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Scholars and Athletes 2013: Class B

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

February 7, 2013

The Michigan High School Athletic Association has selected eight student-athletes from Class B member schools to receive scholarships through its Scholar-Athlete Award program.

Farm Bureau Insurance, in its 24th year of sponsoring the award, will give a $1,000 college scholarship to 32 individuals who represent their member school in at least one sport in which the Association sponsors a postseason tournament. The first 30 scholarships are awarded proportionately by school classification and the number of student-athletes involved in those classes; also, there are two at-large honorees which can come from any classification. 

Each scholarship recipient will be honored during a halftime ceremony at the Class C Boys Basketball Final game March 23 at the Breslin Student Events Center in East Lansing. Commemorative medallions will be given to other finalists in recognition of their accomplishments.

The Class B Scholar-Athlete Award honorees are:  Ashley M. Carney, Jackson Northwest; Amanda Ciancio, Comstock Park; Mary Emington, Cadillac; Nicole L. Green, Portland; Alec Robert Fisher, Battle Creek Harper Creek; Patrick Gifford, Haslett; Scott Parkinson, Grayling; and Keeton Thayer Ross, Grosse Ile.

Overviews of the scholarship recipients of the Class B Scholar-Athlete Award follow. A quote from each recipient's essay also is included:

Ashley M. Carney, Jackson Northwest.   Will finish high school career earning four letters each in golf, volleyball and tennis.  Helped golf team to four MHSAA Finals, and medaled at her conference meet as a senior.  All-area, all-conference and a team captain in golf and volleyball.  Was team most valuable in volleyball last fall.  Academic all-state in all three sports.  Helped coordinate a basketball shooting fundraiser for American Cancer Society; and volunteered with Habitat For Humanity, the Jackson Interfaith Shelter and the Salvation Army.  Also active in National Honor Society, student government and as an elementary school tutor.  Plans to attend Siena Heights University and study sports management.

Essay Quote:  “I have experienced many life lessons through sports that will carry me farther in life than any win or loss.  The qualities and character that spectators, opponents and coaches remember me by are everlasting.  We may not all be ‘winners’ reflected by the final score, but we can all be ‘winners’ measured by our attitude, respect for opponents, and respect for the game.”  

Amanda Ciancio, Comstock Park.  A standout in cross country, serving as team captain and earning all-conference and team most valuable as a junior and senior.  Also lettered in basketball and softball, winning all-district in the latter sport.  Participated in student leadership activities and served as class president each year of high school.  Involved all four years as a camp counselor; a youth basketball volunteer game official, coach and scorekeeper; and as a volunteer for various elementary school activities.  Member of National Honor Society, attendant at church nursery and helped plan school dances.  College plans includes studies in math and accounting.

Essay Quote:  “Players and coaches can both teach and preach sportsmanship, but before every game or competition, it is up to the athlete to determine whether they will participate for the glory or for the experience.”

Mary Emington, Cadillac.  Participated in basketball and softball, earning all-area and all-conference in both sports.  Honored twice in each activity with local scholar-athlete award.  Captained softball squad the past two seasons, and was team most valuable as a sophomore.  Led hoop squad in assists as a sophomore and junior.  Served on class and student council; was president of class council as a sophomore and treasurer as a senior.  Involved with Art activities, and took part in annual “Be The Change Team” at school, which inspires positive action and connection with others.  Four-year member of church youth group.  Will attend Calvin College and major in architecture or communications.

Essay Quote:  “During physical exertion, blood and emotions run rapidly. Only through the very delicate balance of love for the game and sportsmanship do the matches continue.” 

Nicole L. Green, Portland.  Will win her fourth letter in soccer this spring to go with three letters in basketball and two in volleyball.  A team captain in all three sports, including three years in soccer.   Team most valuable in soccer and volleyball, and earned first team all-conference and academic all-state honors in both sports.  Academic all-conference in all three activities.  Helped organize fundraisers in all three sports for American Cancer Society.  Selected school Citizen of the Year by Daughters of the American Revolution.  Participant in Academic Letters, Captain’s Club and National Honor Society.  Volunteer for local youth basketball and volleyball programs.  College plans include studies in Zoology.

Essay Quote:  “Sportsmanship is important because student-athletes serve as influential role models for younger students.  As such, we must model respectful interaction, hard work, dedication, and a positive attitude.  Aspiring athletes need to see the positive impact these behaviors will have on the personal and team success.”

