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.
D3 Preview: Challengers Lined Up as Beecher Seeks to Complete Repeat Run
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
March 23, 2022
Flint Beecher is one of three 2021 champions returning to the Boys Basketball Finals this weekend, and the Bucs are among the most frequent visitors to Breslin Center with Thursday’s to be their eighth Semifinal appearance over the last 13 years.
That’s a pretty imposing opener for describing any bracket. But this one could be especially loaded with Schoolcraft also making a return trip and Menominee and Ecorse showing strong credentials all season long.
DIVISON 3 Semifinals – Thursday
Menominee (22-3) vs. Ecorse (9-12), Noon
Schoolcraft (23-2) vs. Flint Beecher (22-2), 2 p.m.
FINAL – Saturday – 4:30 p.m.
Tickets for this weekend’s games are $12 for both Semifinals and Finals and are available via the Breslin Center ticket office. All Semifinals will be broadcast and viewable with subscription to MHSAA.tv, and all four Finals will air live Saturday on Bally Sports Detroit, with the Division 4 and 1 games on BSD EXTRA and the Division 3 and 2 games on BSD’s primary channel. All four will be broadcast live as well as on the BSD website and app. Audio broadcasts of all Semifinals and Finals will be available free of charge from the MHSAA Network.
Here’s a look at the four Division 3 semifinals (with rankings by MPR at the end of the regular season, and statistics through Regional Finals):
ECORSE
Record/rank: 9-12, No. 148
League finish: Fourth in Michigan Metro Athletic Conference Black
Coach: Gerrod Abram, third season (39-20)
Championship history: Class B runner-up 1978, Class B Lower Peninsula runner-up 1942.
Best wins: 49-47 over Erie Mason in Regional Final, 73-71 over Riverview Gabriel Richard in District Semifinal.
Players to watch: Malik Olafioye, 6-2 jr. G; Kenneth Morrast Jr., 6-1 jr. G. (Statistics not provided.)
Outlook: Ecorse is headed to the Semifinals for the first time since 1980. It’s important to note the team’s MPR would have been much higher without 10 forfeits over the first two months of the regular season; the Raiders instead would be 16-5. And they’ve appeared to be Division 3 contenders from the start, with since-forfeited wins over Division 1 Brownstown Woodhaven (19-5) and Division 2 River Rouge (17-4). The District win over Gabriel Richard was the Pioneers’ only loss of the season. This group should continue to be strong; only one senior starts and there are only two seniors total on a roster that includes four sophomores and a freshman.
FLINT BEECHER
Record/rank: 22-2, No. 2
League finish: First in Genesee Area Conference Red
Coach: Marquise Gray, first season (22-2)
Championship history: Nine MHSAA titles (most recent 2021), four runner-up finishes.
Best wins: 72-41 over No. 5 Reese in District Final, 84-68 over Division 2 No. 12 Pontiac Notre Dame Prep, 75-69 over Division 2 No. 6 Grand Rapids Catholic Central, 63-60 over Flint Carman-Ainsworth.
Players to watch: Carmelo Harris, 6-0 sr. G; James Cummings II, 6-3 sr. F. (Statistics not provided.)
Outlook: The Bucs returned to win last season’s championship, their first since 2017, and have lost only to Division 1 Grand Blanc (20-5) and Detroit Martin Luther King (19-3) this winter while handing reigning Division 2 champion Grand Rapids Catholic Central (24-1) its lone defeat. Gray memorably starred at Beecher and Michigan State and played overseas before returning and serving as an assistant coach in advance of taking over the program. Harris and Cummings started on last season’s team, and 6-3 junior Robert Lee II was the only sub who saw more than two minutes of time in last year’s Final. Harris also is a returning all-state first-teamer.
MENOMINEE
Record/rank: 22-3, No. 1
League finish: First in Great Northern Conference
Coach: Sam Larson, fifth season (48-51)
Championship history: Class B champion 1967
Best wins: 60-56 (2OT) over No. 19 Benzie Central in Regional Final, 74-57 over Ishpeming Westwood in Regional Semifinal, 83-45 over Iron Mountain in District Final, 77-44 and 65-62 over Division 2 No. 1 Escanaba, 51-26 and 72-40 over Division 4 No. 4 Powers North Central.
Players to watch: Aidan Bellisle, 6-2 sr. G (15.4 ppg, 4.8 apg); Cooper Conway, 6-4 sr. F (12.6 ppg, 7.0 rpg); Brady Schultz, 6-6 sr. F (12 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 1.6 bpg).
Outlook: The Maroons have improved from 4-17 just three seasons ago to making the Semifinals for the first time since 2008. The only two in-state losses this winter came over the last five weeks, to Escanaba in the teams’ third meeting of the season (after Menominee won the first two, and by a point to Division 4 semifinalist Ewen-Trout Creek. Five seniors start, with three sophomores playing the most prominent roles off the bench. Larson was a sophomore on the 2008 team that lost to Lansing Catholic in Class B at Breslin.
SCHOOLCRAFT
Record/rank: 23-2, No. 6
League finish: First in Southwestern Athletic Conference Valley
Coach: Randy Small, 17th season (329-67)
Championship history: Class C champion 2011, runner-up 2009.
Best wins: 60-57 (Quarterfinal) and 61-32 over No. 17 Pewamo-Westphalia, 45-31 over No. 14 Watervliet in Regional Final, 59-31 (District Final), 51-40 and 54-41 over No. 18 Kalamazoo Christian, 49-45 over Division 2 No. 5 Parchment.
Players to watch: Tyler DeGroote, 6-7 sr. F (16.3 ppg, 10.2 rpg); Shane Rykse, 6-3 soph. G (13.1 ppg, 53 3-pointers); Ty Rykse, 6-7 sr. F (12.5 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 4.3 apg).
Outlook: Schoolcraft is making a repeat appearance at Breslin and fell by just four in overtime in last season’s Semifinal against Iron Mountain. The Golden Eagles are a combined 63-4 over the last three seasons. DeGroote and Shane Rykse were main contributors last season as well – DeGroote earned an all-state honorable mention – and Ty Rykse also started in the Semifinal. The defeats this season came to Division 1 Hudsonville and Parchment, and Schoolcraft avenged the latter. Senior point guard Asher Puhalski adds another 7.2 points, four rebounds and 3.6 assists per game.
PHOTO Flint Beecher’s Keyonta Menifield goes to the basket during Tuesday’s Quarterfinal win over New Haven. (Photo by Terry Lyons.)