Generations of Girls Tournaments
June 22, 2012
The MHSAA will have its “40th Anniversaries” for seven girls sports tournaments during the next three school years, but they are not our longest running girls tournaments.
The earliest MHSAA tournament for girls was regional in scope for the sport of alpine skiing – almost 60 years ago – in the winter of the 1953-54 school year. Two regional meets were held for girls, and two for boys. This continued for 21 consecutive years.
The first statewide MHSAA Ski Meet was held in Marquette in early 1975, the culminating event for a season during which the sport was sponsored for girls by 63 schools and for boys by 68 schools.
The first statewide MHSAA tournament for girls in any sport was held Jan. 12, 1972 in the sport of gymnastics. Of 52 schools sponsoring girls gymnastics at that time, 33 had girls qualify for and participate in the meet, and 30 schools scored in six different events (today girls gymnastics has just four events; trampoline and tumbling no longer are contested).
During the 1972-73 school year, the MHSAA sponsored and conducted girls tournaments in tennis, swimming & diving, golf and track & field. The first MHSAA Girls Basketball Tournament occurred the following school year, 1973-74; girls softball followed in the 1974-75 school year; and girls volleyball followed in the 1975-76 school year.
The girls who played in these first tournaments are now women in their mid- to late-fifties; and some will be rooting for their granddaughters in one of the 14 MHSAA tournaments now conducted for girls.
Designed and Delivered
March 8, 2016
The benefits of school sports do not occur by accident. They occur by design and by delivery.
It is the design of policies and procedures to keep the program student-focused, school-centered, sensible in scope, safe, sane and sportsmanlike. All core values of educational athletics.
The value is also enhanced by the delivery system – the quality of coaching and expertise of administration.
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Just as the teacher is the key to learning in the academic classroom, the coach is the key to learning on the athletic team. This is why the MHSAA has designed and delivers a face-to-face, multi-level coaching education program anytime, anywhere in Michigan.
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The other key of the delivery system is the local school athletic administrator with a skill set that meets the complex demands of a program that operates in an arena of high emotion and risk of injury. This is why Michigan often leads the nation in the number of high school athletic directors who have completed the highest level of training and certification of the National Interscholastic Athletics Administrators Association, and why the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association and the MHSAA devote so much time and attention to initial and ongoing athletic director training.