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Middle School Membership

September 27, 2013

Of the approximately 2,000 schools serving 7th- and 8th-grade students in Michigan, according to the 2013 Michigan Education Directory that does not include home schools, only 731 are members of the Michigan High School Athletic Association. There are several reasons that explain this gap.

It is not a matter of cost. As with high schools, junior high/middle school membership is free. More likely reasons for the gap between the number of schools serving 7th- and 8th-graders and the number of those schools belonging to the MHSAA are these:

  1. The school district overlooks MHSAA membership. This is often the case when there is no high school connected to the junior high/middle school.
  2. The school district does not sponsor interscholastic athletics at the 7th- and 8th-grade level. At that level, sports are community run, so the school sees no need for MHSAA membership.
  3. The school district does sponsor 7th- and 8th-grade sports but does not want to follow MHSAA rules. And among the rules these school districts object to are these:

  • The limits on the number of contests . . . they’re too few; and/or

    The prohibition of 6th-graders on teams of 7th- and 8th-graders.

This third reason, and especially these two objections, are being reviewed throughout the MHSAA constituency again this year. And I’ll have more to say in our next three postings.

Weaving Policy

February 10, 2017

My wife weaves. She weaves scarves and placemats and napkins and table runners and rugs. And while she weaves, I watch, looking for the metaphors.

One of the most obvious comes from looking at both sides of her work. In its simplest form, one side of the woven project is the result of careful planning and preparation; the other side just sort of happens. In weaving, except for the "plain weave" where the bottom of the item mirrors the top, the underside of a weaving project is usually unimportant. 

In leadership, however, that's rarely the case. Leaders have to be concerned with two or more sides to most issues. They have to consider in advance both the seen and unseen aspects of the project.

So when people advocate for expansion or contraction of cooperative programs or football playoffs, or for tougher or more liberal transfer rules, or for more or different tournament classifications, or for seeding of tournaments, leaders of the Michigan High School Athletic Association need to look at both sides of any plan and the multiple angles of the issues raised.

This leadership will try to explain to proponents what opponents see in a proposal, and vice versa. This leadership will try to speak for and report to those who are underrepresented in the discussion.

This leadership is entitled to its own opinion but responsible for seeing that sincere and studied opinions of others are both well heard and thoroughly vetted.