Online Course Trains Leaders Nationwide
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 11, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The valuable lessons student leaders have received over the last decade during Captains Clinics presented statewide by Michigan High School Athletic Association staff are now available to students nationwide and beyond as part of an online Captains Course produced by the MHSAA and available from the National Federation of State High School Associations on its Learning Center website.
The Captains Course, created over two years with assistance from Michigan State University’s Institute for the Study of Youth Sports (ISYS), is broken into 10 segments providing instruction on leadership styles and skills to how to handle situations faced by leaders of teams in any sport. A total of 20 past members of the MHSAA Student Advisory Council speak during the program, providing peer-to-peer guidance that has proven effective in student leadership campaigns.
The online Captains Course has been started 2,881 times since its release in July, including 802 times during the first 10 days of this month. The first MHSAA Captains Clinic was conducted in March 2005, and clinics are presented in person on a league-by-league basis to approximately 1,000 students each school year.
The online Captains Course is free and can be downloaded after an account is created on the NFHS Learning Center website at http://www.nfhslearn.com.
“Many student-athletes have characteristics that allow them to become leaders, but rarely do they receive lessons in how to be an effective team captain; this has been the goal of our Captains Clinics and is the aim of this Captains Course,” said MHSAA assistant director Andy Frushour, who coordinates the association’s student services programs and advises the Student Advisory Council. “Our in-person Captains Clinics are still a great way to deliver leadership lessons and to get students from rival schools to interact with each other in a fun and worthwhile way. But we can only do so many in-person clinics per year.
“With the online version, we can deliver the same message, albeit through a different format. And we can do it 24 hours a day, at the user’s convenience, using a medium that kids use like the rest of us use oxygen, and potentially delivering our captains message to exponentially more students than the in-person version; even to students outside of Michigan.”
The online Captains Course is an introductory program, with plans for two more advanced leadership courses that will be facilitated online but with activities and discussions to take place offline in local communities. The goal for the “hands-on” portion of later training courses will be for leaders to conduct interviews with coaches and administrators, write short answers and interact with teammates for a more transformational learning experience.
The first course is made up of 10, 10-minute segments, and takes about two hours to complete – but is meant to be completed over multiple days. The short “bite-sized” segments make it easier for students to digest all of the information being given to them, and are based on research by the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports. Doctoral students working with the institute serve as instructors during Captains Clinics.
The Captains Course is hosted by recent high school graduates Caycee Turczyn of Lapeer High School and Connor Thomas of Marlette. Both were two-year members of the Student Advisory Council; Turczyn will begin studies this fall at the University of Michigan, while Thomas will start at Oakland University.
“All of the lessons are based on research conducted by MSU’s Institute for the Study of Youth Sports,” Frushour said. “Dr. Dan Gould and his doctoral students are rock stars in the field of youth and leadership development, and we are lucky to have them as partners on this project “
The Institute for the Study of Youth Sports was launched in 1978 to establish a world-class institute that would scientifically study the beneficial and detrimental effects of sports participation on children and youth and then work to maximize the beneficial effects. The mission of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports is to provide leadership, scholarship and outreach that transforms the face of youth sports in ways that maximize the beneficial physical, psychological, and social effects of participation for children and youth while minimizing detrimental effects.
The Student Advisory Council is a 16-member group which provides feedback on issues impacting educational athletics from a student’s perspective, and also is involved in the operation of MHSAA championship events and other programming. Members of the Student Advisory Council serve for two years, beginning as juniors. Eight new members are selected annually to serve on the SAC, with nominations made by MHSAA member schools.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,400 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: Lapeer's Caycee Turczyn and Marlette's Connor Thomas host the online Captains Course, with this segment shot at DeWitt High School.
Battle of the Fans: Small Town, Big Reese Spirit
January 30, 2012
REESE – Everything about Reese is small – the dot on the map, the town itself, its population, its number of retail stores, the high school gym.
But one thing looms large, especially for opponents stepping into the school’s gym this winter: the spirit of the Rowdy Rockets.
