Casting Lines for Future Tournaments
August 12, 2016
By Jack Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director
The MHSAA is best known to the public for the tournaments it conducts to conclude the fall, winter and spring seasons each school year.
These tournaments, the first and largest program of the MHSAA, have survived the Vietnam War, the Korean conflict and two World Wars. They have survived the technology bubble, the housing collapse, the energy crisis and the Great Depression.
MHSAA tournaments existed at the dawn of aviation and at the time of our nation’s lunar landing. Popes, presidents and governors have changed and changed again and again, and MHSAA tournaments roll on year after year.
But the sense of tradition and permanence and inevitability of MHSAA tournaments doesn’t dissuade us from asking questions about our tournaments, even some of the most basic questions. Here are two.
Question #1
I have long been and will always be an advocate for a Ryder Cup format for the MHSAA Golf Finals, and a team tennis approach to the MHSAA Tennis Finals; but 90 years of tradition is hard to overcome. Might this be a more exciting format? Could it be co-ed? Could it reverse the decline in boys tennis participation, and increase girls golf participation? Wouldn’t it be fun to try?
Periodically, the International Olympic Committee requires each of the designated Olympic sports to defend its status, to state its case why the sport should remain a part of the Olympic program. Then, after a series or votes that retain one sport at a time, the IOC drops the sport that makes the weakest case. It does so to make room for one of the previously unlisted sports that makes the best case for inclusion.
This would appear to keep the existing Olympic sports on their toes, and to keep the Olympic movement fresh and reflective of modern trends in sports.
While I would not enjoy the controversy, I can see the potential for some positive results if the MHSAA were to invoke the same policy for determining the 14 tournaments it will provide for girls and the 14 for boys.
This might cause us to consider more deeply what a high school sport should look like, or at least what an MHSAA tournament sport should stand for.
On the one hand, we might be inclined to drop tournaments for those sports that involve mostly non-faculty coaches and non-school venues, or require cooperative programs to generate enough participants to support a team, or resort almost entirely to non-school funding, or cater to individuals more than teams.
Or perhaps this process would cause policymakers to forget traditional thinking and ask: “In this day and age, should we shake off traditional notions of sport and consider more where modern kids are coming from?” That might mean fewer team sports and more individual sports, more “extreme” sports like snowboarding and skateboarding, and more lifetime sports, meaning not just golf and tennis and running sports, but also fishing and even shooting sports.
Currently, MHSAA policy states that the MHSAA will consider sponsorship of a tournament series for any sport which 64 member schools conduct on an interscholastic basis as a result of action by the governing boards of those schools.
Should the only question be how many schools sponsor a sport, or must an activity also have certain qualities and/or avoid certain “defects?” What should an MHSAA tournament sport look like and stand for?
Question #2
Bristling from criticism that his association is a money-grabbing exploiter of children, my counterpart in another state said, “If we were running our programs just to make money, we would do very many things very differently.” I knew exactly what he meant.
Because we care about the health and welfare of students, because we mean what we say that the athletic program needs to maximize the ways it enhances the school experience while minimizing academic conflicts, and because we try to model our claim that no sport is a minor sport when it comes to its potential to teach young people life lessons, we operate our programs in ways that make promoters, marketers and business entrepreneurs laugh, cry or cringe.
If money were the only object, we would seed and select sites to assure the teams that attracted the most spectators had the best chance to advance in our tournaments, regardless of the travel for any team or its fan base. If money were the only object, we would never schedule two tournaments to overlap and compete for public attention, much less tolerate three or four overlapping events. If money were the only object, we would allow signage like NASCAR events and promotions like minor league baseball games.
Those approaches to event sponsorship may not be all wrong; they’re just not all right for us. And we will live with the consequences of our belief system.
During a typical school year, more than 20 percent of the MHSAA’s 2,097 District, Regional and Final tournaments lose money. Not a single site in golf, skiing or tennis makes a single penny. In no sport did every District, Regional and Final site have revenue in excess of direct expenses.
In fact, in only three sports – boys and girls basketball and football – is revenue so much greater than direct expenses overall that it helps to pay for all the other tournaments in which the MHSAA invests.
That’s right: invests. When we present our budget to our board, we talk about the MHSAA’s investment in providing tournament opportunities in all those sports and all those places that cannot sustain the cost of those events on their own. How much is this investment worth to students, schools and society?
These two are core questions that require our focus far in advance of talk about scheduling, site selection, seeding and the myriad matters that too often hijack our time and attention.
Garces Sisters Helping Set Pace as Racers, Leaders for Hopeful Chargers
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
October 2, 2024
As Victoria Garces prepared for her first race of the season Sept. 21 at the Veterans Serving Veterans Invitational in Cadillac, she went through her normal pre-race routine.
