The Off-Season
August 20, 2013
“If you take the summer off, you might have some muscle memory left, but you’re not going to be in the same shape.” That’s what Pam Allyn, director of LitWorld, a nonprofit organization promoting literacy, told Associated Press writer Philip Elliott for a recent story focusing on innovative ways to avoid the “brain drain” during summer vacations.
This gets to the heart of two points the MHSAA has been making.
First, the State of Michigan should stop penalizing public schools that want to begin academic classes prior to the Tuesday after Labor Day. Whether it’s a week, a month or longer, there should be incentives, not penalties, for doing more of what’s needed – providing more time on task.
Second, even for extracurricular sports, where programs begin before classes start in the fall and often extend beyond the end of classes in the spring, there is a need to rethink the summer months. Students need to stay active in a variety of activities during the summer to stay more fit, to help to enhance their acclimatization during early season practices in August and prevent injuries throughout the season.
From a sports perspective, the best summertime investments are to focus on strength and conditioning more than travel teams and tournaments, on variety more than specialization, and on engagement with friends who make the time fun. These are the elements of the “Prep Rally” promotion you can read about here.
Student-Centered Programming
February 7, 2012
For most of the histories of most statewide athletic associations across the country, the association has been a third party. That is, the association’s work was with adults - administrators, coaches and officials – who had more direct interaction with student-athletes.
That has been changing for most of these associations over the past two decades.
Today, MHSAA staff work directly with student-athletes through the Farm Bureau Scholar-Athlete program as well as at sportsmanship summits and captains clinics. We partner with the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan to conduct our “Reaching Higher” programs for college-bound male and female players. We have a Student Advisory Council that works with us in our office, at meetings and at tournament venues.
After the Scholar-Athlete program, the oldest of our student-centered programming is the MHSAA Women in Sports Leadership Conference which began in 1989. The 2012 Women in Sports Leadership Conference, which concluded yesterday, addressed a “Leaders Show Up” theme. Three dozen presenters interacted with approximately 500 student attendees.
These direct interactions aid the modern athletic association in staying alert to the needs, desires and “idiosyncrasies” of students, who have always been the subject of the work – just less obviously and effectively than they are today.