Alec Robert Fisher, Battle Creek Harper Creek.  Record-setting scorer for soccer and football teams.  Own school records for goal in soccer, as well as field goals and extra points on the gridiron.  Four-year letterwinner in soccer, where he was a team captain, all-state and academic all-state performer.  Also lettered in basketball and track, serving as team captain on the hoop squad.  Served on Student Senate as treasurer for four years.  Member of National Honor Society.  Helps with youth sports activities with school soccer and basketball camps, Special Olympics, and with the First Tee of Battle Creek.  Will study business or law at the University of Buffalo.

Essay Quote:  “We have been told the same thing since we were young kids playing in recreation leagues or with our friends, to now in competitive sports as highschoolers; always have sportsmanship.  It is one thing, win or lose, that can separate the young gentlemen and the jerks that care about nothing but winning.”

Patrick Gifford, Haslett.  Captained basketball and tennis teams, and has won academic all-conference honors in both sports.  Part of league and regional doubles winning tandem.  Class representative to Student Council all four years, and has participated in Key Club and National Honor Society.  Sports editor of school newspaper and announcer for its television station.  Honored by the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association and Michigan Association of Broadcasters for television sports play-by-play.  Serves as an in-class aide for autistic students in Peer–to-Peer program.  Involved in youth sports as a basketball coach and soccer official.  Received 69th District Citizenship Award.   Broadcast journalism studies await at either Ohio University, Syracuse University or the University of Missouri.

Essay Quote:  “As I prepare to graduate from high school and see my athletic career come to a close, I know I will take much more than the tennis and basketball skills I learned in high school with me.  The sportsmanship I have been coached to develop will help me move to this next state of my life and approach it with integrity, hard work, and leadership.”

Scott Parkinson, Grayling.  Will earn 10 varsity letters in athletic career in three sports – basketball, football and track – and serving as team captain in each activity.  Earned all-conference honors in football and track; won most improved award in basketball and track.  Conference champion in 110-meter hurdles in track.  Selected to an officer’s position on Student Senate all four years.  Seven-time winner of Mr. Spirit award as selected by teachers and chosen Most Athletic and Most Spirited by members of graduating class.  Four-year participant in Relay For Life and Youth Booster Club, and active with church youth group and local youth sports programs.  Will attend Michigan State University and study actuarial sciences.

Essay Quote:  “Having sportsmanship in educational athletics can teach life lessons and can also develop a person into a better and more-rounded athlete.  In turn, these lessons can be applied to future events in life.”

Keeton Thayer Ross, Grosse Ile.   Played baseball, basketball and football, and received all-conference honors on the diamond and the gridiron.  Also captained baseball and football teams.  Also academic all-state in baseball.  Earned the rank of Eagle Scout, served as vice president and president of school’s National Honor Society chapter, and as president of German Club.  Involved as student leader in school anti-bullying campaign and to help orient freshman class members.  Presented National Physical Education Award as a sophomore and has received an Ad Altari Dei Religious Medal.  Has served as a summer youth basketball camp counselor.  Planning on majoring in nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at either Georgia Tech or the University of California-Berkeley.

Essay Quote:  “My personal saying before each game is ‘It’s just a game.  Win or lose, life goes on.’ I believe that this saying has helped me to have great sportsmanship throughout my high school career by remembering the big picture behind the games.  Every team works their butts off to try and win games, and because of this, every team deserves respect from the opponent as well as its own team.”

Other Class B girls finalists for the Scholar-Athlete Award were: Brittany Beeler, Spring Lake; Kelsi Caywood, Sturgis; Morgan Kathleen Cinader, Goodrich; Hannah C. Engle, Adrian; Haley June Obetts, Wayland Union; Molly Oren, Hamilton; Catherine Polgar, Grosse Ile; Emily Quinn, Portland; Florence Ann Sobell, Croswell-Lexington; Anjali Sood, Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard; Megan Taylor, Houghton Lake;  and Shelby Walsh, Livonia Ladywood;

Other Class B boys finalists for the Scholar-Athlete Award were:  Michael Azzopardi, Detroit Country Day; Michael Broderick, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep; Brice Brown, Ionia; Michael Chickeral, Flat Rock; Thomas D. Finch, Otsego; Mark Gibson, Freeland; Andrew Hammond, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Eastern; Michael Heinrich, Ludington; Luke James Hurst, Ovid-Elsie; Matthew Liu, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood; Adam Olszewski, Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard; and Ryan Schall, Comstock Park.

