Let's Learn What This Time Can Teach Us
April 8, 2020
By Kevin Wolma
Hudsonville Athletic Director
A simple service return that landed into the net last fall ended my son’s tennis career.
When you are a senior, there is an end date. Just like that it is over.
Seems like yesterday I was playing catch with him in the front yard. Seems like yesterday I was rebounding as he shot at our basketball hoop. Seems like yesterday I put a tennis racquet in his hands for the first time. The success and failures along with the laughter and frustration all came to an end.
Along the way people would warn me about how fast the time goes, but when you are living day to day, you don’t really believe them. Going into the final day of the season, I had those thoughts that this would be the last day I’d watch my son play a competitive tennis match, but it didn't really hit me until I watched that last ball go into the net.
However, I also realized that we were going to experience many final moments during his senior year and this was a natural part of the journey. What I didn't know on that day was that this was the very last time I would see him compete. The cancellation of spring sports season with the COVID-19 crisis took that opportunity away from him competing in track & field this spring.
We never know when things will be taken away from us.
Administrators, Athletes, Coaches, Officials, Trainers:
Do you have a message that will provide inspiration, motivation or comfort to Michigan’s high school sports community during this unprecedented time? We’d like to help share it. Submit your “viewpoint” – written or video – to [email protected] for consideration for publication on Second Half.
My daughter, also a senior, will also lose the opportunity to finish her tennis career at Hudsonville because of the COVID-19 shutdown. For the two of us, tennis was more than a sport – it was our connection. From the time she was 5 years old hitting foam balls in the gym to now, the tennis court became far more than a surface with a net and lines.
The tennis court was our place of solitude. We hit thousands and thousands of tennis balls over the years. But more importantly, the tennis court created a platform where lessons were shared, stories of success and failure were told, and a love for a sport was born. I dread the day the tennis court sits silent, because that means my daughter will move on to her next stage in life. That time could be now.
Sports is not the end-all, and it surely does not define a person. However, it is a mechanism to bring people together and to teach life lessons that are often taken for granted, until we realize it is over.
The purpose of this article is not to talk about the end as much as it is to emphasize the importance of those moments leading to the end. Don’t let those moments slip away. If your son or daughter asks you to go outside and play catch, please put down the computer or phone and do it. The email can wait. The phone call can wait. The game on TV can wait.
Admittedly, I have been occasionally guilty of this as well and now realize the importance of time and how unpredictable it can be. I have one more chance with my youngest daughter to make sure we don’t take those moments for granted. They are moments we will never get back, and again, we never know when those moments will be taken away.
As a high school athletic director, all I’ve wanted was more time. Sixty plus-hour work weeks while trying to navigate work and home schedules is often a challenge. Many of us live this life every day. We all would like more time.
However, over a 48-hour span during the month of March 2020, time was all I had. In those two days, after the Utah Jazz’ Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, both the NCAA and NBA shut down while schools and businesses began closing their doors indefinitely.
Now, time is all any of us have.
My hope is that we realize time is a gift and we must be willing to receive it when available. Take advantage of the time to regain a perspective of what is really important in our lives and act on that. This moment in time will end and for many of us, our lives will resume juggling personal, work, and sports schedules. Are we ready? Did we take this “time off” from the busyness of life and focus on how we can maximize every moment of every day?
For some of us, this gives us a chance to hit the restart button and maybe look at youth sports through a different lens. Maybe our interactions with our kids, coaches, and officials will be more positive. Maybe we worry less about the outcome and more about the process. Once we get back to the playing field, maybe we will look at participation in sports differently. Maybe we will understand that it is truly a gift, and every gift deserves a level of gratitude – gratitude toward the many people who allow this experience, and all its life lessons, to transpire.
Years from now, when we look back at the year of COVID-19, will we still value the essence of time and living in the moment? Will we still give gratitude to the gift of sports? Each one of us wants to look back at our kid’s experiences with athletics and have no regrets. No regrets with our actions. No regrets with our time. We have an opportunity as parents right now to pause, reflect, and make changes that could impact youth sports for generations to come.
We must seize this opportunity now because this part of life will be over before we know it. For some of us, maybe even more quickly than we expected.
Wolma has served as Hudsonville's athletic director since 2011 and previously coached boys varsity basketball and girls varsity golf among other teams. He also previously taught physical education and health. Photo courtesy of the Hudsonville High School tennis programs.
Century of School Sports: Everything We Do Begins with Participation
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
March 5, 2025
For 100 years the MHSAA and its member schools have trumpeted the many benefits of educational athletics. The list of positive reasons to play has only grown.
But every idea and effort to make school sports excellent starts with one underlying theme that has served as a primary motivation from the beginning:
Participation.
The MHSAA long has been driven by a desire to see as many students participate in sports as possible, within a framework of rules that intentionally makes that opportunity so valuable that playing for the school team becomes the dream for thousands of kids all over our state.
And MHSAA member schools have a long history of succeeding at that mission.
