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Seeding Questions

April 6, 2015

The more I hear people speak with absolute certainty that seeding MHSAA tournaments would be a good thing for more sports to implement, the less I’m certain that adequate wisdom accompanies those words. And I’m particularly concerned with the condescending attitude of the advocates toward those who question if seeding is practical or fair for MHSAA tournaments.

Before seeding is adopted for additional MHSAA tournaments (and it appears ice hockey is on the fastest track), there are many practical questions to address for each sport, including who decides, how they decide and when they decide. Seeding in school sports is a much more difficult task than it is at higher levels where there are many fewer teams operating in much less diverse settings.

Any successful proposal for seeding in school sports must be able to give an informed “No” to these questions:

  • Will the plan cause the “rich to get richer,” the successful to be even more successful?
  • Will the plan add fuel to the public vs. nonpublic school discord?
  • Will the plan create additional travel expenses for schools and loss of classroom instructional time for students?

Furthermore, any successful seeding plan must also provide an informed “Yes” to these questions:

  • Will the plan promote the tournament among schools, media and the public?
  • Will the plan increase tournament attendance?

And it is of most importance that every advocate of seeding acknowledge that opponents of seeding pose the right questions when they ask:

  • Is it fair and is it right to ease the tournament trail for teams based on their regular season performance?
  • Is a brand new start in the postseason bad, and if so, by what educational criteria?

When people boast that “the seeds held” in the NCAA basketball tournament or in our own MHSAA Tennis Tournament, we have to admit that this is exactly what ought to have happened when we gave the top seeds the easiest road to the trophy.

It is not wrong to question if that’s the right thing to do.

Life Saving Lessons

June 24, 2015

In 2015-16, we enter the fourth quarter of a heightened eight-year health and safety emphasis. We began with Health Histories in 2009-10 and 2010-11; the second quarter focus in 2011-12 and 2012-13 was Heads; the third quarter focus in 2013-14 and 2014-15 was Heat. In 2015-16 and 2016-17, it’s Hearts that we bring in focus ... especially addressing sudden cardiac arrest which is the No. 1 cause of death to youth during exertion.

Sudden cardiac arrest seems to us to have a random, unpredictable nature; and medical experts tell us that screening is somewhat unreliable, often missing some likely candidates even as the tests identify many false positives. There are symptoms of sudden cardiac arrest, but they often reveal themselves too late to be of much help, like sudden collapse, no pulse, no breathing and loss of consciousness.

Nevertheless, there is something we can do. We can be prepared. We can develop emergency plans, display AEDs and deliver CPR. And, like any good sports teams, we need to practice our preparations.

Through the energy of the Minnesota State High School League and the generosity of Medtronic and the NFHS Foundation, the MHSAA has sent to every MHSAA member high school athletic director this month the ANYONE CAN SAVE A LIFE Emergency Action Planning Guide for After-School Practices and Events. This publication suggests a game plan that establishes four teams on every level of every sport in a school – a 911 Team, CPR Team, AED Team and Heat Stroke Team.

This resource can help schools revise or revitalize their existing emergency plans in ways that engage team members in planning, practice and execution. This could help save lives now and also convey important lifelong lifesaving lessons to students involved on these teams.