Rep Council Wrap-Up: Fall 2016
December 12, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association took actions at its Fall Meeting on Dec. 2 in East Lansing that will affect baseball and Upper Peninsula golf teams this spring.
Generally, the Council takes only a few actions during its Fall Meeting, with topics often introduced for additional consideration and actions during its meetings in winter and spring. However, a rules change approved in baseball was required by the National Federation of State High School Associations before the start of the spring 2017 season, while the golf change is a result of multiple years of discussion concerning classifications for MHSAA Upper Peninsula Finals.
Beginning this upcoming baseball season, pitchers will be required to follow a pitch count limit, instead of the previous rule that limited their innings based on the number of outs thrown. In July, the NFHS Baseball Rules Committee mandated that all states adopt a pitch count rule in an effort to further prevent pitcher arm injuries, effective with the 2016-17 school year. Pitchers will be allowed to throw a maximum of 105 pitches in one day; they will be required to rest three days if they throw more than 75. Pitchers must rest two days after throwing 51-75 pitches, one day after throwing 26-50, and will not be required to rest if they throw 25 or fewer pitches in one day. The MHSAA pitch count rule was the result of work by a task force made up of current and former coaches and administrators, including representatives of the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association.
For Upper Peninsula Golf, both the girls and boys tournaments, the Council approved a change classifying participating schools into three equal divisions beginning in the spring of 2017. Previously, Class A, B and C schools were split evenly into Divisions 1 and 2, with Division 3 reserved for Class D schools. However, Class D had grown to include nearly twice as many participating schools as both Division 1 and 2, complicating tournament logistics. This proposal was advanced by the Upper Peninsula Athletic Committee.
The Council also approved for the MHSAA’s Multi-Sport Participation Task Force to continue its work indefinitely beyond the end of 2016, and also approved possible expansion of the task force as it continues to work toward preparing strategies and specific tactics for the MHSAA, allied organizations and local schools and conferences to promote multi-sport participation by student-athletes. The task force has determined it must focus on educating students and parents on the benefits of multi-sport participation when students are at younger ages – as early as when they are attending elementary school – while providing service and support at the junior high/middle school level; both efforts aim to create an atmosphere promoting multi-sport participation that would carry on when students reach high school.
Results of efforts to grow junior high/middle school membership were reported, with 757 junior high/middle schools in the MHSAA’s membership for 2016-17, compared to 705 at the conclusion of the 2015-16 school year. Of those 757, there are 498 that have included sixth grade in their membership, as allowed this school year for the first time. The Council also heard reports related to the MHSAA’s “Defining & Defending Educational Athletics” mission, notably on a pair of efforts by the National Federation focused on enhancing participation, reducing risk, optimizing performance and spreading the positive message of educational athletics. In addition, the Council discussed results of a recent survey of officials who had left the avocation and their reasons why, with the hope of staff using that data as it works to recruit and retain officials.
The Council also began a discussion on the future of 8-player football, including its growth and potential tournament format modifications, and the potential effects on 11-player football. There were 52 8-player football teams in Michigan for the 2016 season, including four that were ineligible for postseason play because their enrollments were too high (only Class D schools are eligible for the playoffs in the 8-player format). Discussions will continue with the MHSAA Classification Committee and Football Committee and at the League Leadership meeting before returning to the Council’s agenda.
The Fall Meeting saw the addition of Vicky Groat, principal and athletic director at Battle Creek St. Philip High School, to the 19-person Council. She was appointed to a two-year term. She also serves as her school’s varsity volleyball coach. Groat fills the position formerly held by Orlando Medina, athletic director at Harrison Township L’Anse Creuse High School, whose term ended. Also, Pat Watson, principal at West Bloomfield High School, was re-appointed for a second two-year term.
The Council re-elected Scott Grimes, assistant superintendent of human services for Grand Haven Area Public Schools, as its president; Benton Harbor athletic director Fred Smith was re-elected vice president and Vic Michaels, director of physical education and athletics for the Archdiocese of Detroit, was re-elected secretary-treasurer.
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.
Hutcheson Eager to Serve Statewide
April 20, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
On Tuesday, Dan Hutcheson was the public address announcer at a track and field meet. On Wednesday, he spent part of the morning painting a door.
As a teacher, coach, then assistant principal and athletic director, he’s performed in a wide variety of roles for Howell High School over the last two decades.
This fall, he’ll take on another set of similar but new and wide-ranging responsibilities as an assistant director for the MHSAA.
Hutcheson, who will join the staff in August, will take over administration of wrestling, girls and boys tennis and another sport to be determined. He’ll also contribute to the Coaches Advancement Program and Athletic Directors In-Service program among other duties.
“When I look at each step I’ve taken, it’s been an opportunity to serve more people,” Hutcheson said. “As a classroom teacher and a coach, and then moving up to assistant principal where I was serving more students. And then athletic director, where I was serving more students, and now serving the entire state. It’s pretty remarkable.”
The addition of Hutcheson is one of a few changes coming to the MHSAA staff for the start of the 2016-17 school year. Longtime official Sam Davis will join part-time in September to coordinate an expansion of services and support for officials, including in the key areas of recruitment and retention, while also assisting Hutcheson with wrestling.
Andrea Osters will be promoted in August to assistant director in charge of volleyball and another sport to be determined. Osters, the current social media & brand coordinator for the MHSAA and also the lead administrator for softball the last three years, will with Hutcheson take over most of the duties of current assistant director Gina Mazzolini, who will retire at the end of July.
