Let's Play 2 (or 3, or 4)
February 16, 2012
A few conversations I had at last week's Women In Sports Leadership conference further affirmed a point I've been making for years -- high school athletes, if they'd like, shouldn't hesitate to play multiple sports.
Doing so does not hurt, but might just help their chances at landing that prized college scholarship -- on top of adding another layer to the high school sports experience.
Reaffirming this for me last week was Michigan State softball coach Jacquie Joseph, who spoke on that subject at the WISL conference. She's heading into her 24th season as a head coach at the Division I college level -- so she's been around for some of the evolution of both high school sports specialization and college recruiting. Plus, she coaches a sport that sees its share of athletes playing just that one.
Later, I spoke with a high school coach who leads teams in three sports and also played one at the Division I college level. She's a believer in this as well.
Some of the things I've been told over the years about playing more than one sport:
- It allows an athlete to learn more skills and hone more parts of his or her athleticism.
- Using another range of movement further helps condition an athlete's body and make it more resistant to injury.
- It's hardly rare to see a college football coach watching a prospect's basketball game -- coaches like to see how athleticism transfers across sports, and sometimes will see something from an athlete playing basketball that he didn't show on the football field. (Football and basketball are used in this example, but the same applies to a number of similar situations.)
- Athletes get an opportunity to play whatever they'd like only this once (unless they turn out to be that rare college athlete who takes on more than one sport at that level).
These are hardly new arguments. But they are always worth repeating -- especially when the people frequently making them (college coaches) are the ones single-sport athletes often are trying to impress.
MHSAA 2025-26 Attendance Figures Show Increases in 10 Sports, Nearly Offsetting Early Deficit
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 25, 2026
Increased attendance in 10 sports nearly made up for a likely Halloween-driven deficit during the first week of last season’s football playoffs as Michigan High School Athletic Association postseason tournament attendance approached 1.4 million spectators again for the 2025-26 school year.
Total, MHSAA Tournament events drew 1,381,218 spectators at competitions for which admission is charged – which counts all MHSAA-sponsored sports except golf, skiing and tennis, as single tickets are not sold for those postseason events. The total of just under 1.4 million spectators was a decrease of 16,356 tickets sold across all sports (1.2 percent) from 2024-25 – but notable increases in other sports helped make up for a year-to-year decrease of 37,617 tickets (29 percent) for the District Semifinal round of the MHSAA 11-Player Football Playoffs, which along with 8-Player Regional Semifinals coincided with Halloween in 2025.
The Boys Lacrosse Tournament saw record attendance during its Semifinals and overall with 18,067 tickets sold across all rounds – that total representing an 18-percent increase from the previous season. Girls Volleyball Tournament attendance approached its overall record, with 118,332 tickets sold an increase of 6.7 percent from the 2025 postseason and just 99 tickets shy of tying the record set during the 2019 season. Girls volleyball did set records at the District (78,307) and Regional (26,793) levels.
Girls attendance as a whole rebounded in 2025-26, up to 460,730 tickets sold, an increase of 1.6 percent over the previous year. Girls basketball (146,322), competitive cheer (29,491), lacrosse (5,573) and individual wrestling (5,539) all joined volleyball as showing attendance jumps. Overall attendance for cross country (girls and boys combined) also saw an increase (17,778), as did boys basketball (262,338), boys swimming & diving (5,831) and individual wrestling (47,903). The Individual Wrestling Finals, specifically, enjoyed their largest audience since 2016-17.
Football did receive good news, despite the lower attendance that first week and also slightly lower attendance year-to-year for the 11-Player District Finals. The Regional rounds of the playoffs, 11 and 8-player combined, saw their highest attendance (68,469) since the 2012 season, and despite 8-Player Regional Semifinals coinciding with Halloween. The Semifinals attendance (33,085) saw their highest attendance also since 2012, and Finals attendance (44,708) was its highest since 2019.
The MHSAA also sponsored postseasons for the first time for field hockey and boys volleyball, adding overall ticket sales of 2,084 and 8,158, respectively.
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.