Assistant Director Mazzolini to Retire
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
November 23, 2015
Gina Mazzolini, a pioneering athlete, former high school and college coach, and one of the longest-serving current assistant directors for the Michigan High School Athletic Association, will retire from her post at the end of this school year, effective July 31, 2016.
Mazzolini has served the MHSAA since 1993 and is the administrator for girls volleyball, swimming and diving, alpine skiing and tennis. She also handles the sanctioning of out-of-state competitions and serves as the MHSAA’s point person on foreign exchange and international student issues.
After standout basketball and volleyball careers at St. Johns High School and Central Michigan University, Mazzolini taught and coached multiple sports during the 1979-80 school year at Ovid-Elsie High School. She then spent two years teaching and serving as an assistant volleyball coach at Michigan State University, where she also earned her master’s degree in physical education. Mazzolini then left to teach and serve as assistant volleyball coach and interim women’s Sports Information Director at the University of Texas.
In 1982, Mazzolini became an activities director with the University Interscholastic League, the service organization to high school activities in Texas. She became an assistant athletic director at the UIL in 1988, and five years later she returned to Michigan as a member of the MHSAA staff.
Mazzolini will receive a Citation from the National Federation of State High School Associations next summer and was the 2010 recipient of the MHSAA’s Women in Sports Leadership Award. She has served on NFHS rules committees for soccer, swimming and diving, and volleyball (chairing that sport’s rules committee from 2004-08). She also has served on NFHS advisory committees for athletic directors and sports medicine.
“Gina’s accomplishments from her days as a pioneer on the court to those as administrator have truly been local, statewide, national and global,” MHSAA Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts said. “She has shaped the rules for the games in which our children compete and helped maintain not only a level playing field with her work with eligibility and foreign exchange rules, but a safe field with her national committee work in sports medicine.”
Mazzolini was named the first Female Athlete of the Year at St. Johns High School, graduating in 1974 after an accomplished career that included leading the Redwings to a District title in the first MHSAA Girls Basketball Tournament in 1973. She also played softball and ran track for her high school.
She went on to star in both basketball and volleyball at Central Michigan University; she graduated in 1978 as the leading scorer, rebounder and shot-blocker in CMU history and still ranks among the Chippewas’ leaders in multiple statistical categories – ninth in career field goal percentage (.496), tied for sixth in career rebounds (880), second in career rebounding average per game (10.5), fifth and sixth in season rebounding average per game (11.5 and 11.1) and tied for first for rebounds in one game (24). She was inducted into the CMU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992.
In addition to her work at the MHSAA, Mazzolini has provided a long list of contributions at the national level. Along with those mentioned above, she has served as the NFHS representative on the board for the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel, which identifies, promotes and supports international youth exchange programs, and has sat on several CSIET committees. She’s currently serving on the NFHS Annual Meeting Planning Committee.
Representative Council Approves Field Hockey Framework, Adds to Ice Hockey Schedule
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
March 21, 2025
The Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association approved a series of proposals during its Winter Meeting on March 21 in East Lansing that lay the groundwork for the inaugural MHSAA-sponsored girls field hockey season that will be played this fall.
The Council approved four proposals put forth by the Field Hockey Committee, including one that set the first practice date for this upcoming season as Aug. 11, 2025, with the first contest date Aug. 15 and the first MHSAA Final to be played Oct. 25. Another approved proposal implements MHSAA Handbook regulations setting contest limits for teams at 18 dates and four scrimmages, introducing the fifth-quarter rule and creating guidelines for multi-team tournaments and cooperative programs.
The Council also approved a proposal for a single-division MHSAA Girls Field Hockey Tournament with four Regionals. The Michigan Power Ratings formula will be used to identify the top four teams statewide during the regular season, and those teams will receive top seeds and be placed one apiece in each Regional, with the rest of the Regional assignments then based on geography.
The final Field Hockey Committee proposal approved by the Council adopted overtime procedures for MHSAA Tournament play – 6-on-6 with goalies and 1-on-1 with an attacking player and a goalie – that will be optional for regular-season bracketed tournament play.
Two more Council actions will affect scheduling for the 2025-26 winter season.
In ice hockey, the Council voted to increase the number of regular-season games allowed to 27 with one scrimmage, approving an Ice Hockey Committee proposal that requested the addition of two contests.
To alleviate a Finals facility issue for competitive cheer, the Council approved a Competitive Cheer Committee proposal that adjusts the season calendar for the 2025-26 season only and places the MHSAA championship meets one week later. The first competitive cheer practice date will be Nov. 10, 2025, the first contest date Nov. 24, with Districts now scheduled for Feb. 20-21, 2026; Regionals for Feb. 28 and Finals for March 6-7 at McGuirk Arena at Central Michigan University. CMU has hosted the MHSAA Competitive Cheer Finals the last three seasons, but is scheduled to host the 2026 Mid-American Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships during the MHSAA’s previously scheduled Competitive Cheer Finals dates.
Dates for the 2026-27 and future competitive cheer seasons will return to their previously-approved schedule, with Finals to be held during the last Saturday (and previous day Friday) in February.
The Council also voted to make permanent the “AD Connection Program” that has been piloted the last two school years and matches first-year high school athletic directors with recently-retired mentors, who provide assistance to those new administrators as they transition into athletic administrator roles. The program connected 248 first-year athletic directors with mentors during its pilot period.
The Representative Council is the legislative body of the MHSAA. All but five members 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.