A few comparisons and a decent share of context are necessary to explain how. We will dive into some numbers, but these two points sum up the story:
The total number of high school students in Michigan has been shrinking annually over several years – high-school aged population in this state is down 21 percent since 2006-07. But the numbers of students playing sports at MHSAA schools has grown three straight years and has declined by only 13.5 percent over the same stretch of time.
Michigan participation in high school sports annually outpaces where it ranked nationally in high school-aged population. We may have fewer students than some states, but more of them are playing more sports for their schools.
How do we know all this?
Every spring since 1971, the MHSAA has reported how many athletes from member schools participate – by sport – as part of a survey from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). Those numbers are crunched by the NFHS for all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and over the last several years the MHSAA has taken that data and then compared how Michigan participation stacks up to state populations of people aged 14-17.
(The NFHS collects data on all school sports, whether they receive state association sponsorship or not. Participants also are counted once for every sport they participate in, so two-sport athletes are counted twice, three-sport athletes are counted three times, etc.).
For this narrative’s sake, let’s start with the 1977-78 school. By then, several girls sports had begun to receive MHSAA sponsorship and also had a few years to get established and grow. For that school year, the MHSAA reported 242,616 participants. Just under a decade later, for 1985-86, that total had grown to 265,227 (and a few more girls sports had been added), and those totals continued to rise during the 1990s reaching 295,858 in 2000-01.
A key high point came in 2006-07, when the MHSAA reported 320,479 total participants in all sports at member schools including 313,093 in MHSAA-sponsored sports. The grand totals then shifted downward slowly once again – but in proportion to falling student enrollment at MHSAA member schools, which has dropped nearly 113,000 students (21 percent) since that notable year. It’s also fair to make an educated guess – because students are counted once for every sport played – that a trend toward sport specialization also affected those numbers to some degree.
Fast forward to today. For the 2023-24 school year, there were 270,664 participants in MHSAA sports, plus another 19,920 in sports not sponsored by the association (weight lifting, etc.). So while Michigan hasn’t approached 300,000 participants in more than a decade, the total for MHSAA sports this past year was only 13.5 percent fewer than that 2006-07 season – again, compared to 21-percent fewer students at those schools. And the even better news? Participation has increased three straight years coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another telling comparison is how Michigan participation continues to compare nationally.
Going back to at least the 2012-13 school year – not counting 2019-20 and 2020-21, when the NFHS survey was suspended because of COVID-19’s effect on school sports – Michigan consistently has ranked either seventh or eighth in participation nationally, falling past that ranking only once to ninth. For 2023-24, Michigan ranked eighth for participation.
Meanwhile, Michigan ranked ninth nationally for high school-aged population from 2012-13 through 2015-16 before sliding into its current 10th spot on that list. So for this past school year, participation at MHSAA member schools ranked two spots ahead of its ranking for high school-aged population.
The first step to receiving the benefits of school sports is getting out there and playing them. And Michigan high schoolers are continuing to do so – both at rates that compare well historically over the last 50 years, and compared to states across the country of similar sizes. This has long been a point of MHSAA pride, and will continue to be a primary focus of its work.
Previous "Century of School Sports" Spotlights
Feb. 25: Slogans & Logos Remain Unforgettable Parts of MHSAA History - Read
Feb. 19: MHSAA Tickets Continue to Provide Fan-Friendly Value - Read
Feb. 11: We Recognize Those Who Make Our Games Go - Read
Feb. 4: WISL Conference Continues to Inspire Aspiring Leaders - Read
Jan. 28: Michigan's National Impact Begins at NFHS' Start - Read
Jan. 21: Awards Celebrate Well-Rounded Educational Experience - Read
Jan. 14: Predecessors Laid Foundation for MHSAA's Formation - Read
Jan. 9: MHSAA Blazes Trail Into Cyberspace - Read
Dec. 31: State's Storytellers Share Winter Memories - Read
Dec. 17: MHSAA Over Time - Read
Dec. 10: On This Day, December 13, We Will Celebrate - Read
Dec. 3: MHSAA Work Guided by Representative Council - Read
Nov. 26: Finals Provide Future Pros Early Ford Field Glory - Read
Nov. 19: Connection at Heart of Coaches Advancement Program - Read
Nov. 12: Good Sports are Winners Then, Now & Always - Read
Nov. 5: MHSAA's Home Sweet Home - Read
Oct. 29: MHSAA Summits Draw Thousands to Promote Sportsmanship - Read
Oct. 23: Cross Country Finals Among MHSAA's Longest Running - Read
Oct. 15: State's Storytellers Share Fall Memories - Read
Oct. 8: Guided by 4 S's of Educational Athletics - Read
Oct. 1: Michigan Sends 10 to National Hall of Fame - Read
Sept. 25: MHSAA Record Books Filled with 1000s of Achievements - Read
Sept. 18: Why Does the MHSAA Have These Rules? - Read
Sept. 10: Special Medals, Patches to Commemorate Special Year - Read
Sept. 4: Fall to Finish with 50th Football Championships - Read
Aug. 28: Let the Celebration Begin - Read