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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.

 

Inclusion Then and Now

October 24, 2017

It is accurate to say, and we can be proud that it is true, that there was no more inclusive state high school athletic association in the country at its inception than the Michigan High School Athletic Association.

In Michigan from the official beginning of the MHSAA, ours was one single athletic association. Not separate associations for schools with black students and white students, like some states then. Not separate associations for public schools and private schools, like some states. Not separate associations for big city schools and other schools, like some associations.

This association is unique in the U.S.: From its creation in 1924, by state law, open to urban and rural schools, black and white schools, public and private schools, and both high schools and junior highs. The MHSAA may be the only state interscholastic athletic association that can say all four of those statements were true at its inception.

We have in Michigan a legacy of inclusion that is second to none.

In recent years, we have added to this tradition through the inclusion of 6th-graders who, as a result of a change in the MHSAA’s Constitution in 2015, are now benefiting from MHSAA services, support and rules-making.

But, to be honest, the MHSAA has slipped some in comparison to the expanded inclusiveness of other state interscholastic athletic associations:

  • Compared to Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee, for examples, we do not sponsor and conduct events for junior high/middle school students, even when those students seek to compete under the MHSAA brand and banner.

  • Compared to many states, we are slower to add new sports for high school tournaments, even when students clamor for the opportunity to represent their schools in competition.

  • Compared to many states, we are slower to add programming for students with disabilities.

The MHSAA and its members cannot be all things to all people – that could obscure our mission and it would exceed our resources. But we should consider programming for more people.

The future of our society is in full-service schools developing the whole child in mind, body and spirit; and an essential ingredient of full-service schools is interscholastic athletics and activities. The ideal must be to serve the whole child and, as much as possible, the whole community of children.

That secures the future of schools and school sports as well as communities and their children.