At Howell, Hutcheson directs 90 athletic teams for grades 7-12. His high school, with more than 2,500 students, is one of the largest in our state. He has served as athletic director for the last decade after two years as an assistant principal, and he also coached the school’s wrestling program for eight seasons while teaching applied technology at the high school and later working for the Howell Recreation Department.
A plea from a professor during his first year as a student at Ferris State University set Hutcheson’s path toward education – although along the way he’s picked up a variety of skills that have benefitted his athletic program and the surrounding sports community as well.
He went to Ferris with thoughts of becoming a graphic designer and going into advertising. But by the end of his first term, as he watched classmates stay up into the morning hours working on projects while he was getting up at 6 a.m. for wrestling practice, he figured that career might not be the best fit.
Hutcheson still remembers the day in class when that instructor remarked that there was a huge need for technical education teachers. Hutcheson, who had always wanted to coach, saw that as his eventual niche.
He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in technical education with an associate’s in graphic arts and printing technology, and later earned a master’s degree in public and educational administration at University of Michigan-Dearborn.
Hutcheson recently was named his region’s Athletic Director of the Year by the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, and with Davis will bring extensive wrestling experience to the MHSAA. After competing at Howell and then Holt High School as a senior – making the MHSAA Individual Finals and finishing third at his weight as a senior in 1988 – Hutcheson was three-time NCAA Division II wrestling All-American and two-time Academic All-American while at Ferris State, and a three-time Greco-Roman Open All-American at the collegiate and post-graduate senior levels.
Hutcheson served as an assistant wrestling coach at Ferris State during the 1994-95 season and then coached the Michigan Wrestling Club from 1997-2000 guiding athletes in World Team and Olympic Trials competition. He led the Highlanders to the Division 1 Quarterfinals his first season as a high school coach, and currently serves as wrestling commissioner and overall president of the 24-school Kensington Lakes Activities Association and on MHSAA committees for wrestling and lacrosse.
He took over as athletic director at Howell from longtime administrator Doug Paige and has relied in part on work ethic learned from parents Don and Lynne Hutcheson and mentoring from college coach Dr. Jim Miller, who also is a professor of Optometry and with whom Hutcheson remains in regular contact.
Hutcheson has relished opportunities to put on big events, and one of his last as Howell athletic director will be as host of both MHSAA Boys Lacrosse Finals on June 11.
And tapping into those technical and design skills, Hutcheson also serves as webmaster and historian for the KLAA and created one of the most detailed league websites in the state.
“When we were doing (Paige’s) going-away party, I said his were big shoes to fill but my goal wasn't to fill the shoes, but to keep walking in the same direction,” Hutcheson said. “I feel the next person up will have a great foundation that’s here and will take it to the next level.
“I’m very excited about (joining the MHSAA staff). But I’ll probably take the same approach as what I did as athletic director here. Things have been done a certain way for a reason, and then we can look for ways to tweak things, fine-tune things.”
Champions who champion our games
An MHSAA Wrestling Finals individual champion for Lansing Eastern in 1969, Davis went on to wrestle briefly at Michigan State University before an eye injury ended his competitive career in that sport. However, he instead took up judo, winning state championships in 1980 and 1981 and competing at the U.S. Olympic trials. After graduating from MSU with bachelor and master’s degrees in 1974, Davis began his teaching career at Lansing Everett High School. He also coached wrestling and football and later served as an assistant principal at the school before serving as principal at Dwight Rich Middle School and then district athletic director over a 32-year career with Lansing Public Schools that concluded in 2007.
Davis received the MHSAA’s Vern L. Norris Award in 2015 for his work in officiating, including the mentoring and educating of other officials. He has been an MHSAA registered official for 36 years, working wrestling during the entirety of his career and baseball most of the last decade. Davis has officiated in all but a few of the MHSAA’s annual Wrestling Finals since receiving his first championship-level assignment in 1983. He currently serves as a major with the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, serving as jail administrator, and will remain employed by the county while joining the MHSAA staff.
Osters has worked as part of the MHSAA staff since 2005 and has presented multiple times at National Federation annual meetings on her work as a nationally-recognized leader in high school sports association social media. She is a member of the Leadership Council of the NFHS Network, the national digital broadcasting initiative of the National Federation of State High School Associations, and has worked in coordination and planning of the MHSAA’s Captain’s Clinic series and other student leadership programs.
She also launched the “Officials for Kids” statewide fundraising initiative and handles all venue-specific ticketing for MHSAA statewide tournaments.
She was a high school champion as a starter on the Okemos softball team that won the MHSAA Division 1 championship in 1999 and then graduated from Michigan State in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in communications and concentration in public relations. She served as Okemos’ freshman softball coach for four seasons, from 2002-05, and also wrote a weekly sports column for a local magazine from 2009-11. Osters is a current member of the board of directors for the Michigan Society of Association Executives and was a founding member of the MSAE’s Emerging Professionals Committee.
“Dan Hutcheson, Sam Davis and Andrea Osters are passionate advocates for the values of high school athletics,” MHSAA Executive Director John E. Jack Roberts said. “Dan is one of the most respected athletic administrators in Michigan and brings a collection of experiences and skills that will benefit all of our schools in a variety of areas. Sam has long championed officiating, and we’re excited for the possibilities his experience and abilities bring as we intensify our recruitment of new officials statewide to join the more than 10,000 who annually work our games.
“Andrea has provided the MHSAA with a variety of skills and leadership over more than a decade of service and played a prominent role in the move of the MHSAA Baseball and Softball Finals to Michigan State two years ago. We anticipate she’ll make a smooth transition in taking over new and added responsibilities.”
PHOTO: Howell’s Dan Hutcheson coaches one of his wrestlers during his tenure running that program from 1997-2004. (Photo courtesy of Dan Hutcheson.)