Previously announced were the Class C and D scholarship award recipients.  The Class C Scholar-Athlete Award honorees are: Kylei Ratkowski, Bronson; Grace Smith, Kalamazoo Hackett; Nicole Winter, Watervliet; Jesse Anderson, Union City; Ashwin Fujii, Ann Arbor Greenhills; and Connor Lockman, Royal Oak Shrine.  The Class D Scholar-Athlete Award scholarship recipients are:  Elyse Kathleen Lisznyai, Hillsdale Academy; Elena Victoria Luce, Mason County Eastern; Charles Barchett, Watervliet Grace Christian; Chip A. Blood, Hillsdale Academy; and Francisco Jay Noyola, Lansing Christian

The Class A honorees will be announced Feb. 19.

Farm Bureau Insurance, one of Michigan's major insurers, has a statewide force of more than 400 agents serving more than 380,000 Michigan policyholders. Besides providing life, home, auto, farm, business and retirement insurance, the company also sponsors life-saving, real-time Doppler weather tracking systems in several Michigan communities.

Rep Council Wrap-Up: Spring 2015

May 11, 2015

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

The Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association took a number of significant actions during its annual Spring Meeting, May 3-4, in Glen Arbor, highlighted by changes to out-of-season coaching rules, a call for a member vote on a Constitutional amendment affecting middle school and junior high athletics, and initiatives to promote participant health and safety.  

The Spring Meeting of the 19-member legislative body of the Association’s more than 1,400 member schools is generally the busiest of its three sessions each year. The Council considered 13 committee proposals and also dealt with a variety of eligibility rule, postseason tournament and operational issues.

For the past eight months, the MHSAA focused member schools’ attention on an overhaul of out-of-season coaching rules. While support was lacking for a radically different approach, consensus developed for several significant changes within the existing approach for expanding contact between school coaches and their students out-of-season during the school year.

Included in the changes are that coaches will be permitted to work with up to four players in all situations out-of-season during the school year; previously, coaches could work with three or four players, depending on the circumstance. Coaches also will be allowed out of season during the school year to provide coaching in non-school competition to up to four students from that coach’s school. Under this same set of out-of-season coaching rules during the school year, the Council permitted more contact among school coaches and students allowing for previously banned offseason practice rotations to occur. Voluntary workouts out-of-season that involve rotations from conditioning, open gyms, weight lifting and sport-specific skill work may occur so long as there is no more than one four-player station with sport skills being coached. 

Following up on more than a year of consideration by the MHSAA Junior High/Middle School Committee and a Junior High/Middle School Task Force created in December 2013, the Council also approved a request for a membership vote to amend the MHSAA Constitution to allow for school membership beginning at the 6th grade. The membership vote is expected to be conducted in late October; if membership approves the amendment, the Council will consider for which sports 6th-graders will be eligible to compete with and against 7th- and 8th- graders.

The MHSAA’s historical concern for health and safety has been intensified during the past six years of an eight-year campaign focused on “4 H’s” – Health Histories, Heads, Heat and Hearts – and the Council approved several initiatives which continue to improve the environment of school-based sports.

The Council authorized up to three pilot programs to be conducted by volunteer schools, aimed at assisting in decision-making regarding the removal of athletes from activity after possible concussion events as well as in reporting and record-keeping of those events.

The Council mandated that member schools report head injury events through a web-based reporting system the MHSAA is developing. The Council also approved the purchase of another level of insurance aimed at assuring that children of uninsured or underinsured families receive prompt and professional care for suspected head injuries. Both the reporting requirement and the insurance protection are for eligible athletes in all levels of all sports, grades 7 through 12, in both practices and competition.

The Council was briefed on an electronic system that could be used to track pre-participation physical examination forms while improving injury reporting and record-keeping; currently, the MHSAA provides paper forms to member schools at no charge. The Council also was updated on MHSAA plans to provide at no cost to every high school in Michigan the ANYONE CAN SAVE A LIFE – Emergency Action Planning Guide, and informed on the MHSAA’s support of the MI HEARTSafe School initiative of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, which on May 13 will recognize 128 schools and/or districts for cardiac emergency preparedness.

