For the first time in history, all MHSAA tournament sports – including football, which started practice yesterday and the rest of the fall sports which can begin practice tomorrow – have a minimum number of days of team practice before the first interscholastic contest. Until this school year, only football required a certain number of days of practice for a team prior to the first game, and that number is reduced from 14 to 12 beginning this fall. As for the other fall sports:
The new policies are intended to assure more legitimate team tryouts and better conditioning and team development prior to events than may have occurred under previous rules that even allowed golf and tennis to have interscholastic competition on the first day of the season, without any team practice.
The new policies also allow schools to avoid weekend practices if their constituents prefer. Never is a weekend practice required to meet the minimums necessary before the first competition date.
From the Director is the official MHSAA Blog which will touch on pertinent school sports topics periodically throughout the school year from various MHSAA Staff.