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.
Michigan Steady In National Participation Figures
September 14, 2012
For the fourth straight year, Michigan ranked seventh nationally in high school sports participation, according to statistics for the 2011-12 school year released recently by the National Federation of State High School Associations. That level of participation continued to best Michigan’s national ranking for total number of residents of high school age.
Michigan’s participation ranking was based on a number of 308,080, with 131,346 girls and 176,734 boys taking part, and included sports in which the Michigan High School Athletic Association does not conduct postseason tournaments. The totals count students once for each sport in which he or she participates, meaning students who are multiple-sport athletes are counted more than once.
Michigan girls participation fell one spot to seventh nationally after two straight years at sixth, while the boys participation figure again ranked sixth. According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures from 2011, Michigan continues to rank eighth in both females and males of ages 14 through 17. Girls participation also ranked seventh in 2008-09.
Three sports moved up in their rankings, while seven fell – but none more than one spot. Total, Michigan ranked eighth or higher nationally in participation in 24 of the 28 sports in which the MHSAA conducts a postseason tournament (not counting separately 8-player football).
Girls basketball and golf both rose in 2011-12, basketball to sixth and golf to fifth. Girls tennis held steady in third place, with participation in bowling, volleyball and skiing again ranked fourth. Softball and track and field remained seventh, soccer and swimming and diving both stayed at eighth, and lacrosse stayed at 12th nationally. Girls cross country, gymnastics and competitive cheer all fell one spot – cross country to seventh, cheer to fifth and gymnastics to 12th.
Nine boys sports remained in the same spots nationally, and one – wrestling – moved up one spot, to fifth. Boys bowling stayed constant at third, as did skiing and ice hockey in fourth, 11-player football and tennis in fifth, track and field and golf in sixth, baseball in seventh and cross country in ninth in their respective sport rankings. Boys Basketball fell one spot to sixth, with boys lacrosse falling one to eighth and boys soccer and swimming and diving both moving down one spot to ninth on those lists. Last school year also was the third the MHSAA has had 8-player football, and Michigan ranked 14th of 16 states for participation in that spot.
National participation in high school sports in 2011-12 set a new record again with 7,692,520 students taking part. While boys participation nationally fell 9,419 students from 2010-11, girls participation rose 33,984 students for a record total of 3,207,533.