But while she jumped in the air as she’s done so many times before, she realized she now had a shadow – her younger sister Emilia.
“We both kind of do the same little warm-up thing,” Victoria Garces said. “We both like to jump before the race, and we were doing it before and I was like, ‘Aw, nobody ever does that with me.’”
On that day, for the first time, the Garces sisters competed together for Midland Dow in a varsity race. They finished first (Victoria) and fifth (Emilia), leading the Chargers to a first-place finish in the event.
Now, having run the second and sixth-fastest times in Lower Peninsula Division 1 this season, they’re looking to take another leap together and lead Dow to even greater things.
“I’ve been in this not too terribly long, but long enough to know not to count your chickens before your eggs hatch,” Dow girls cross country coach Jamie Haruska said. “But we do have a very strong team. What I’m seeing is a lot of inspiration that comes from Victoria and Emilia and Syd Roberts and Maddie (Varhola), and the rest of the team is pushing themselves to say, ‘I want this. I want to be part of this, too.’ We have kids that want to be on that team, and are pushing really hard to be at that level. It’s great, because it’s bringing everybody up.”
Victoria Garces is already well known in Michigan running circles. She finished fifth in each of the past two LP Division 1 Finals, and finished second in the 3,200 and third in the 1,600 at this past spring’s LPD1 Track & Field Finals. She also has to her credit a ninth-place finish in the Wisconsin Division 1 cross country final as a freshman.
This past weekend, she committed to Duke to continue her running career.
“Academics were a big thing for me, and it’s such a good school, but I really liked the team and the coaches,” she said. “I was doing my fair share of visits these past couple of weeks, and it was a tough decision, but I kind of knew as soon as I took my visit (to Duke).”
She’s run just twice for Dow this season, winning both races. Her time of 17 minutes, 16.91 seconds at the Veterans was a personal best, and she followed that up with a 17:26.1 to win the Shepherd BlueJay Invitational Elite race.
Both of those times are faster than her Finals time of 17:29.1 a year ago, which set the school record.
“Going into the first race, I didn’t really have high expectations,” Victoria Garces said. “I kind of always wanted to run under 17:20; that was kind of a goal for me. Ultimately, I hope I break 17, so I got that out there. A lot of my goals are for later in the season. But it was nice just to kind of prove to myself that I’m capable of what I hope to do.”
The lighter start to the season is in service of those later goals. Garces ran into December a year ago, competing in regional and national meets.
Dow competed in five meets before Victoria Garces hit the trail, although it was not without a Garces at the front.
In big sister’s absence, Emilia Garces stepped up in a big way. She finished first at three meets and second at the others, including the Duane Raffin Festival of Races in Holly. She broke 18 minutes in her third career race, running 17:57.2 at Northwood. She’s since run 17:49.8.
“That was pretty wild,” Emilia Garces said of her early-season success. “Going into the season, I definitely had not too high of expectations, so when I started doing well, I was a little surprised, for sure.”
That time also gave Victoria a chance to be the fan watching her sister thrive at the varsity level, a role reversal from the past few years.
“She was having tons of success early on,” Victoria said. “After a little bit, I was itching to race, but I’m glad I held back and she got to shine.”
While Emilia certainly enjoyed leading the pack, she’s excited to now be running with her sister, something she’s looked forward to for years.
“Oh my gosh, it’s been so much fun,” she said. “I went to all my sister’s meets for the past few years and I always thought, ‘I can’t wait to do that, too.’ And the team atmosphere is so great, too.”
The Garces sisters are two of 46 runners on the Dow girls roster, and Haruska said their contributions as teammates have been as impactful as their accomplishments on the course.
“I’ve worked really hard to create a culture where everybody runs and everybody is valued,” Haruska said. “Victoria and Emilia are incredible, they’re national-level runners, but my slowest runners are an equal part of the team, too. Victoria is invested in all of those runners. Emilia, she’s just getting started, but I can see that she’s the same way.”
As for competition between the sisters, it’s friendly if anything. Emilia knows she has some work to do before she can approach her sister’s success, even if she’s off to a faster start to her career.
“I think she knows that she’s a lot better than me as a freshman, so she doesn’t need to rub it in,” Victoria said. “My coach is like, ‘Don’t go out there and just race each other.’ But we normally have our own goals. I guess there’s a little bit of competition, but I think she respects me, and I respect her.”
There’s also some mutual inspiration. Victoria said watching her sister train and thrive early in the season was motivating. Emilia has been motivated by her sister’s work ethic and success for years.
“She motivates me, definitely a lot,” Emilia said. “I feel like she inspires me a lot, watching her do those big things. I want to do those big things, too.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Victoria (475) and Emilia Garces (474) pace with the lead pack during a race this season. (Middle) Victoria, left, and Emilia take a photo at a finish line. (Photos courtesy of the Garces family.)