The Official View: All in This Together
By
Brent Rice
MHSAA Assistant Director
November 5, 2018
By Brent Rice
MHSAA Assistant Director
“The Official View” has received significant positive feedback, from both officials and non-officials – and we thank you for your interest in learning more about this essential avocation.
This week, we discuss a promising effort to recruit Legacy officials and another “get-to-know-you” opportunity at MHSAA Sportsmanship Summits, plus dive into rules scenarios in volleyball and swimming.
It’s Official!
MHSAA officials will be presenting over the coming weeks at the annual Sportsmanship Summits held around the state. Renewed focus will be concentrated on the effect that poor sportsmanship has on the challenge of recruiting and retaining officials. Discussions will be led by noted officials in those areas to allow students to discuss the concerns and solutions to these issues.
Improving sportsmanship is a priority of the MHSAA Officials Program, and officials should be looking for new initiatives to support this goal. They include new policies on protecting officials, providing schools with framework to institute a Game Day Ambassadors Program, “Official Thanks” nights and several others.
Some efforts already have proven successful. “The Official View” continues to serve its purpose in humanizing the folks that officiate MHSAA contests. On that note, keep sending those photos and stories to [email protected] for features in The Official View. Ideally, submissions will be for in-season sports and include photo(s). Don’t forget to add the who, what, where, and when.
Rule of the Week
VOLLEYBALL As A1 tosses the ball in the air to serve, she realizes she is the improper server and catches the ball in attempt to force a re-serve. The proper server (A2) then immediately takes her place and makes a legal serve, scoring a point. A2’s toss for her second serve is bad and she catches the ball.
Ruling: This is an illegal serve and loss of rally/point. The re-serve privilege was used up by A1 since this was during A2’s term of service.
It’s Your Call
SWIMMING In the clip, the swimmer in Lane 5 begins to stray in her backstroke and ends up incidentally contacting the lane divider. She ultimately continues and wins the race. What’s the call?
Last Week’s IYC Ruling: In the clip, as the attacker and the keeper approach the ball, the attacker strikes the keeper’s ear. Since this is outside of the penalty area, a direct free kick would be awarded and the attacker would be assessed a yellow card. (Click to see last week's video.)
Official View: We’re All in This Together
The MHSAA Legacy Program has produced some terrific officials since its inception in 1992, many of whom are still officials today. We feel that recruiting eager and qualified officials is a collective partnership between the MHSAA, schools and officials associations around the state.
For our part, the MHSAA offers a reduced registration fee for enrolled-student officials to get them started into officiating. We suggest that the schools and associations further alleviate these new officials from their startup costs by taking on this reduced fee. Schools benefit because they can then utilize these officials’ services at middle school and junior high school contests, and associations benefit because they are able to add a new official to their rosters for years to come.
Fowlerville has taking the lead in this area by recently hosting a Legacy clinic where veteran officials were paired with newly registered (paid for by Fowlerville Schools) Legacy officials and assigned to a volleyball match with local middle school Red Cedar League teams. This event allowed experienced mentor officials to provide on-the-spot constructive feedback in live game scenarios.
Other schools are following suit by hosting clinics and other events to draw new officials into the fold, including adding curriculum in officiating to next year’s course load. Schools interested in adding officiating to their curriculum can contact Brent Rice of the MHSAA for a curriculum outline and guides to make it a success.
PHOTOS: (Top) Fowlerville Legacy officials and mentors work a recent middle school volleyball match; left to right: John Garrison, Kelli Hart, Lindsey Darby, Jackie Jarvis, Dalaija Franklin, Rodney Horton and Tyler Hover. (Middle) Hart (mentor) instructs Franklin, far right, while Darby shadows. (Photos courtesy of the Fowlerville athletic department.)
Dowagiac Superintendent Continues Connection to Hoops as MHSAA Game Official
By
Scott Hassinger
Special for MHSAA.com
January 8, 2025
DOWAGIAC – It was about three years ago that Greg Blomgren, a former high school boys basketball coach, realized he needed to find a niche that allowed him to stay connected with the game he grew up loving.
Blomgren, who took over as Dowagiac Community Schools' superintendent July 1, has found the perfect way to fill that void as a registered basketball official for the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
Now in his fourth season working varsity boys and girls games in the Southwestern Michigan area within a 45-mile radius of his home in Sister Lakes, Blomgren enjoys the opportunities officiating has provided him to help bridge the gap between coaches and game officials and continue improving the game of basketball.
“Having been a coach in the past, I am able to better understand things from the coaches' perspective, and that is an advantage for me. I really believe that all coaches should officiate and all officials should coach,” Blomgren said. “It brings about a better level of communication and understanding because you've experienced both sides.
“Back when I was coaching, I know I was sometimes tough on officials. My appreciation of officials grew though in my latter years of coaching. I just really enjoy being part of this game again.”
In January 2021, Blomgren contacted Kalamazoo Officials Association assigners Rob King and Chuck Rawsthorne regarding the process to become a registered MHSAA basketball official. The KOA is responsible for assignors for primarily the Southwestern Michigan Athletic Conference, Wolverine Conference and the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
After completing his training and necessary exams, Blomgren was assigned four games during his first week that January. He officiated mostly freshman and junior varsity contests in 2021 but was assigned one varsity girls game between Lawton and Vicksburg that season.
"I was really nervous calling my first varsity game, but it went pretty well," Blomgren recalled.
