Jackson Area Efforts Net New Officials
February 16, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Recruitment of new high school officials to eventually take the reins from those currently conducting MHSAA events is a challenge faced all over Michigan.
The Jackson Area Officials Association is working to restock its ranks by recruiting directly from local schools and developing them with help from veteran mentors.
Eight new officials – ages 15 to 24 – who worked a series of youth and middle school games together earlier this month, are among those who have been introduced through a program that begins with a meeting at the end of the high school basketball season between JAOA official Bill Walker and local athletic directors, coaches, fellow officials and other young adults he’s made contact with over the course of a season. From that meeting, Walker builds a list of potential candidates to become officials and then invites them to the annual JAOA Legacy Camp in June.
The camp includes two days of scrimmages between local teams, plus classroom and mechanics teaching. Similar to the MHSAA Legacy program, new officials are paired with veterans, and clinicians evaluate their work during scrimmage play. Walker then keeps in touch with the new officials during the rest of the summer, plugging them in for local youth tournaments and scrimmages, and uses as many as possible while assigning officials for youth tournaments over the winter.
All eight officials who worked the event this month are part of the JAOA legacy partnering, and some of the group already are working games at the junior varsity level – with one, a 19-year-old, recently completing his first varsity game. They come from a variety of Jackson-area schools – Parma Western, Napoleon, Jackson Christian, Michigan Center, Concord and East Jackson. Walker said the recruiting effort has a 60 percent success rate so far. (This June’s legacy camp will be the third.)
“By next season, all (eight) will be official MHSAA registered officials,” he said, noting most currently are registered. “It’s great to have these schools support this program. We all benefit from added, good officiating.”
Passing it forward
Our Battle of the Fans trip to Charlotte on Friday included a conversation about a Feb. 2 game between the Orioles and Mason, which has a pair of athletes fighting cancer. The Charlotte student section dressed in blue that night in support of junior Storm Miller, and during halftime passed buckets to raise money for Miller’s GoFundMe account set up to help pay for his care.
Mason, in turn, provided support Friday to an Owosso alum, 2012 graduate Cody Greger, who remains hospitalized at University of Michigan’s hospital with injuries sustained during a house fire in November. Fans and students collected donations to assist Greger’s family with his care.
“This event was yet another example of the values that school sports teach young people,” Owosso athletic director Dallas Lintner wrote on the school’s website. “And it stands as a testament of the integrity of the young adults that represent our schools and the (Capital Area Activities Conference.)."
100 years of hoops
A decade before the formation of the Michigan High School Athletic Association, Eastern Michigan University – then known as Michigan State Normal College – hosted what is believed to be the first organized high school basketball tournament in state history.
EMU will celebrate this anniversary Saturday in conjunction with the Eagles men’s basketball game against Toledo. Game time is noon at EMU’s Convocation Center, and during a break in play the athletic department will recognize the 12 schools that took part in that 1916 tournament – Marine City, Dundee, Milan, Mancelona, Farmington, Elkton, Royal Oak, Middleville, Lansing, Mount Clemens, Wayne and Saline.
More history, courtesy of EMU:
The game of basketball was developed by James Naismith in 1891 at Springfield College in Massachusetts. As a means of promoting the game throughout the country, physical education professor and EMU's first athletic director Wilber Bowen asked his good friend Naismith to bring the game to the Michigan State Normal College (now known as Eastern Michigan University).
The first basketball game west of the Allegheny Mountains was played at Michigan Normal in 1894 to recognize the new physical education program and to dedicate the new gymnasium on campus.
Then in 1916, Bowen, along with instructors Elmer Mitchell and Lloyd Olds (who was also credited with the introduction of the striped referee jersey), organized the first high school basketball tournament in Michigan. A total of 300 invitations were sent out to all Class B schools in the state. Twelve schools responded, and the first high school boys tournament was held on the Ypsilanti-based campus on March 23-25, 1916.
