Rep Council Wrap-Up: Fall 2014
December 11, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The promotion of junior high and middle school athletics and possibility of allowing younger students opportunities to compete in certain sports highlighted topics discussed by the Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association during its annual Fall Meeting on Dec. 5 in East Lansing.
Although no action was taken, the Council heard findings of the Junior High/Middle School task force created at the 2013 Fall Meeting to consider how the MHSAA should continue to encourage multi-sport experiences at that level and review the possibility of serving sixth-grade students in addition to those in the seventh and eighth grades.
The task force met four times during the 2014 calendar year. It provided support for longer quarters in basketball and football that were recommended by the MHSAA’s Junior High/Middle School Committee and approved by the Representative Council in March. The Junior High/Middle School Committee will consider another task force recommendation in January that would allow sixth graders to participate against seventh and eighth graders in all sports except football and ice hockey without seeking annual waivers from the MHSAA in order to do so. The Council could then review that recommendation when it reconvenes in March. Currently, the MHSAA serves 725 member schools at the 7th and 8th-grade level.
The Council also continued to examine the impact of increasing numbers of international students and additional rules approved in March to equalize the treatment of J-1 and F-1 visa students and standardize their opportunities at both public and non-public high schools.
A package of proposals adopted at the Council’s March 2014 meeting in part allowed for the MHSAA to approve school-operated international student placement programs if they were not listed by the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel (CSIET). The MHSAA for 2014-15 approved five such programs, with the notion that all programs would require CSIET approval moving forward. However, the Council will determine in March if the MHSAA will retain the ability to approve non-CSIET school-operated programs again in 2015-16.
An update also was provided on work to determine if rules regulating out-of-season coaching by school staff should be changed to allow those coaches more involvement with student-athletes out of season. MHSAA staff discussed possible changes with member school administrators at league meetings and then athletic director in-service and update meetings this fall and surveyed athletic directors on the desirability of potential changes in late October. The Council reviewed results of the survey and input from meetings and a schedule of upcoming discussions with coaches associations and league and conference leaders. Further Council discussion is slated for March with possible action during its final meeting of the school year in May.
The Council voted on two matters concerning MHSAA tournaments. E-cigarettes and other smoking devices were added to the list of substances prohibited at MHSAA tournament events. The Council also approved the opportunity for presentation of awards by a sport’s coaches association at MHSAA Finals for that sport so long as awards are to recognize students.
The Fall Meeting also saw the addition of Pat Watson, principal at West Bloomfield High School, to the 19-person Council. He was appointed to a two-year term and previously served as his school’s athletic director and coached baseball and girls and boys basketball. He fills the position formerly held by Carmen Kennedy, principal at St. Clair Shores South Lake High School, whose term ended. Also, Orlando Medina, athletic director at Harrison Township L’Anse Creuse High School, was reappointed for a second two-year term. Don Gustafson, superintendent of St. Ignace Area Schools, was appointed to the Upper Peninsula Athletic Committee for 2015.
The Council elected Scott Grimes, assistant superintendent of human services for Grand Haven Area Public Schools, as its president; Buchanan athletic director Fred Smith was elected vice president and Vic Michaels, director of physical education and athletics for the Archdiocese of Detroit, was elected secretary-treasurer. Grimes was elected to fill the position of recently-retired Negaunee Superintendent Jim Derocher, who had served as Council president since 2008. Grimes had served as vice president since 2009.
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 1,400 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.
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.