Awards Honor Those Lending a Hand

April 12, 2017

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

Sports often make up a significant, although singular part of the lives of Michigan’s high school student-athletes and coaches.

Many also find ways to have significant impacts on the lives of others – and we’d like to tell the rest of our state how they’re making a difference.

The Michigan High School Athletic Association, together with Lake Trust Credit Union, will award this spring the inaugural Community Service Awards to recognize individuals and teams that have worked to benefit their communities.

Each winner will receive a $1,000 award to be applied toward an individual college scholarship, credited to a team’s account with its athletic department or even gifted to the group helped by our honoree.

Please help us get the word out. Encourage a student, coach or administrator to tell us about a completed or ongoing community service project. Any student, team or coach currently participating in interscholastic athletics at an MHSAA member high school can apply. Applications should be e-mailed both to the school’s athletic director and MHSAA’s Kurt Tiesman at [email protected].

The deadline for applications is May 1, and multiple winners will be selected and notified by May 12. Click for more information.

We hear and read about these contributions and successes throughout the school year. Thank you in advance for your help in allowing us to honor some of this great work in the community by those who also shine on the field.

PHOTO: Members of the Adrian boys track & field team help clean up after a tornado in Dexter in 2012. 

Parade of Champions 2013-14

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

June 18, 2014

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

A total of 99 schools won one or more of the 127 team Finals championships awarded by the Michigan High School Athletic Association during the 2013-14 school year – with six programs winning the first MHSAA team titles in any sport for their respective schools.

The Detroit Consortium boys basketball, Jonesville boys bowling, Croswell-Lexington girls bowling, Bark River-Harris girls golf, Farmington ice hockey and Ann Arbor Skyline boys soccer teams all brought home the first MHSAA team championships in their schools’ histories.

For the second straight school year, a total of 33 teams won their first MHSAA titles. A total of 40 champions were repeat winners from 2012-13 – and 25 of those won for at least the third straight season. The Birmingham Brother Rice boys lacrosse team has the longest title streak of 10 seasons, while the Battle Creek St. Philip volleyball team has won eight straight titles for the second-longest streak overall and longest among girls programs.

Marquette claimed the most championships, six, winning in Division 1 boys skiing, Upper Peninsula Division 1 boys cross country and girls cross country, Upper Peninsula boys swimming and diving and girls swimming and diving, and Upper Peninsula Division 1 girls track and field. Five schools won three titles apiece: Brother Rice, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood, Birmingham Seaholm, Detroit Country Day and East Grand Rapids.

Sixteen of the MHSAA's 28 championship tournaments are unified, involving teams from the Upper and Lower Peninsulas, while separate competition to determine titlists in both Peninsulas is conducted in remaining sports.

For a sport-by-sport listing of MHSAA champions for 2013-14 - Click Here (PDF)

PHOTO: The Battle Creek St. Philip volleyball team celebrates at Kellogg Arena after winning its eighth straight Class D championship in November.