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Health & Safety Journey

September 30, 2014

The Michigan High school Athletic Association is a bit more than halfway through an eight-year effort to shine the light on, and provide leadership for, four health and safety issues for school sports.

Four and five years ago our health and safety focus was adding more health history to the preparticipation physical examination process and printed forms. With the essential assistance of the Michigan Department of Community Health, this was done, and it earned widespread, positive reaction from Michigan’s diverse medical community.

Two and three years ago our focus was the head; and our early adoption of an all-sports return-to-play protocol after concussion symptoms became a national model.

Last year and this, heat and hydration has been the focus. The MHSAA imposed on its own tournaments, and recommended for member schools’ practices and contests, policies to manage heat and humidity that include a reduction or modification of activities when the heat index reaches a certain level and cessation of all activities when the heat index reaches an even higher level.

Next school year and in 2016-17 the focus will be the fourth “H”: hearts. Tests for heart defects are expensive and results are often misleading, and the triggers of sudden cardiac arrest are unpredictable. Therefore, we will be pointing to the two actions medical authorities appear to agree upon most: (1) the need for planned and practiced emergency procedures, and (2) the need to have AEDs nearby, in good working order.

We urge MHSAA member schools not to wait for the MHSAA focus to make this a local school focus, and we recommend the MI HEARTSafe Schools initiative. See the HeartSafe Action Plan or the HeartSafe School information for details.

“Who Needs This?”

May 24, 2013

One of the best barometers we have for informing us of the health of Michigan’s economy is to examine the number of registrations to be an MHSAA official.  When the economy is poor, registrations trend upward; when the economy is improving, registrations decline.

Well, business must be booming in Michigan!  Since the 2007-08 school year we’ve fallen almost 2,000 registrations.

Some of this decline can be explained away by the fact that registrations spiked upward when we allowed some free registrations in volleyball and basketball following the 2007 court-ordered changes in the girls volleyball and basketball seasons.  But most of the recent decline – certainly the 1,000 decline of the past two years – is unrelated to discontinuing those promotional efforts; and it’s unrelated to a very reluctant resurgence in Michigan’s economy.

What is at work here now are two newer forces that frustrate efforts to maintain a pool of officials that is adequate to handle all the contests of a broad and deep interscholastic athletic program, and to handle those contests well:

  • The first is the rise of social media and “instant criticism.”  Spectators not only can critique calls before the official gets home from the game, those spectators can do so during the game.  Their biased comments – and photos – can go worldwide before the official has left the venue!  Really, who needs this?  There have got to be less stressful hobbies.
  • The second factor is the increased dependence on assigners.  As local school athletic directors’ jobs became larger and more complicated, and as they were often given less time to do those jobs, more have had to turn to local assigners who will hire contest officials for groups of schools in one or more sports.  As assigners built their little kingdoms, new officials have found it harder to break in and obtain a rewarding number of assignments.  Many officials who have found themselves out of sorts with a local assigner have said, “Really, who needs this?”  They find more fulfilling ways to spend their time.

The fact is that school-based sports – educational athletics – needs officials.  We need them.

We need more officials and we especially need more young officials.  Officials are vital members of the team that is necessary to provide a school-based sports program that actually does what it says it does – and that is to teach life lessons, including fair play and sportsmanship.

 (Find out more about MHSAA officiating)