Recent Stars Build on HS Sports Foundation
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
January 23, 2018
Mattawan’s Allie Havers experienced high school sports in part as a stepping stone to a scholarship and eventual national championship at the University of Nebraska.
Hackett Catholic Prep’s Hope Baldwin earned two national awards and several scholarships for an essay on the role of high school sports in shaping her future.
But for both Kalamazoo-area athletes, high school sports had a much deeper impact than just national recognition.
Baldwin, who is not playing varsity sports as a freshman at University of Notre Dame, was an MHSAA Scholar-Athlete Award winner, received the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association National Scholar Athlete of the Year award in Phoenix in December and will travel to Atlanta in April for the Coach Wooden Citizenship Trophy.
She wrote the essay while a senior at Hackett and, looking back, she said, “When I wrote that essay, I think it was probably March of my senior year. Now, being in college and not being involved in those athletics any more has given me the opportunity to appreciate them even more.
“Reading my speech and being able to look back on how I was writing from that perspective still in high school, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I knew it was important then, but now not having it any more I realize even more what a benefit high school sports are.”
The lasting impression for both athletes is not a specific game or highlight, but “mostly I miss my teammates and coaches,” Baldwin said.
“In each season, coming in every day to practice with the same people really made unique bonds because we were all working toward the same goals.”
Havers, who was first-team all-state in three sports at Mattawan, said looking back, it’s the people who made the deepest impression.
“I remember the people, the coaches, my teammates and the seniors who were on the team my senior year,” she said. “I look back, and it was a pretty cool experience. I’m really humbled.
“I didn’t do it by myself. I had help from my parents, siblings, coaches and teammates.”
Words of wisdom
Baldwin was stunned when her essay won for the state of Michigan and then for her NIAAA section (Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana).
She then was chosen as the female national award winner, earning a $2,500 scholarship in addition to a plaque.
Among points she emphasized were the following:
- “Sports have taught me valuable time management skills.”
- “I learned … how to deal with disappointment gracefully, an ability I will carry with me in the years after high school.”
- “Developing a mindset of good sportsmanship has enabled me to look beyond winning or losing. … I realize a disappointing experience is still worthwhile.”
- “I broke my collarbone in a soccer game and had to undergo surgery. … I learned how to lead my team from the bench.”
She added that although most enjoy the thrill of competition, “the true value of athletics lies in the transformation off the court. That is, in the time management, leadership, work ethic and teamwork skills that are carried in one’s character beyond sports and beyond high school.”
Baldwin, who is majoring in neuroscience and behavior with a pre-med concentration, said she chose Notre Dame for academics rather than attending a smaller school where she might have played sports.
While she played four years of volleyball, basketball and soccer at Hackett, that drive for competition has not completely left her.
“I’ve been doing some intramural sports, which is really fun,” she said. “Sand volleyball, basketball and our dorm had a flag football team. We actually ended up making it to the championship and we got to play in the Notre Dame football stadium, so that was really cool.”
Succeeding, switching, succeeding again
Havers had no doubt she would be playing college sports after an outstanding career in basketball, volleyball and softball at Mattawan, graduating in 2013.
She earned a basketball scholarship to University of Michigan but when the coach left, she de-committed and eventually ended up with the Cornhuskers.
The transition from high school to college hoops was an eye-opener.
“I had to catch up to the game,” Havers said. “In college, the girls are a lot bigger, a lot stronger, a lot faster and more physical. I knew the girls at post, my position, were a lot stronger than me.
“I came in at (6-foot-4) 140 pounds, and most others in the post position were 180 to 200 pounds.”
Her practice schedule was also different.
In high school, the team practiced about two hours a day.
But in college, “We practice four hours and on the court just about every day,” Havers said. “You have school work, lifting, meetings, tutors. You will definitely come out with great organization skills.”
After playing four years of basketball at Nebraska and graduating with a degree in psychology, Havers knew she did not want to give up competition in a college atmosphere.
“I had a fifth year of eligibility left but not in basketball, so I went out for the volleyball team,” said Havers, who is working toward a master’s degree in journalism and mass communications. “I knew if I didn’t try, I would regret it. Nebraska is a volleyball dynasty.”
She was faced with a situation unfamiliar to her.
“I played every basketball game, but I played just two volleyball games,” she said. “It was a lot different. I was used to playing a lot in basketball and all through high school, too.”
“No athlete likes sitting the bench, but you learn your role and you go with it. I feel really blessed for the opportunity and knew I had to work hard for a spot.”
The payoff was the NCAA National Championship when Nebraska defeated Florida in the four-set final Dec. 16.
Even though her college eligibility is gone, Havers, who hopes coach once she graduates, is still playing sports at the intramural level.
“Beach volleyball is a college sport at Nebraska,” she said. “It’s a three-month season with an indoor court.”
Havers' advice for high school athletes is: “Go in with an open mind, go in with heart and leave nothing on the table. Go to practice earlier and stay later.
“Coaches promise you anything, but that’s not always the way it goes. You have to go with the flow.”
Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Mattawan’s Allie Havers, left, and Kalamazoo Hackett’s Hope Baldwin enjoyed outstanding high school athletic careers. (Middle) Baldwin, top, and Havers. (Below) Havers went on to play both basketball and then volleyball at Nebraska. (Basketball photo courtesy of Nebraska’s athletic department; soccer photo courtesy of Hackett’s girls soccer program.)