Entrance to the tournament was free and (the event was) played at the Michigan State Normal School Gymnasium. However, expenses related to transportation, room, and board had to be provided by the participating schools. The MSNC's Physical Education Department made it easier for schools to participate by making arrangements with local residents to provide food at 20 to 25 cents a meal and lodging at 25 cents a night for each player.
That first tournament saw Marine City defeat Dundee in the championship game, 23-22.
The winning team was awarded a silver shield mounted on an oak base. Second prize was a silver cup, and the third place team received a banner. Individual participation awards to all players were also provided. The Ypsilanti Press at the time felt the Normal School "went first class with the awards."
For tickets to Saturday’s game and event, which will be followed by the EMU women’s team taking on Northern Illinois, call the EMU Ticket Office at (734) 487-2282 or visit EMUEagles.com/tickets.
Following up
• Second Half’s Chip Mundy this fall wrote a story on the emergence of Ida’s football team on the way to making the Division 5 Semifinals and finishing its best season ever. A theme of that story was Ida’s philosophy of building “brick by brick,” coined by defensive line coach Gary Deland, who himself was building back after emergency triple-bypass heart surgery.
“From that very first practice in the summer to the last game as a senior, everything is built brick by brick,” Deland said for that story. “I can draw a correlation between that and my recovery, what I’ve gone through. It’s the same thing. It’s brick by brick.”
Kim Farver sent along this photo of Deland holding up a brick after the team’s 43-20 Regional Final win over Buchanan.
• We released the last batch of this year’s MHSAA-Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award winners today, and one of the highlights during the 27 years of the contest came two years ago when we caught up with some of our winners from the first 25 years – including Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood’s Abby Cohen, who has gone on to co-found a company and help develop a smartphone application, Wing, to help asthma patients monitor their lung function.
Here’s a look at a video describing the technology she’s helped create:
Council Approves Tennis Finals Pilot Program, Girls Wrestling Titles at Districts, Regionals
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
May 8, 2025
The approval of a pilot program assigning all four Lower Peninsula Tennis Finals to be played at one site and the addition of girls wrestling team championships for District and Regional rounds were among actions taken by the Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association during its Spring Meeting, May 4-5 in Gaylord.
The Spring Meeting of the 19-member legislative body of the Association’s more than 1,500 member schools is generally the busiest of its sessions each year. The Council considered 22 committee proposals and dealt with a variety of eligibility rule, postseason tournament and operational issues.
The tennis pilot program was an MHSAA Tennis Committee recommendation and will be conducted during the 2025-26 and 2026-27 schools years. All four Lower Peninsula Finals for girls and boys seasons will be played at the Midland Tennis Center, which in addition to substantial outdoor courts includes up to 16 available indoor courts in case matches must be played inside due to inclement weather. Each season’s four Finals will take place over two successive days during a two-week period – one division on a Wednesday and Thursday and the next on a Friday and Saturday, to be repeated the following week.
In girls wrestling, District and Regional team champions will be awarded during the upcoming 2025-26 season for the first time, after a Finals champion was awarded for the first time this past season. Champions for all rounds will be determined by results from individual brackets as the sport continues to grow toward the possibility of a head-to-head team tournament.
A pair of football changes will be noticeable this fall. The Council approved a Football Committee recommendation to not award playoff points to a team that forfeits a football game; previously, a team that forfeited would still receive the bonus points for scheduling that opponent, although a game was never played. The Council also approved a Football Committee recommendation to assign neutral sites with artificial turf for the four 8-Player Semifinals near the end of each season. Previously that round of the MHSAA Playoffs, like the first two of the 8-Player Tournament, was hosted by the participating team with the highest playoff-point average.
Anticipating the first MHSAA-sponsored boys volleyball season to be played in Spring 2026, the Council approved a pair of Volleyball Committee recommendations regarding tournament classification and structure. The first establishes a tournament with two divisions, with classification determined by enrollment and delayed until September prior to this inaugural season only as to allow for a more accurate count of how many schools will have teams. The first MHSAA Boys Volleyball Semifinals and Finals will be played June 5-6, 2026, at Kellogg Arena in Battle Creek.
