Welcome to the Second Half
January 27, 2012
More than 750 high schools are members of the Michigan High School Athletic Association. And every team in every community has a story.
“Second Half” is our place to tell them.
Combined with our parent site MHSAA.com, and our broadcast home MHSAA.tv, “Second Half” completes our picture of the best Michigan high school sports have to offer.
With MHSAA.com, “Second Half” is the home of a growing number of schedules, scores, league standings and tournament information for our sports – but also much more. Now, we’ll look to provide visitors with the stories behind the scores.
You’ll find the report of a rare feat or the achievement that rallied the town. Behind-the-scenes looks at what we do at the MHSAA and what goes into 28 Finals tournaments each school year. We tell the inspiring tales of overcoming large obstacles, and the simple ones of lessons learned just by being a part of school sports. They’re the kind of stories all of us can relate to and enjoy, no matter where we live and which teams we support.
Michigan is the 10th-largest state in the nation. There are more than 58,000 square miles of land, and by vehicle it’s 625 miles from Calumet High School near the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula to Bedford High on the southeastern border with Ohio. Nearly 10 million people live, work and play here. MHSAA tournament events alone attract 1.6 million spectators each year.
With “Second Half”, we aim to make our state a little smaller.
If you like something we’re doing, let us know. If you’d like to see something else, I’d love to hear about it. My contact information is at the right of this screen, and my e-mail address is [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you – and telling the entire state about the great things you’re doing.
--Geoff Kimmerly
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.