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The Safe Play Game Plan

April 21, 2015

On Feb. 10, bills were introduced into both the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives, together called the “Safe Play Act,” which addresses three of the four health and safety “H’s” described in my last posting: Heat, Hearts and Heads.

For each of these topics, the federal legislation would mandate that the director of the Centers for Disease Control develop educational material and that each state disseminate that material.

For the heat and humidity management topic, the legislation states that schools will be required to adopt policies very much like the “MHSAA Model Policy to Manage Heat and Humidity” which the MHSAA adopted in March of 2013.

For both the heart and heat topics, schools will be required to have and to practice emergency action plans like we have been promoting in the past and will be distributing to schools this summer.

For the head section, the legislation would amend Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments and would eliminate federal funding to states and to schools which fail to educate their constituents or fail to support students who are recovering from concussions. This support would require multi-disciplinary concussion management teams that would include medical personnel, parents and others to provide academic accommodations for students recovering from concussions that are similar to the accommodations that are already required of schools for students with disabilities or handicaps.

This legislation would require return-to-play protocols similar to what we have in Michigan, and the legislation would also require reporting and record-keeping that is beyond what occurs in most places.

This proposed federal legislation demonstrates two things. First, that we have been on target in Michigan with our four Hs – it’s like they read our playbook of priorities before drafting this federal legislation.

This proposed federal legislation also demonstrates that we still have some work to do.
Second Half by MHSAA

Resilience

November 8, 2011

Several seasons ago, University of Florida Men’s Basketball Coach Billy Donovan was asked what, after a necessary amount of player talent, is the key to a successful season.  Coach Donovan responded:  “Resiliency.”

Building on that, Harvey Gratsky, publisher of Association Convention and Facilities magazine, wrote:  “Resilience, flexibility, persistence and the wisdom to take lessons learned and apply them are all characteristics of successful people.”

Mr. Gratsky continued with broadened remarks:  “Resilient associations that dig deep and find ways to leverage the new normal have been rewarded.”  He added, these organizations show “a real sense of urgency to reinvigorate . . .”

This publisher was addressing associations and the convention business that depends on healthy, vibrant associations; but he could have been describing the MHSAA these past three years.  For even before the recession’s effects on associations generally, the MHSAA was dealing with a potentially lethal fee judgment in the sports seasons litigation.

But in what could have been our bleakest years, we’ve had our best.  We accelerated our learning and expanded our services.  Expenses went down and revenues went up, without increasing our basic tournament ticket prices.

We were resilient and felt urgency to reinvigorate our operations and programs; and we’ve been rewarded with the best three years in the organization’s financial history, poised now to serve our constituents in unprecedented ways.