A Temporary Fix
December 8, 2017
After six months of effort, there is only a 12-month solution for issues affecting the girls and boys basketball seasons and Michigan High School Athletic Association basketball tournaments.
On Dec. 1, the MHSAA Representative Council approved switching the girls and boys basketball calendars for 2018-19 only. Boys basketball adopts the regular season and tournament schedules that have previously been in effect for girls, and girls basketball adopts the regular season and tournament schedules that have been in place for boys. The Semifinal and Final venues will continue to be Van Noord Arena at Calvin College for girls and MSU’s Breslin Student Events Center for boys.
Decisions regarding schedules and sites for the 2019-20 season and beyond will be determined by the Council at a later meeting.
The MHSAA’s hand has been forced by NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament conflicts with the traditional dates for MHSAA basketball tournaments. That changing NCAA schedule and other factors have combined to limit venue options for MHSAA tournaments. Just one facility large enough to host the MHSAA boys Semifinals and Finals is available in 2019 and 2020. That’s MSU’s Breslin Center.
Many other basketball scheduling options have been studied during the past six months, including moving both tournaments a week earlier or later, separating the girls and boys tournaments by an additional week, or conducting both tournaments over the same three weeks with only the four championship games for each gender at MSU.
However, because 2019 is not a typical year for how the NCAA and MHSAA calendars relate to one another, (2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022 are typical), more innovative changes in formats and schedules made for 2019 would have needed adjustment again for 2020.
The decision to switch seasons and tournaments for one year only allows a test of the opinion that the transition from fall to winter sports might be better if boys basketball started before girls.
The decision also provides Calvin College the opportunity to host the girls Semifinals and Finals at least twice at Van Noord Arena, which has twice hosted NCAA Division III championships in both women’s basketball and women’s volleyball. Two years is our usual minimum; and tournaments almost always run more smoothly in the second year than in the first year at a venue. Van Noord is the largest NCAA Division III arena in the country.
In any event, more time is needed to further study and explain more innovative scheduling and tournament formats, and possibly gain better understanding and greater support for grander plans.
Wrestling’s Next Big Thing
August 13, 2013
“The next big thing” is what marketers often seek. But it’s what school sports administrators usually dread because the “next big thing” is routinely a problem.
And so it is with the sport of wrestling which, at the high school level, has had an admirable record of solving the big issues that have threatened the sport’s existence.
School-based wrestling addressed unhealthy practices for weight loss, first with rules about what could not be done – e.g., rubber suits were banned from practices – and then with rules about what must be done, including a weight management program.
Twenty years ago, MHSAA member schools became one of the early adopters of policies and procedures that include the training of skinfold assessors who are employed to do measurements of all wrestlers, from which each wrestler learns his/her lowest allowed weight and the rate at which he/she may descend to that weight and still remain eligible to compete. These rules, and a nutrition education program, saved interscholastic wrestling from much public criticism and, possibly, from continuing drops in participation.
In addition, the Wrestling Committee has been unique among MHSAA sport committees in recognizing that a season that is too long is neither healthy for nor desired by student-athletes; and the committee has reduced the length of season and number of matches. All of this, combined with the MHSAA team tournament, have greatly increased the sport’s popularity among both participants and spectators.
But in spite of all this, the sport of wrestling is “one communicable skin disease outbreak from extinction,” according to those discussing the state of high school wrestling at a national meeting in June. We’ve already seen an outbreak lead to the suspension of all interscholastic wrestling for two weeks in Minnesota during the 2006-07 school year.
To avoid this next big thing, the rule makers have banned taped headgear, because tape can’t be properly cleaned. The NFHS Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, which is the MHSAA’s advisory body as well, is urging schools to mandate that all participants shower or perform an antiseptic wipe-down after every match.
The MHSAA will make this issue a point of special emphasis in its online, print and face-to-face communications this fall. In addition, an excellent free webinar is provided by the National Wrestling Coaches Association. Click here for the webinar.