New Math: Division & Multiplication Problems
July 25, 2017
By Jack Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director
This is the second part in a series on MHSAA tournament classification, past and present, that will be published over the next two weeks. This series originally ran in this spring's edition of MHSAA benchmarks.
High school tournament classifications went viral before there was social media and most of us knew what “viral” meant.
Much as a virus infects computers today or has created epidemics of disease around the world for centuries, high school tournament classification – once introduced – tends to spread uncontrollably. Once started, it tends to keep expanding and rarely contracts.
While we are still some distance from providing every team a trophy as a result of expanding high school tournament classification across the country, there is criticism nevertheless that we are headed in that direction – a philosophy which is supposed to exist only in local youth sports for our youngest children.
Michigan could be blamed for all this. Michigan is generally accepted as the first state to provide different classifications for season-ending tournaments for different sized schools. It started a century ago. Today, every state has various classifications for its tournaments in most if not all sports. And it is a bit ironic that Michigan – creator of the classification chaos – more than most other states has kept the number of tournament classes or divisions under control.
Yes, there is evidence that tournament classifications have expanded over the years in Michigan, especially with the relatively recent introduction of tournaments in football and the late 1990s’ move from classes to divisions in most MHSAA tournaments. But the MHSAA Representative Council has held true to its word when it expanded the playoffs for football from four classes to eight divisions: this is needed because of unique factors of football, factors that exist in no other sport; and all other sports should be capped at a maximum of four classes or divisions.
Kentucky is the preeminent defender of single-class basketball. All of its 276 high schools compete for the single state championship for each gender. In Indiana, there are still open wounds from its move in 1998 from one to four classes for its 400 schools in basketball.
Multi-class tournaments have tended to increase the number of non-public school champions, which some states are trying to lower through enrollment “multipliers,” and also tend to increase the number of repeat champions, which some states are trying to affect with “success factors” which lift smaller schools into classifications for larger schools if they take home too many trophies.
While there is considerable evidence that state tournaments do as much bad as good for educational athletics, state associations persist in providing postseason tournaments because, on balance, the experiences are supposed to be good for student-athletes. And once we reach that conclusion it is just a small leap to believe that if the tournaments are good for a few, they must be better for more – which leads to creating more and more tournament classifications. One becomes two classes, then three, then four and so forth.
While the argument is that more classifications or divisions provides more students with opportunities to compete and win, it is undeniable that the experience changes as the number of tournament classifications expands. It is not possible for state associations to provide the same level of support when tournament classifications expand to multiple venues playing simultaneously. For example, there is less audio and video broadcast potential at each venue, and less media coverage to each venue. Focus is diluted and fans diminished at each championship.
No one can argue reasonably that today's two-day MHSAA Football Finals of eight championship games has the same pizazz as the one-day, four-games event conducted prior to 1990.
In some states the number of divisions has grown so much that it is difficult to see much difference between the many season-ending state championship games and a regular-season event in the same sport.
It is a balancing act. And Michigan has been studying that balance longer than any other state, and charting a steadier course than most.
Addition by Division
The shift to Divisions for MHSAA Tournament play in numerous sports has added up to a greater number of champions for teams and individuals across the state. Following are the sports currently employing a divisional format, and the procedures for determining enrollment and classification.
In 23 statewide or Lower Peninsula tournaments, schools which sponsor the sport are currently divided into nearly equal divisions. They are:
- Baseball - 4 Divisions
- Boys Bowling - 4 Divisions
- Girls Bowling - 4 Divisions
- Girls Competitive Cheer - 4 Divisions
- LP Boys Cross Country - 4 Divisions
- LP Girls Cross Country - 4 Divisions
- LP Boys Golf - 4 Divisions
- LP Girls Golf - 4 Divisions
- Ice Hockey - 3 Divisions
- Boys Lacrosse - 2 Divisions
- Girls Lacrosse - 2 Divisions
- Boys Skiing - 2 Divisions
- Girls Skiing - 2 Divisions
- LP Boys Soccer - 4 Divisions LP
- Girls Soccer - 4 Divisions
- Girls Softball - 4 Divisions
- LP Boys Swimming & Diving - 3 Divisions
- LP Girls Swimming & Diving - 3 Divisions
- LP Boys Tennis - 4 Divisions
- LP Girls Tennis - 4 Divisions
- LP Boys Track & Field - 4 Divisions
- LP Girls Track & Field - 4 Divisions
- Wrestling - 4 Divisions
Lists of schools for each division of these 23 tournaments are posted on MHSAA.com approximately April 1. Listings of schools in Upper Peninsula tournaments for their sports are also posted on MHSAA.com. The lists are based on school memberships and sports sponsorships in effect or anticipated for the following school year, as known to the MHSAA office as of a date in early March.
In football, the 256 schools which qualify for MHSAA 11-player playoffs are placed in eight equal divisions annually on Selection Sunday. Beginning in 2017, the 8-player divisions will be determined in a like manner on Selection Sunday as well, with 32 qualifying schools placed in two divisions.
Schools have the option to play in any higher division in one or more sports for a minimum of two years.
