Several 1st-Time Winners Highlight 2025-26 MHSAA Parade of Champions
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
June 18, 2026
Three schools celebrated their first Michigan High School Athletic Association Finals championships in any sport during the 2025-26 school year as 39 teams total won first Finals titles in their respective sports.
Holland Calvary, in boys cross country, Durand in boys bowling and Walled Lake Northern in softball won their schools’ first Finals championships in any sport, as 88 schools total won at least one of the 132 MHSAA team titles awarded over the three seasons.
A total of 23 schools won two or more championships this school year, paced again by Marquette with eight earned in girls and boys cross country, boys golf, girls skiing, girls and boys swimming & diving, boys tennis and boys track & field. Detroit Country Day was next with seven Finals championships, followed by Detroit Catholic Central with six and Ann Arbor Pioneer with four.
Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood, Negaunee, Northville and Rockford all won three titles in 2025-26. Winning two were Birmingham Seaholm, Charlevoix, Farmington Hills Mercy, Flint Kearsley, Flint Powers Catholic, Grand Rapids West Catholic, Jackson Lumen Christi, Lake Linden-Hubbell, Lowell, Newberry, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s, Pewamo-Westphalia, Ravenna, Rudyard and West Iron County.
A total of 48 champions were repeat winners from 2025-26. A total of 31 teams won championships for at least the third-straight season, while 22 teams extended title streaks to at least four consecutive seasons. The Lowell wrestling program owns the longest title streak at 13 seasons, followed by Dundee wrestling’s nine consecutive titles and runs of seven straight Finals victories by the Detroit Catholic Central ice hockey team and Marquette’s boys cross country and boys swimming & diving programs.
This school year saw the addition of field hockey and boys volleyball to the MHSAA’s postseason tournament offerings. Eighteen of the MHSAA's 30 team championship tournaments are unified, involving teams from the Upper and Lower Peninsulas, while separate competition to determine title winners in both peninsulas is conducted in remaining sports.
For a sport-by-sport listing of MHSAA champions for 2025-26, click here (PDF).
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 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.
PHOTO The Oak Park girls track & field team hoist their championship trophy and sign May 30 at Rockford High School. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)
MHSAA, NFHS Learning Center Team Up to Provide Online Student Leadership Series
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 10, 2023
Leadership always has been one of the most valuable and applicable life skills developed by student-athletes participating in educational athletics. To assist in that development, the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) and National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) have partnered to produce an online Student Leadership series designed to provide the latest research-based instruction to high schoolers throughout the United States.
The Student Leadership series is provided as part of the web-based NFHS Learning Center and includes two free courses focused on students – “Becoming a Leader” and “Leading Others” – with a third installment for coaches currently in production. All three are inspired by the latest research on how youth-aged athletes learn to lead.
This latest work builds on the MHSAA-produced “Captains Course” developed in 2015 with Michigan State University’s Institute for the Study of Youth Sports (ISYS). The “Captains Course” has been taken more than 100,000 times and is based on in-person “Captains Clinics” that MHSAA staff and ISYS conduct with thousands of students across Michigan each year.
Each student-focused segment of the new Student Leadership series takes 30-45 minutes to complete and includes frequent and quick activities designed to help students understand how they would apply leadership skills in real-life scenarios. Course instruction was created primarily in coordination with the MHSAA by a pair of nationally-recognized authorities on the subject: Jed Blanton, an assistant professor in kinesiology, recreation and sport studies at the University of Tennessee; and Scott Pierce, an associate professor in kinesiology and recreation at Illinois State University.
Both Blanton and Pierce have vast experience with youth athletics; both also formerly worked for the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports and served as graduate assistants at the MHSAA during their time at MSU, playing large roles in more than a decade of research conducted through coordination with the MHSAA’s 16-member Student Advisory Council. High school administrators, student leaders, and other researchers and mental performance consultants also contributed to the lessons taught in these courses. The NFHS produced the content, including all of the visuals and digital features, and the student-focused courses went live on the NFHS Learn website in mid-summer.
“We’ve taken a good program, and made it even better,” said MHSAA Assistant Director Andy Frushour, who coordinates the Association’s student services programs. “This is a program we do in person in Michigan, but our reach now is across the country – and these courses are free, hopefully allowing us to contribute to the development of even more student leaders.”
The “Becoming a Leader” course defines leadership styles and builds skills to help students consider themselves as leaders. “Leading Others” details how leaders put those skills into practice including during challenging situations. Blanton and Pierce worked closely with student advisory groups from various states to make the research content relatable to school sports participants. All voices heard in the courses belong to high school students – including athletes from Michigan, Illinois and Washington who provided 30 testimonials that describe leadership in action.
The “Coaches Course” will provide the same information as presented to high school students, but in a way that explains how coaches can use these tools to personalize leadership training among their athletes as they seek to recognize which types of leaders they have on a team, and which types are missing and need to be developed.
“The NFHS is grateful for the opportunity to work with the MHSAA as well as Dr. Blanton and Dr. Pierce,” said Dan Schuster, the NFHS’ director of educational services. “We believe these student leadership courses will provide valuable information across the country and will contribute to the improvement of the interscholastic experience for young people.”
Video previews provide additional information on both Student Leadership courses.Click for direct links to “Becoming a Leader" and “Leading Others.”