ESSAY: See the full text of Baldwin’s essay below that contributed to her selection as an NIAAA Scholar Athlete winner for 2017.
Century of School Sports: MHSAA Blazes Trail Into Cyberspace
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
January 9, 2025
When the MHSAA took its first footsteps into cyberspace in 1996 – and then officially launched MHSAA.com on Aug. 15, 1997 – the jump into the internet revolution was to help characterize the MHSAA’s focus on the future, according to a Muskegon Chronicle report quoting then-executive director Jack Roberts.
Predicting how that future would quickly and continuously unfold may have been anyone’s guess. But over the next nearly three decades, MHSAA.com has grown, evolved, added a companion website and then united them into a single valuable landing spot not just for those who work to make our games happen, but the millions who cheer for them as well.
The first rendition of an MHSAA website reached the World Wide Web during Fall 1996 with an American Online (aol.com) URL and included rankings for the MHSAA Football Playoffs. The official version 1.0 of MHSAA.com launched just about a year later, anchored by what would be the website’s priorities for the next 15 years – an area titled “Administration” containing tools primarily for school administrators, a “Services” section highlighting sportsmanship, scholarship and safety; and “The Games” that included sport-by-sport details on rules changes, tournament assignments and historical information.
The MHSAA reported more than 12,000 visitors to its online home during October 1997 – about 400 daily, with the weekly football rankings the largest draw. A little more than a year later, in November 1998, the MHSAA enjoyed its biggest month to date with more than 2,500 visitors daily to climb past 850,000 since the launch of the website. More than 58,000 of those views came during the release of that season’s Football Playoff pairings, and another major draw was the “Games Wanted” page listing teams looking for opponents, which was athletic directors’ biggest ask when surveyed two years earlier on what they wanted most from an MHSAA website.
MHSAA.com already was pushing far ahead of the curve, especially when it came to state school sports associations. But that start was only slightly a sign of things to come. The website has taken on a life that far surpasses any “much has changed, much has stayed the same” scenario.
Truth be told, the goals for the website have not changed in several years – MHSAA.com has provided a place for member school administrators and coaches, and game officials, to do their daily MHSAA-related business. But that mission has been joined by a growing emphasis on telling the story of school sports to the growing number of fans paying us a visit.
What’s changed is how the MHSAA has delivered on those missions.
The website’s design evolved during the final years of the 1990s and first decade of the 2000s, following the fast-moving progression across the internet. Navigation – getting users where they want to go easily – became the buzzword, and adding more and more information to the site meant adding better avenues to find and organize it.
The MHSAA redesign carried out during the 2009-10 school year – the first built by now-longtime partner Gravity Works Design & Development in Lansing – propelled the website in a big way toward what you see today. Navigation menus now remained a static part of every page as users navigated within the site. A large action photo was placed at the top of the front page to bring it to life, as were feeds from the MHSAA’s well-followed social media accounts and a video player highlighting the growing broadcast and video presence.
And then came the largest leap. In late 2011, the MHSAA became one of two state associations nationwide at the time (along with Arizona) to begin creating its own fan-focused editorial content. In January 2012, the MHSAA launched its Second Half website as a home for feature stories, blogs, videos and coverage of MHSAA Finals, produced mostly by longtime media members operating as correspondents from their various regions of the state.
For the 2008-09 school year, MHSAA.com had attracted 19.2 million page views. For 2013-14, the count (including both the main and Second Half sites) totaled 22.5 million. That jumped to 27.2 million for 2018-19. And the most defining design change was still ahead.
While the Second Half’s article content had begun to draw nearly 1 million page views annually – a success considering the state has about 170,000 high school athletes – that content remained separated from an already-robust amount of schedules, scores, results and records data the MHSAA had published on its main site over 25 years, plus all the other postseason promotion and information fans had begun to seek.
So in 2022, the MHSAA made one more big jump to land at the website you’re visiting today.
Paying special attention to not disrupt the work of school people using the site for administrative purposes, the MHSAA closed down Second Half and brought all that content to the front of MHSAA.com – for the first time making the front page of the main website fan-focused. That emphasis on spectator experience continued with new, easier-to-understand navigation, and redesigns of sports pages to better promote MHSAA Tournament events and Michigan Power Ratings (MPR), ticket ordering and record book information fans seek. All of the tools school sports people relied on in the past remain, just flip-flopped with the stories and stats that tell our story to a growing audience.
This new version also is geared differently to better serve an audience that has moved significantly toward viewing on phones. Roughly 70 percent of MHSAA.com page views are coming on mobile devices, and this latest design was built to be responsive and best-serve that visitor preference.
The response to the most recent redesign indeed tells the rest of the story – 38.2 million page views during 2023-24, a 40-percent jump from five years earlier. The largest-drawing single day of the school year was March 1, 2024, with nearly 444,000 views as that year’s Winter tournaments began their final month. Team schedule pages in 2023-24 drew 13 million views, with 2.1 million views of tournament brackets and 1.7 million of the statewide scores page. The site’s editorial content – all of those features, game stories and more – were up to 1.65 million views.
MHSAA.com remains what it’s always been, but now it’s so much more – and no doubt, the best is yet to come.
Previous "Century of School Sports" Spotlights
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
PHOTOS (Top) Clockwise from top left are images of the front page of MHSAA.com from the years 1998, 2005, this week and 2014. (Middle) This is the front page of the MHSAA's Second Half site from June, 16, 2017.