The deadlines for "opt-ups" are as follows:
- Applications for fall sports must be submitted by April 15
- Applications for winter sports must be submitted by Aug. 15
- Applications for spring sports must be submitted by Oct. 15
Subsequent to the date of these postings for these tournaments, no school will have its division raised or lowered by schools opening or closing, schools adding or dropping sports, schools exercising the option to play in a higher division, or approval or dissolution of cooperative programs.
When the same sport is conducted for boys and girls in the same season (e.g., track & field and cross country), the gender that has the most sponsoring schools controls the division breaks for both genders.
Goals Grow as Gladwin's Klein Seeks to Follow School Record with Big Finish
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
April 24, 2024
Logan Klein wanted to leave his mark on Gladwin athletics – and one could argue, as a starting offensive lineman on the 2022 Flying Gs football team which won the Division 5 title, he had already done that.
But Klein was looking for more, so that spring, he switched from baseball to track & field, and went after it.
“Really, I mean, I wanted a school record,” Klein said. “I had played baseball for freshman and sophomore year, and I knew I wasn’t getting it in baseball. I was good, but I wasn’t that good. I did (track & field) in seventh grade, and I was pretty good. I was really close in junior high (to school records) but then in eighth grade, we had COVID.”
In his first year back in the sport, Klein achieved his goal, setting the Gladwin school record in the shot put and throwing his way to a third-place, all-state finish at the 2023 Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals.
Now, with a little more seasoning under his belt, he’s looking for even more.
“The big goal is to be a state champ,” he said. “The second goal, with how I’ve been throwing in the (discus) lately, I think I can be all-state in both events. That’s a really big one for me, too.”
Klein’s immediate success as a thrower didn’t come as a total surprise, as he really was quite good in seventh grade. He’s also a 6-foot-3, 270-pound athlete who, as mentioned, was a starter on a state championship-winning football team. The baseline was there.
He also had a willing teacher in teammate Logan Kokotovich, a 2023 Gladwin graduate who was a captain and Klein’s teammate in football, and the Gs’ top thrower prior to Klein’s arrival.
“(Klein) threw in junior high and he was pretty good, and then last year he started off real strong,” Gladwin boys track coach Buddy Goldsworthy said. “After lots of work on just technique stuff, he realized all the things he was doing wrong, then he just started throwing 50 footers. One person that helped make a good transition was Logan Kokotovich – he was good at football, too, and good friends with Klein. He showed Klein how to do a couple things better.”
On May 5, 2023, at the Nike Trax Invite at Meridian, Klein first threw over 50 feet in competition. Five days later, at the Jack Pine Conference meet, Klein had his school record, throwing 51 feet, 9 inches, smashing the old mark of 50-5 set in 1988.
“I was starting to get up into the 50s, and I knew it was going to happen in the next meet,” he said. “I had been on a PR streak.”
He broke it again in his next meet, the first of four times he has eclipsed his chart-topping mark – which now stands at 55-4¼.
“He’s a big, strong kid, and he loved throwing in junior high,” Goldsworthy said. “We knew that he could be that guy. Now, we didn’t know he would be that guy so quickly. That was a pleasant surprise for us. He loves throwing. He spent a lot of time during the summer saying, ‘Hey, can we go up and throw? Can I take a shot or disc home this weekend and just throw?’ ‘I know you’re going to be gone on vacation, but can I have a shot to work on throws?’ He’s a real student of the game.”
Klein said he’s fallen in love with throwing, and there is certainly a part of him that wishes he had started as a freshman, knowing the massive leap he’s taken in such a short amount of time.
But his being so new to the sport makes him a very intriguing prospect for college coaches, if he chooses to go that route. There has been some communication, but Klein hasn’t decided yet if wants to follow up on throwing at the next level or go into the workforce by becoming an electrician, something that is waiting for him if he wants it.
“I was definitely not planning on (throwing in college),” he said. “I was actually a four-year starter for football, so that’s what I thought I was going to do. I’ve only been doing this for two years now, and I definitely can grow a lot more. A couple colleges have talked to me, and that’s what they were saying, that I really have a lot more potential.”
While he mulls over that decision, he’s working toward reaching those end-of-year goals he’s set, and also bringing along the next wave of Gladwin throwers.
“We talk about it a lot,” Goldsworthy said. “You want to leave a legacy. If you’re a jerk, no one’s going to remember, or they’re going to remember you not in the ways you want. He’s really taken that to heart and he’s the person that people want to be around. He’s going to be remembered that, yeah, he threw 60 feet, but he helped (junior Jacob) Hurst, he helped (freshman Harvey) Grove, he helped (freshman Nick) Brasseur. They’ll remember, ‘We wouldn’t have been as good if we didn’t have Klein around.’”
Klein said coaching also is in his future, whether that’s next year as he starts his career, or later down the line if he chooses to go to college.
With his mark already firmly left on Gladwin athletics, he wants to make sure others can do the same.
“I just like seeing my teammates grow,” he said. “We’ve got a freshman right now that’s really good. I told him, ‘I don’t care if you beat my record. I just want to be there to coach you through it.’”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Gladwin’s Logan Klein prepares to launch during a turn in the shot put circle. (Middle) Klein has high aspirations in both the shot and discus this spring. (Photos courtesy of the Gladwin athletic department.)