Connecting with Coaches
January 28, 2014
In the coming weeks, the MHSAA will meet with the leadership of the high school coaches associations of our state. We have been doing this for more than 25 years, with two primary purposes.
First, we want to provide a forum for these leaders to share with one another their new ideas and initiatives and to discover “best practices” from one another, hoping that this will lead to the better plans being implemented in multiple organizations.
Our second purpose is to present some of the MHSAA initiatives or rules changes that are applicable to all or most sports. It’s not a time when we talk about the baseball pitching rule or the football playoff point system, but a time when we discuss topics of more universal application.
This year those topics included new requirements for coaches education, new rules for athletic-related transfers and proposed rules changes for international students, a simplified scrimmage rule for all sports, and a modified penalty for participation in certain all-star events.
It is intended that these coaches association leaders will be enabled to take these topics to their respective boards and members in order to increase understanding of proposed changes and to facilitate feedback to the MHSAA Representative Council and staff.
How Much is Too Much?
April 26, 2013
Everybody acknowledges it’s a different world today, that school sports are not the only game in town anymore. Many people also recognize that well-intentioned rules to curb excesses and abuses in school sports not only do that, but also tend to drive student-athletes to non-school coaches and programs.
Every other year or two for the past dozen years or more there has been a tweaking of rules – nothing radical – addressing what can occur out of season between school coaches and their student-athletes.
We’ve been slow to change, worrying that if we go too far too fast, we might change too much of what shouldn’t change and never be able to change it back.
This is a difficult and defining topic we must keep before us. How much activity we allow out of season, or don’t allow, affects the nature of educational athletics in Michigan. Both our actions to date, as well as our inactions, have already shaped our scene, for better or worse; and both will continue to do so.