NFHS Introduces Updated Logo
July 17, 2019
Special from NFHS
As the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) heads into the next 100 years of leading high school sports and other activity programs nationwide, it will be doing so with a new logo.
The new logo was unveiled to the membership earlier this month at the close of the NFHS Centennial Celebration. The NFHS and its 51-member state high school associations celebrated the organization’s accomplishments at the 100th Annual Meeting at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.
The organization will continue to be branded as the NFHS in the new logo, and the N and F are connected as has been the case since 1979. However, the entire acronym is together on one line as opposed to the previous logo with the NF and HS on separate lines. While red and blue will continue to be the predominant colors, the new logo mixes white with red and blue to suggest a flag waving in the wind. The direction of the flag is pointing upward to symbolize forward-thinking and advancement.
The new design maintains a resemblance to the shield that has been a part of the NFHS logo since 1997. However, the logo is flared at the top, and the bottom of the logo does not have definitive borders, which suggests the organization has moved past its first 100 years and is expanding its reach as the national leadership organization for high school sports and performing arts programs in the United States.
While the organization’s logo from 1952 had four stars to signify the four charter members of the NFHS, the four stripes within the new logo represent the four homes of the organization during the first 100 years.
“We wanted to retain NFHS as the central component of the new logo because the organization’s national presence has continued to spiral upward in the 22 years since the NFHS acronym was adopted,” said Dr. Karissa Niehoff, NFHS executive director. “However, as we celebrated our first 100 years, we felt it was important to establish a new look that would signify our ever-increasing role as the national leader in high school sports and performing arts programs.”
Counting the Centennial logo that was used during the 2018-19 school year, the new logo will be 10th used by the organization since the first one was adopted in the 1930s. The new logo was created by Section 127, an Indianapolis-based design company.
The NFHS was started in 1920 and had offices in Chicago until 1971, when it moved to Elgin, Illinois. The organization moved to Kansas City, Missouri, in 1979, and then in 2000 to Indianapolis, where it remains today.
The Michigan High School Athletic Association is a member of the NFHS, and Michigan is one of the four founding states of the national association.
24th WISL Conference Set for Feb 2-3
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
January 6, 2020
The first, largest and longest-running program of its type in the country, the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s Women In Sports Leadership Conference will take place Feb. 2-3 at the Crowne Plaza Lansing West.
The 24th edition of the conference again will feature three keynote speakers and a variety of workshops. The program annually attracts upwards of 500 participants, most of them high school female student-athletes. High school students, coaches and administrators are invited to find registration information on the MHSAA Website.
Cost is $50 for students and $60 for adults, not including lodging for those intending to stay overnight in Lansing. A registration form for lodging also is available on the MHSAA Website.
The theme for this WISL Conference is “The Courage to Lead” – and the opening address will be delivered by two-time Olympic women’s soccer gold medalist Lindsay Tarpley. She led Portage Central to the MHSAA Division 2 championship as a sophomore in 2000, was named college soccer’s National Player of the Year in 2003 after leading University of North Carolina to the NCAA Division I title, and played for the U.S. national team until retiring in 2011. She will speak on setting high standards and challenging one’s self to be a leader throughout life.
Michigan State University women’s volleyball coach Cathy George will challenge participants to embrace a growth mindset and believe in themselves and their potential while speaking at the WISL Banquet during the evening of Feb. 2. George recently completed her 15th season at MSU and 33rd overall as a college head coach. Her 288 wins at MSU are the most in program history, and she has a career record of 653-429 – counting also 11 seasons leading Western Michigan University, five at University of Texas-Arlington and two at North Dakota State. She has taken 15 teams to the NCAA Tournament, including MSU to the Elite Eight in 2017 and Texas-Arlington to the Final Four in 1989. As an athlete, George was a team captain and three-time all-league selection at Illinois State, helping the Redbirds to three NCAA Tournament appearances.
Michigan’s 43rd Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson will speak during the opening session Feb. 3 on expanding opportunities for girls and women as athletes, coaches, sport executives and leaders. She chairs Michigan’s Task Force on Women in Sports, which brings together local and national leaders to develop strategies that support and promote opportunities for girls and women in athletics, and is a founding board member and former CEO of the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality. Benson is a graduate of Harvard University Law School and expert on civil rights law, education law and election law. As dean of Wayne State University Law School, she was the youngest woman in U.S. history to lead a top-100 accredited law school, and she became in 2015 one of the youngest inductees into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.
Workshops offered during the WISL conference include topics on coaching, teaching and learning leadership; sports nutrition and performance, and injury prevention; empowerment and goal-setting, and building team chemistry and program culture. A complete itinerary is available on the MHSAA Website.
The WISL Banquet will include the presentation of this year’s Women In Sports Leadership Award. The winner will be announced later this month.
Follow the #WISL hashtag on Twitter to learn more about the conference’s activities.