The Council also approved the recommendation to include boys volleyball among sports for which cooperatives are permitted when the combined enrollment of schools involved is fewer than 3,500 students.
Here is a summary of other notable actions taken by the Representative Council at the Spring Meeting, which will take effect during the 2025-26 school year:
Regulations
• The Council approved a pair of changes to the sport-specific transfer regulation regarding the full-and-complete residential move exception that allows students to gain immediate eligibility. The first increases the number of school days to 180 that a student who has changed residences and attends a new school must complete at that new school before returning to a previous school district and potentially having athletic eligibility in that former district. The 180 days also applies to all persons with whom the student moved to the new school district; if those other persons move back to the former school district before 180 school days, the student loses eligibility in all sports at all schools until approved by the two school districts and the MHSAA.
The second change increased the amount of time an athlete’s former residence must be signed into a long-term rental or lease agreement to a minimum of 12 months.
• The Council approved multiple clarifications to the definition of a scrimmage. A clarification was added to note that win-loss records, team and individual statistics and records may not be accrued or achieved during a scrimmage. A statement was added as well explaining that in sports that do not use a timing device – for example, baseball and softball – at least one rule must be altered to indicate it is a scrimmage.
Junior High/Middle School
• The Council approved a change to allow junior high/middle school teams to begin fall practice on the first day of classes at that school if it’s before the otherwise first allowable practice date on the 14th Monday before Thanksgiving. Ninth-grade football teams from junior high/middle schools may begin practice on the same date as the grade 10-12 football teams of that school district if the ninth-grade team is comprised only of ninth-grade students who have been approved for eligibility advancement.
• Also concerning junior high/middle school athletes, the Council approved a Junior High/Middle School Committee recommendation to make seventh and eighth-grade students who are eligible for high school competition due to their high school’s small enrollments also subject to high school transfer rules while in middle school and competing at the high school level.
Sport Matters
• BASEBALL: The Council approved a Baseball Committee recommendation to allow baseball players to play on multiple levels on the same day, with the 38-game season and daily limits still applying to all students.
• BOWLING: The Council approved a Bowling Committee recommendation to establish the official start of bowling practice as the third Monday before Thanksgiving.
The Council also approved a Bowling Committee recommendation to allow students to participate in no more than eight games on a school day (Monday-Thursday).
• COMPETITIVE CHEER: The Council approved the incorporation of a series of Competitive Cheer Committee-proposed technical high school and middle school rules recommendations into the 2024-26 Girls Competitive Cheer manual.
• GOLF: The Council approved a Golf Committee recommendation to allow Regional Tournament host schools to receive reimbursement for the expense of two referees.
• TENNIS: The Council approved two more Tennis Committee recommendations. The first will allow for all teams that tie for third place at their Regional to advance to Finals, but only in Lower Peninsula divisions where there are six Regionals.
The other approved change will allow continuous coaching between points and between non-changeover games, at all levels, if that coaching does not hinder the current pace of play.
• VOLLEYBALL: The Council also approved a Volleyball Committee recommendation to allow students to play in no more than 18 sets (games) per day.
The Council also reviewed reports on membership, with 754 senior high schools and 777 junior high/middle schools in 2024-25 plus 63 elementary schools with 6th-grader participation; cooperative programs, with 409 high school programs for 750 teams during 2024-25; eligibility advancement applications, which totaled four; the use of Educational Transfer Forms, of which there were 142; travel forms for out-of-state practice, school violations, attendance at athletic director in-service workshops and Coaches Advancement Program sessions; officials’ registrations (which were up nearly two percent from 2023-24 as the total rose for the fourth-consecutive school year), and officials reports submitted for the past three sports seasons. The Association’s $15.7 million budget for the 2025-26 school year also was approved.
The Representative Council is the 19-member legislative body of the MHSAA. All but five are elected by member schools. Four members are appointed by the Council to facilitate representation of females and minorities, and the 19th position is occupied by the Superintendent of Public Instruction or designee.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.