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.
Frankfort Relay Recipe Proven Winner as Panthers Seek to Extend Title Streaks
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
April 7, 2026
FRANKFORT – Frankfort may not have written the recipe for winning MHSAA Finals relay championships.
But they follow one that’s shown growing dominance in Division 4 over the last half-decade.
It starts with four student-athletes able to make strong friendship bonds. Then, lots of practice is added to develop muscle memory and mix in ways to maximize speed potential in the designated 30-meter exchange zone. And, perhaps finally, it is highly recommended to blend in near-perfect handoffs.
Frankfort has been crowned the LPD4 400-meter relay champion the last five years. The Panthers also have run the LPD4 Finals record time in the event, in 2024. And to top it off, the Panthers broke the 800 relay meet record in winning that race last spring.
The championships have come with different tight-knit combinations of runners over the years. Current junior Alice Luther, current seniors Addison Jarosz and Sofia Alaimo Schindler and 2025 graduate Gwyneth Dunaway won both championships together last season and the 400 title in 2024 as well, and first-place combinations also have included Addison Chownyk, Reagan Thor, Tara Townsend, Keyan Clapp, Grace Wolfe and Eliza Frary.
To finalize the recipe, the Panthers add optional ingredients – a golden baton and pineapple socks
Be sure though, it is the golden baton but not the same pineapple socks.
“I get different pairs, because I wear them for all my sports,” said Jarosz, now a senior, who’s been on the last three 400 relay champions along with fellow senior Alaimo Schindler. “They get worn down, but I've worn them since like seventh grade.”
Jarosz is not sure how her special socks-wearing got started. She only knows the first time produced satisfying results. She also runs middle distances with her socks on display for multiple laps.
“I think I might have gotten them as a gift because I was in middle school and going through a phase of crazy socks and stuff,” Jarosz recalls. “I had good luck so now I always wear them.”
As for the golden baton, it’s currently stored in the home of Alaimo Schindler. It got there after last year’s team competed at the Nike Outdoor National Championships in Eugene, Ore. It’s there for safe keeping and only used for relays Jarosz and Alaimo Schindler race.
“We don't let anyone else use it but us – Addie and I have been running together since middle school, and that's the baton we use,” Alaimo Schindler said. “It's just special to us, and it has one tiny dent.”
The bonds – and skills – formed over the last three years by those two and Luther are expected to bode well for the Panthers again this year.
“I think that there's always kind of pressure going into state finals, but I think that we have great coaching and we all work really hard,” admitted Luther, who also runs hurdles. “Gwen's shoe is a hard one to fill, but I think that we have good candidates who are willing to work hard to do it.”
Sophomore Riley LeVack is expected to join Luther, Jarosz and Alaimo Schindler on the shorter relays at the Regional, which the Panthers will host in late May. LeVack filled in a handful of times last spring, helping the Panthers pick up key competition points as they collected team trophies as well.
“Getting on the relay team is a big deal for the girls because this won't go on forever, and it's going to be something they'll look back on and really appreciate how good they were in high school,” said sixth-year Frankfort head track & field coach Ed Schindler. “Sophia, Alice and Addie all had it where they joined a team that had already won the state, so now it's Riley’s turn to see if she can win the state championship with them.”
The composition of the 400 and 800 teams this year will be finalized in time for the Regional. Frankfort has won every relay over the last two Regionals on the way to claiming the team titles at those meets as well. The Panthers also won the Northwest Conference last season. Those team championships in both the league and Regional were the first won by the program over more than 50 years of competition.
“All of our girls are really fast in relays because once we get to max speed, we're pretty good and manage 30 meters of exchange well,” Schindler pointed out. “We have a person on our 4x4 team that pole vaults and another one on our 4x8 that does too. They're all great athletes. When you have a good core group of maybe eight of your total 13 athletes that really score in big meets, that's gives you a shot at the state championship.”
Frankfort placed second to Fowler at last year’s LPD4 Final, its highest MHSAA Finals team finish. In addition to repeating as Regional champion, and keeping the Finals relay title strings alive, Frankfort has its eyes on a Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association team championship.
The Panthers will start the season with lots of confidence they’ll repeat their relay dominance – even if new fourth runners don’t lead to faster times than last year.
“Last year when we were competing against other teams, we were winning by a few seconds, so we have that room and space for another runner who is just a few seconds behind Gwyn,” Alaimo Schindler said. “We're really close to each other, and we hand it down each year. So I'm still I'm very confident, and I think with a lot of practice, we will get to where we were last year.”
“Our handoffs are so good it gives us just that little bit of advantage and helps us get a little bit ahead,” added Jarosz. “It just amazes me sometimes that just that little bit can do a lot.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Frankfort's Sofia Alaimo Schindler crosses the finish line first in anchoring her 800 relay to last season's Division 4 championship. (Middle) Alice Luther rounds a curve during a winning relay. (Below) From left: now-graduated Gwyneth Dunaway, Luther, Alaimo Schindler and Addison Jarosz take a photo at last year's Finals holding their golden baton. (Photos by Ken Swart/RunMichigan.com.)