Making Participation Valuable
October 23, 2012
Boiled down, the role of state high school associations is to both protect and promote school sports, the second of which I comment on here.
It’s my experience that the most effective promotions speak for themselves. The most effective promotions promote the fundamentals of school sports, like scholarship and sportsmanship and safety. The most effective promotions provide tools to the membership at the grass roots level.
In Michigan we have a few initiatives whose primary purpose is to promote the value of participation, but we have many initiatives that encourage and equip those who make participation valuable.
For example, we administer the Coaches Advancement Program (CAP) all year long around the state to assist in the preparation of coaches for their important responsibilities. Across the state during August through October we conduct Athletic Director In-Service programs. Like many states, we conduct rules meetings for coaches and officials year-round, statewide.
Each spring we have a training program for local officials association trainers and for their officers and leaders and assignors. We conduct an annual Officials’ Awards and Alumni Banquet.
Every other February we conduct a Women in Sports Leadership Conference; and in the off years we provide mini-grants to support similar efforts on a more local level.
We conduct Sportsmanship Summits and provide mini-grants to leagues and local school districts to implement sportsmanship efforts at the local level where they can be most effective. We conduct Team Captains Clinics and other student leadership events, and we provide mini-grants to support similar efforts on the league or local level.
None of these initiatives promotes the value of participation per se. All of these initiatives encourage and equip those who make participation valuable. That’s where I think our promotional efforts are best made.
A Temporary Fix
December 8, 2017
After six months of effort, there is only a 12-month solution for issues affecting the girls and boys basketball seasons and Michigan High School Athletic Association basketball tournaments.
On Dec. 1, the MHSAA Representative Council approved switching the girls and boys basketball calendars for 2018-19 only. Boys basketball adopts the regular season and tournament schedules that have previously been in effect for girls, and girls basketball adopts the regular season and tournament schedules that have been in place for boys. The Semifinal and Final venues will continue to be Van Noord Arena at Calvin College for girls and MSU’s Breslin Student Events Center for boys.
Decisions regarding schedules and sites for the 2019-20 season and beyond will be determined by the Council at a later meeting.
The MHSAA’s hand has been forced by NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament conflicts with the traditional dates for MHSAA basketball tournaments. That changing NCAA schedule and other factors have combined to limit venue options for MHSAA tournaments. Just one facility large enough to host the MHSAA boys Semifinals and Finals is available in 2019 and 2020. That’s MSU’s Breslin Center.
Many other basketball scheduling options have been studied during the past six months, including moving both tournaments a week earlier or later, separating the girls and boys tournaments by an additional week, or conducting both tournaments over the same three weeks with only the four championship games for each gender at MSU.
However, because 2019 is not a typical year for how the NCAA and MHSAA calendars relate to one another, (2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022 are typical), more innovative changes in formats and schedules made for 2019 would have needed adjustment again for 2020.
The decision to switch seasons and tournaments for one year only allows a test of the opinion that the transition from fall to winter sports might be better if boys basketball started before girls.
The decision also provides Calvin College the opportunity to host the girls Semifinals and Finals at least twice at Van Noord Arena, which has twice hosted NCAA Division III championships in both women’s basketball and women’s volleyball. Two years is our usual minimum; and tournaments almost always run more smoothly in the second year than in the first year at a venue. Van Noord is the largest NCAA Division III arena in the country.
In any event, more time is needed to further study and explain more innovative scheduling and tournament formats, and possibly gain better understanding and greater support for grander plans.