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Our Tools

March 11, 2014

MHSAA staff does very many things, including these two tasks: (1) we use the tools we have; and (2) we strive to develop more effective tools.

The tools we have are limited. We don’t have a huge staff to conduct investigations. We don’t have subpoena power to coerce disclosure of testimony and documents. We don’t have rules to cover every situation.

Thus, it feels like some people get away with things; and sometimes they do. We don’t have the tools to catch them or convict them. That is the inescapable condition of every voluntary statewide athletic association in the US.

But the other thing we do is keep working on better tools. Rules with broader reach and/or fewer holes. Penalties that are a greater deterrent to some people, and more punitive to others when deterrence doesn’t work.

Developing new rules is a tough process. Sometimes it takes months or years to get membership buy-in. Sometimes the “no-brainers,” so-called “easy solutions,” get shot down by lawyers who demand the most narrow remedy to each and every excruciatingly detailed problem.

We work today with the tools we’ve been given through the democratic processes of our voluntary association. And we keep working on ways to sharpen and strengthen those tools in ways that are reasonable in breadth and depth, rationally related to the basic tenets of a voluntary association, one of which is local control. Obviously, these are two of the more difficult things we do.

Guild and Guide

December 2, 2016

Today is the first meeting of the full Michigan High School Athletic Association Representative Council of the 2016-17 school year. This is the meeting that tees up some of the topics for action by the Council in March and May.

Posted on the meeting room wall will be banners that remind Council members of the over-arching topics previously identified for 2016-17:

    • Define and Defend Educational Athletics

  • Promote and Protect Participant Health and Safety

  • Serve and Support Junior High/Middle School Programs

  • Recruit and Retain Contest Officials

If we are to make any headway on these topics during this school year and beyond, then we must see the MHSAA’s role is to be both a guild and a guide.

On my bucket list for personal travel is a trip to the mountains of Peru where for a week my wife will weave and I will hike. She will be with a guild that allows her to learn more about her craft, while I’ll be on a high altitude trail to Machu Picchu with a guide that keeps me from getting lost or discouraged.

In similar ways, the MHSAA must be an organization that provides opportunities for people to learn the art of athletic administration and then both points the way and steadies the step of coaches and administrators. We must help new officials get started and stay with it. We must aid and direct team captains and other student leaders.