'Officiate Michigan Day’ to Draw 1,100
July 23, 2013
More than 1,100 Michigan High School Athletic Association officials are scheduled to attend “Officiate Michigan Day” on Saturday, July 27, at the DeVos Place Convention Center in Grand Rapids, where they will receive training from 40 of the best in the officiating field.
Officials representing the amateur, collegiate and professional ranks will speak and provide training during four instructional workshops throughout the day plus additional sessions mid-day and at the end of the afternoon. “Officiate Michigan Day” is the kickoff event to the National Association of Sports Officials’ (NASO) annual Sports Officiating Summit, which will follow July 28-30 in Grand Rapids.
MHSAA Executive Director John E. “Jack” Roberts and Barry Mano, founder and president of NASO, will give the opening address. Four-time Super Bowl official Jerry Markbreit will speak to close the event. Four instructional sessions will focus on sport-specific training in officiating the following: baseball, basketball, competitive cheer, football, gymnastics, lacrosse, ice hockey, soccer, softball, track & field, volleyball and wrestling.
“We’re expecting this to be one of the largest gatherings of sports officials ever held in the United States,” said MHSAA assistant director Mark Uyl, who oversees the association’s officials program. “It will be a historic day of learning and training for our officials.”
Among scheduled clinicians are current National Basketball Association officials Joe Crawford and Bill Kennedy, NCAA National Coordinator of Volleyball Officials Joan Powell, National Hockey League Senior Vice President and Director of Officiating Terry Gregson and official Dan O’Halloran, and National Football League officials Perry Paganelli, Carl Paganelli, Jr., and Dino Paganelli. All three Paganellis have officiated Super Bowls, and O’Halloran is coming off working his fourth straight Stanley Cup Final. Crawford and Kennedy both officiated during the recent NBA Finals, and Powell also served as team leader of the U.S. women’s national volleyball team that won the silver medal at the 2008 Olympics.
“Officiate Michigan Day” is open to all officials, including those not registered with the MHSAA, and cost to attend is $35. It is recommended officials sign up online by 5 p.m. Thursday, July 25. Click to register for the conference or see the schedule and list of presenters and clinicians.
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 approximately 1.6 million spectators each year.
Hoops, Hockey Prep for Playoff Changes
December 12, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The introduction of limited seeding at the District level for girls and boys basketball, and a shift in the postseason schedule for ice hockey, are among changes that will be noticed most this season by those who compete in and follow the 12 winter sports for which the Michigan High School Athletic Association sponsors postseason tournaments.
Girls basketball’s first games tipped off Dec. 2, followed by boys basketball openers Dec. 9. This winter, for the first time, the top two teams in every basketball District will be seeded and placed on the opposite sides of their bracket, making the District Final the earliest round they could play each other. Those top-seeded teams will be determined using the Michigan Power Ratings (MPR) computer formula based on regular-season results against other MHSAA Tournament-eligible teams and opponents’ strength of schedule. (Games against out-of-state or non-MHSAA opponents will not count in the MPR formula.)
The MHSAA will draw all brackets 15 days before the start of District play. After the top seeds are determined and separated to opposite sides of the bracket, the draw process will place the remaining teams on the bracket based on a randomly-selected order determined earlier in the season. MPR also was used to similarly seed Districts for boys soccer for the first time this past fall and in the spring for boys lacrosse.
Also undergoing a change this winter, the MHSAA Ice Hockey Tournament will be played over three weeks rather than two as in previous seasons. The traditional dates for the start of the regular season and Finals will remain the same, as will the total number of regular-season games allowed. However, the MHSAA Tournament will begin on the third Monday before the Finals instead of two weeks before, and the extended postseason schedule places the maximum of six games that may be played from the start of Regionals through Finals over 20 days instead of the previous 13.
While those changes will affect tournament structures, a handful of others affecting daily competition will be particularly noticeable as well this winter:
• As with Lower Peninsula girls swimming & diving season in the fall, a pair of changes for LP boys and Upper Peninsula girls will take effect this winter. For swimmers, the definition of a legal finish has changed to include a competitor touching any part of the finish end of the lane, not just the touch pad. In diving, the degree of difficulty was adjusted for back and reverse somersaults to provide consistency with difficulty of other dives.
• In hockey, the allowed stick length for a non-goaltender has been extended to 65 inches with a blade no more than 12.5 inches long and between 2-3 inches high. The allowances for a goaltender’s stick also were adjusted – the widened portion up to 28 inches from the heel and to 3.5 inches in width, with a blade at maximum 15.5 inches in length. These changes were made to accommodate the greater average height of today’s athletes.
• In girls competitive cheer, non-braced static inversions will be allowed only with the following stipulations: the original base or spotter maintains constant contact with the flyer, prior to the static inverted position the flyer must originate from below shoulder level, and the inversion must dismount to the cheering surface, cradle, any waist-level position or a non-inverted stunt at shoulder level. Also, twists from inversions and inversions released to extended level are illegal.
• A new rule in wrestling will allow for additional time to evaluate head and neck injuries. If an injury occurs involving the head, neck, cervical column and/or nervous system and an appropriate health care professional is present, that caregiver may request the traditional 90 seconds of injury time be extended up to a maximum of five minutes to evaluate the injury. Before that time expires, the wrestler must be ready and able to continue the match or it will be defaulted.
• Also for wrestling, a new criteria has been added to the tie-breaking system used when a dual meet finishes in a tied score. The new sixth criteria “f” states that the team giving up the fewest forfeits during a match shall be declared the winner.
The 2019-20 Winter campaign culminates with postseason tournaments beginning with Girls & Boys Skiing Regionals on Feb. 10, and wraps up with the Boys Basketball Finals on March 28. Here is a complete list of winter tournament dates:
Girls Basketball
Districts – March 2, 4 & 6
Regionals – March 10 & 12
Quarterfinals – March 17
Semifinals – March 19-20
Finals – March 21
Boys Basketball
Districts – March 9, 11 & 13
Regionals – March 16 & 18
Quarterfinals – March 24
Semifinals – March 26-27
Finals – March 28
Girls & Boys Bowling
Team Regionals – Feb. 28
Singles Regionals – Feb. 29
Team Finals – March 6
Singles Finals – March 7
Girls Competitive Cheer
Districts – Feb. 21-22
Regionals – Feb. 29
Finals: March 6-7
Girls Gymnastics
Regionals – March 7
Team Finals – March 13
Individual Finals – March 14
Ice Hockey
Regionals – Feb. 24-March 4
Quarterfinals – March 7
Semifinals – March 12-13
Finals – March 14
Girls and Boys Skiing
Regionals – Feb. 10-14
Finals – Feb. 24
Girls & Boys Swimming & Diving
U.P. Girls & Boys Finals – Feb. 15
L.P. Boys Diving Qualification Meets – March 5
L.P. Boys Finals – March 13-14
Wrestling
Team Districts – Feb. 12-13
Individual Districts – Feb. 15
Team Regionals – Feb. 19
Individual Regionals – Feb. 22
Team Quarterfinals – Feb. 28
Team Semifinals & Finals – Feb. 29
Individual Finals – March 6-7