Blomgren steadily increased his officiating schedule to 35 games his second season, then 85-90 games during the 2023-24 campaign at various levels. Since taking the superintendent's job in Dowagiac, Blomgren has reduced his schedule for this season to around 55 games.
"I'm really thankful to Rob and Chuck. They have both done a great job working with me and finding a schedule that works with mostly varsity games that take place later in the evening," Blomgren said.
Blomgren is a 1991 graduate of Des Moines Lincoln High School (Iowa) where he played multiple sports, with a passion for basketball, at the largest school in the state.
He also grew up during the explosion era of the AAU basketball circuit. From age 11 through his high school years, Blomgren had the opportunity to compete on several Iowa state title teams in national tournaments.
"Those teams were a fun and rewarding experience. We went to nationals and faced some competitive teams, including the Michigan Super Friends, a team with future Michigan and NBA standouts Chris Webber and Jalen Rose," Blomgren said. “There were other star players on other teams from various states we faced like Grant Hill, Penny Hardaway, Eric Montross and Damon Bailey.”
After graduating high school, Blomgren attended the University of Nebraska-Kearney before transferring to Grandview College, an NAIA school, in Des Moines where he earned a bachelor's degree in biology in 1996.
Upon moving to Milwaukee in 1997, Blomgren began substitute teaching and got into coaching basketball at the middle school level. He returned to school around that time and completed his teaching certification from Wisconsin University-Parkside.
Blomgren began his coaching career as a volunteer assistant at Kenosha St. Joseph (Wisconsin) followed by a similar job at nearby Wilmont High School. Shortly after those two stops, Blomgren landed his first head coaching job at Clear Lake High School in Iowa, where he spent two years.
Blomgren and his wife Angie, a Niles native and daughter of former Niles Brandywine band director Jay Crouch, moved to Michigan after Greg was hired as a science teacher and replaced Al Westendorp as Dowagiac's varsity boys basketball coach. Blomgren served as Dowagiac's boys coach from 2002-09 and spent three years as the head girls basketball coach as well.
Blomgren accepted the position of Dean of Students in St. Joseph, where he replaced Greg Schaffer as the Bears' varsity boys coach and served from 2009-16. Blomgren resigned after the 2015-16 campaign to concentrate on his administrative duties as the assistant high school principal before eventually taking over as the district's high school principal.
"Eventually I had to resign from coaching. There are too many evening activities that you have to be present at and supervise, so I stepped down," Blomgren said. "People don't understand the amount of time you must spend to do it right with practice planning, scouting, watching film and all the time you spend in the offseason trying to give the kids the best opportunity to compete. It’s more time spent than what you become accustomed to seeing from coaches on Tuesday and Friday nights. I don't think I'll ever return to coaching. Right now, it just doesn't fit my schedule."
Blomgren and his wife have three grown children – daughters Alyssa (24) and Avery (20) and 22-year old son Andy, along with one granddaughter Aria.
Blomgren is enjoying his new role as Dowagiac's superintendent and is pleased with the positive things that have taken place during his first few months leading the school district.
"The time we spent here a few years back when I was at Dowagiac helped us develop a lot of good relationships," Blomgren said. “There's a lot of pride that people take in small towns like ours. I knew the people here, and I believe they thought I was someone who could bring some of that culture back to the district. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to do that and make this a district everyone is proud to be a part of.”
The MHSAA has seen a decline in recent years in the number of registered game officials, due in part to poor sportsmanship particularly among adult spectators. But the organization has worked hard in recent years to change that, and participation is on the rise once again.
As an administrator and basketball official, Blomgren sees himself playing a major role in promoting good sportsmanship.
"Good sportsmanship in a school district depends on the leadership in the building. A good athletic director will make sportsmanship a top priority. He or she will make sure their school is going to represent themselves and the school district appropriately," Blomgren said. “If you do that it sets an expectation and tone with the parents, players and people in the community.
“Good sportsmanship is something I believe needs to constantly be improved upon in every district. The $7 you pay at the gate doesn't give you the right to say whatever you want after you walk into the gym. That isn't what high school athletics are about. When I was coaching in St. Joe and Dowagiac, it was always about how we conducted ourselves on the court rather than the number of wins or losses.”
Even in today's age of high technology, Blomgren believes high school athletes still desire to work hard and succeed as a team.
"Kids today want to be good, but they need to realize the time and effort you must put in to be successful," he said. “Schools that win consistently are the ones where everyone on the team shows up and puts in the work both during (the season) and in the offseason. The successful programs have good feeder programs with at least three or four good players in each class who have played a lot of games with one another. Those factors are what breeds success.”
Scott Hassinger is a contributing sportswriter for Leader Publications and previously served as the sports editor for the Three Rivers Commercial-News from 1994-2022. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph and Branch counties.
PHOTOS (Top) At left, Dowagiac superintendent Greg Blomgren addresses an audience during his first day in the position, July 1. At right, Blomgren officiates a girls basketball in December between host Cassopolis and White Pigeon. (Middle) Dowagiac assistant superintendent Michael Dunn, left, and Blomgren present Dowagiac Middle School science teacher Pat Lyle with a pin for 30 years of service. (Below) Blomgren, far right, is pictured with members of the Dowagiac Board of Education before the start of the 2024 Homecoming Parade. (Basketball photo by Scott Hassinger. All others provided by Dowagiac Community Schools.)