Town folk will tell you. On a blustery Friday night in Reese, there isn’t much to discuss in the way of making plans. They’re already made. If the boys or girls basketball team is playing at home, the gym on S. Van Buren Road is the only place to be.
“You get more than 20 people there, it’s like 80 percent of Reese,” junior Nick Arnold said. “After the games, we hold town meetings.”
All joking aside, it was the hot spot again Friday night for a Greater Thumb Conference boys varsity match-up with Cass City. By the third quarter of the junior varsity contest, the bleachers were nearly full.
Reese is one of five finalists for the MHSAA Student Advisory Council’s “Battle of the Fans” competition. MHSAA staff visited both the Rockets and Grand Rapids Christian on Friday after starting the tour Jan. 21 at Frankenmuth. Trips will be made to both Rockford and Petoskey over the next three weeks, with videos of all five finalists posted on the MHSAA Facebook page. After an online vote and SAC discussion, the winner will be announced on Feb. 24. Clips from all five MHSAA-produced videos will be shown during the Girls and Boys Basketball Finals in March at the Breslin Center.
The full bleachers are great news for a school that struggled some in recent seasons to get good student turnout. Few would show up, or show little enthusiasm. That led to grumbling in the parent section about the lack of support. 
Last season, that began to change as a group of student leaders began to emerge and organize what today has become the Rowdy Rockets.
“Our student section is absolutely awesome. I love the energy, the excitement, the positive,” Reese athletic director Dave Derocher said.
“You just get that one person,” junior Drea Ramirez said. “And that one person will start a fire.”
Students streamed into the stands Friday covered in maroon and gold – not by choice, but by mandate.
That directive came during a 20-minute pep assembly at the end of the school day during which the Pep Club solidified the section’s cheers for that night’s game.
“We told them this afternoon, ‘You aren’t getting in if you’re not wearing the colors,’” junior Kyle Yatsevich said.
The Rowdy Rockets kicked things off by forming a fan tunnel for the hoops team to run through during its grand entrance. It was hard to tell who was more fired up, fans or players.
The first instruction given from the bleachers during the opening quarter was one of a decidedly less rowdy nature. The entire section sat in silence for nearly half of the first period of play – by design. Then Reese scored its sixth point – and roughly 150 students (of about 350 in the student body total) launched from their seats and screamed for the entirety of the ensuing Cass City possession. The silent treatment had officially ended.
There weren’t many quiet moments to be had inside the gym thereafter. Repeats of “DE-FENSE,” the always-popular “spirit fingers” during Reese free throws and plenty of pre-planned cheers involving change in possession put exclamation points on game play throughout the night.
Two sing-a-longs in particular brought the section to a boil: arms flailed during “YMCA,” and voices carried during a (surprisingly well-sung) version of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.’” The sea of maroon and gold was unified in nearly everything it did, including a fan roller coaster that would rival any student section.
Halftime also brought that feeling of unity. The Reese Pom team darted onto the floor, but only after the entire student section had rushed to snag seats on the hardwood in front of the team benches. Rowdy Rockets sat in appreciation of the two-minute routine and then cheered for their schoolmates, just as they had done all evening for the basketball squad. Senior Pep Club leader Cassidy Stephens instigated the class-by-class Tug-of-War contest that completed the halftime festivities.
Throughout the evening, the theme of all-encompassing support was especially clear.
“Why would you want to take and follow someone who always is pessimistic, down in the dumps,” Arnold added. “You’ve gotta be up and cheery. I’m not saying we’re all walking around as Pippy Longstocking. But we’re pretty happy people. … You’re always leading by example.”
In the end, the Rockets pulled out a win over Cass City – and in a way that only a small-town gym can attest, the fans took as much pride in that victory as the players themselves.
They played to the point Arnold had made during the assembly earlier that day.
“We always try to be positive and loud. Those are the hallmarks of our student section,” he said. “We want to be the sixth man on the court.”
Check back Tuesday afternoon for video of the Rowdy Rockets in action.
PHOTOS by Reese senior Katie Ackerman and junior Abbie Gnatkowski. Report by the MHSAA's Andi Osters.