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More than Fun and Games

September 24, 2014

Five years ago there were many skeptics when the MHSAA redesigned its website and included twice-weekly blogs by the executive director and active Facebook and Twitter pages as well as YouTube channels, and gave constituents and critics alike an opportunity to post comments. Some skeptics said we were being distracted with frivolous fun and games, and others said all this interaction would be a persistent source of problems.

In fact, for the MHSAA, this constituent engagement has been about much more than fun and games and it’s been a means to solve problems.

Our primary use of social media and other means of constituent engagement has been to drive people to high school events and to the MHSAA website where the distinctive messages of educational athletics would stand out.

Rather than creating problems, allowing the crowd to enter scores on MHSAA.com has led us to post more accurate scores more rapidly than when we depended on school coaches or administrators alone.

More recently we have been reviewing our event emergency plans and our office business continuation plans, which had been developed before social media became a fact of life; and now we are revising those documents to make social media the primary means of communication during such problems.

It is entirely through social media, primarily Facebook and YouTube – that the MHSAA has caused people to be talking about sportsmanship and inciting larger, more positive student and adult spectator sections at high school contests. That’s our award-winning “Battle of the Fans” that moves into its fourth year in 2014-15.

Risk Minimization Reaches More

May 9, 2014

Every season – fall, winter and spring – the MHSAA launches a series of sport-specific rules/risk management meetings, completion of  which has been a requirement for high school varsity head coaches and MHSAA registered officials who want to coach or officiate in the MHSAA tournament for that sport. Two significant changes will occur for the 2014-15 school year.

For the first time in 2014-15, all assistant and subvarsity high school coaches must complete the same meeting requirement as the high school varsity head coach or, in the alternative, they must complete one of seven free online health and safety courses that are posted on MHSAA.com and designated to fulfill this requirement. High school athletic directors must certify each season, three times a year, that all their assistant and subvarsity coaches for that season have completed that requirement.

Also, for the first time in 2014-15, the MHSAA will be posting content for officials that differs from the content for coaches. While coaches are being given a review of select Handbook regulations, for example, officials will be reminded of key elements of effective officiating, regardless of the sport or level of competition.

These new policies are intended to bring more relevant content to a greater number of those who work with student-athletes and to further emphasize risk minimization in educational athletics.

In 2013-14, slightly more than 20,000 coaches and officials completed the MHSAA rules/risk management meeting requirement. The number will greatly exceed 100,000 in 2014-15.