Here is a summary of other actions taken by the Representative Council at the Spring Meeting, which will take effect during the 2015-16 school year: 

Handbook/Administrative Matters

  • Participation was expanded by the Council for 9th- and 10th-grade transfer students with no history of high school athletic participation who gain immediate subvarsity eligibility through a waiver by the MHSAA Executive Committee. Students who are granted such a waiver may now participate in designated non-scoring subvarsity heats or non-scoring races of varsity individual contests in sports such as swimming and diving, cross country and track and field. Previous to this action, subvarsity eligibility was permitted in subvarsity team sports only or subvarsity-only meets in individual sports. The subvarsity definition also will apply to international students present in the U.S. on an F-1 Visa but not from an MHSAA-approved international student program. 


  • Athletes in ice hockey and boys and girls soccer must compete in four regular-season games against other MHSAA schools to be eligible to compete with their school teams in the MHSAA Tournament. This currently is a requirement in alpine skiing, and a waiver procedure similar to what is utilized in skiing will be developed for hockey and soccer as well.


  • Non-school sports activities coordinated or directed by administrators and parents were added to situations which trigger an athletic link and an extended period of ineligibility for transfer students if those students then enroll at new schools that have association with those administrators or parents. The Council expanded the athletic-related transfer rule which previously involved only non-school coaches and transferring students who do not make a residential change. 

Classification

  • The Council created a “life line” allowance for schools to form a cooperative agreement in excess of the 3,500-student enrollment cap in sports sponsored by fewer than 250 schools. A program may be approved by the Executive Committee for up to three years, if during the previous year, the school or the cooperative program in which the school was a part dropped the sport because of a demonstrated lack of participation. Sports sponsored by 250 or fewer schools during 2014-15 were gymnastics, ice hockey, boys and girls lacrosse, boys and girls alpine skiing and boys and girls swimming and diving. This three-year “life line” allowance is similar to the regulation which allows for a “startup” cooperative program to be created among schools whose combined enrollment exceeds 3,500 students but the schools involved did not sponsor the sport in the previous school year.

Sport Matters

  • For boys and girls basketball, the Council approved an MHSAA Basketball Committee recommendation to seek permission from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) to allow teams to play up to two regular-season games made up of 18-minute halves instead of the current 8-minute quarters. If permission is granted by the NFHS, schools will be required to seek permission from the MHSAA prior to events and provide reports after 36-minute games are played.


  • In bowling, it was announced that Kegel is developing a bowling lane oil pattern for high school bowling called the “Allen Pattern,” named after former MHSAA Assistant Director Randy Allen, who administered the MHSAA bowling program from its inception during the 2003-04 school year until retirement in 2013. Michigan has the largest number of schools in the U.S. sponsoring interscholastic bowling. The Allen Pattern is being designed specifically for the high school level and will be utilized for the 2016 MHSAA Bowling Tournament.


  • In cross country, the MHSAA will appoint and administer a task force of coaches and athletic administrators to address unbalanced Lower Peninsula Cross Country Regionals – including some Regionals having more complete teams in competition than others because teams decide to not compete or cannot compete with a full lineup after Regional groups are drawn. The task force will present its findings to the Council in 2016.


  • For ice hockey, four-person officiating crews were approved for Quarterfinals. The MHSAA began using four-person crews for Semifinals and Finals in 2014.


  • In boys lacrosse, a “play in” game was approved for teams seeded 9-16 in each Regional. Play-in games will be played three days earlier than the traditional start of the MHSAA Tournament, with winners then playing teams seeded 5-8 at the traditional start of tournament play.


  • In wrestling, the Council approved a recommendation by the MHSAA Wrestling Committee that eliminates the second weigh-in at the MHSAA Team Finals. The Friday weigh-in before the start of Quarterfinals will be used for all three rounds of competition during Finals weekend.

The Council also reviewed reports on membership, with 754 senior high schools and 703 junior high/middle schools in 2014-15; eligibility advancement applications, which totaled four for the year; the use of Educational Transfer Forms, which held steady this year; school violations, attendance at athletic director in-service workshops and Coaches Advancement Program sessions, officials’ registrations, rules meetings attendance and officials reports submitted for the past three sports seasons. The Association’s $10.4 million budget for the 2015-16 school year also was approved. 

The Representative Council is the 19-member legislative body of the MHSAA. All but five 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.