On the Hook
March 12, 2013
The over-arching theme of interscholastic athletic administration today is the health and safety of our student participants. It’s always our most important concern but now, by both self-serving and serious advocates, it’s being made a political football – actually more like a soccer ball being kicked back and forth and back again, resulting in about as much chance of scoring any positive goals as a World Cup soccer game will have in scoring any goals at all.
We are daily being distracted, and taken off our tasks, by symbolic more than substantive proposals to require this, that or the other thing to protect children from the risk of injury – regardless of grassroots input and without regard to grassroots resources. Zealous advocates for child safety wish to protect children from any risk of physical exertion, while in the next breath they complain of youth inactivity and obesity. And those who are trying to increase participation AND the quality of that experience – that’s us – become the targets of criticism. Often, those who have never done anything, blame those who have done a lot, for not doing enough.
Our frustration is flowing from the health and safety “idea du jour” to which we must respond, knowing that every time we fail to gush over some legislator’s or advocate’s notion, we invite the characterization that we are uncaring, lazy or arrogant, or all of the above. What we are doing is protecting schools from ubiquitous, onerous mandates which no one else in the school community is taking notice of because, appropriately, they are focused on the impossible task of providing an ever-expanding list of required services to an ever-increasing percentage of school-aged children with an ever-increasing list of problems, with the expectation that all of them will perform at ever-improving levels of achievement.
But even with all these disclaimers, I can’t let us off the hook. There are some things we can do and must do to better meet our highest calling in educational athletics which, if we’ve lost sight of it in the confusing clutter of challenges, is not only to do no harm physically to students but also to help instill in them healthy habits for the rest of their lives. Consistent with this high calling, we have obligations to do some critically important things – sometimes in spite of outside interference and sometimes beyond that interference – and do so without delay. It is about those things that I have been commenting most these past few months, and will continue to address.
RESPECTING RULES
November 20, 2015
For nearly a full century, the high schools of Michigan have stood in opposition to national high school athletic championships. As they existed in the early years of school sports, and even today, such events have very often exploited students and benefited commercial sponsors most. Such events are beyond the limited resources of most local schools; and allowing one school to participate tends to require other schools to go to the same extremes to remain competitive, creating the kind of arms war in school sports that now drives college sports further and further from their academic mission.
A decade ago, Michigan school districts added the following language to permit participation in national scope tournaments by individuals and groups of young people who had no connection to or similarity with a school team on which they had participated during the school season. The full and complete rule states:
A national high school championship includes any athletic event, regardless of title, which attempts to draw to it or its qualifying rounds only the top place winner or winners from more than one state high school association championship meet or is based upon high school regular-season or postseason tournament performances. A student may participate without loss of eligibility if all of the following conditions are met:
a. The event is not called or promoted as a national high school championship;
b. Qualification is not based on performances in the high school season or MHSAA tournament results;
c. The event is open to all non-school teams or individuals who qualify directly through one or more non-school events, or the event is without qualifying standards and is open to any individual who pays the entry fee;
d. If a team event, teams are not to be made up of students from a single MHSAA member school;
e. Teams and individuals do not represent an MHSAA member school; and
f. No MHSAA member school uniforms, transportation, funds or coaches are involved.
It is important to note that included in the universe of unapproved events are those tournaments, regardless of what they are named or for which there are qualifying rounds, which ATTEMPT to draw the best performers from the high school season. Whether or not this attempt is successful ... whether the event attracts the best performers or only the second-, third-, fourth- or worse performers ... the student-athletes of Michigan school districts may only participate if there is compliance with ALL SIX elements listed.
The intent of part "d" of the rule is to help assure that the participating teams from Michigan really and truly are NOT school teams, and to assure that no school team is masquerading as a non-school team but really extending the season beyond the limits agreed to by all school districts, thus undermining the fairness that other schools expect.
This 10-year old rule has been applied to every circumstance brought to the MHSAA's attention and to countless more where school districts knew and followed the rule without guidance from the MHSAA. It is such respect for rules that we honor and encourage, even as the organization facilitates a thorough vetting of rules prior to school districts joining the MHSAA by local board of education action each year.