and the respondents tend to come from larger schools and under-represent the opinion of small school administrators; but the responses of constituents are valuable nevertheless because they indicate a general direction that respondents believe is necessary to improve school sports, or at least to keep pace with the changing needs.