When I was a teacher, I cherished my planning period – that nearly 60 minutes of quiet time every day when, while most other teachers in our school were in class, I could pause to plan for the classroom duties ahead of me.

In a somewhat similar way, I have come to count on and enjoy three times of the year which serve as the major planning periods for my work at the Michigan High School Athletic Association. These three periods are the several weeks late each fall, winter and spring when other MHSAA staff are consumed with the administration of MHSAA tournaments.

I hate to distract these busy tournament directors as they handle countless communications with coaches, athletic directors, officials and local tournament managers. Instead, I look ahead to what is next for the MHSAA and how to frame subjects to help facilitate some progress.

During the recent planning period (aka, the MHSAA’s spring season tournaments in baseball, softball, golf, lacrosse, soccer, tennis and track & field), I was looking down the road and around the corner regarding these topics especially:

• Basketball tournament scheduling, Finals sites and District seeding.
• Alternative approaches to regulating transfers.
• Tangible outcomes from the Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation.
• Reenergized efforts to promote good sportsmanship.
• Strategies to turn around declining football participation.
• Continued expansion of services for junior high/middle school programs.
• Next steps needed to improve participant health and safety.
• Innovations for recruiting and retaining contest officials.
• Guiding and governing participation by “special” student populations.
• And always . . . how next (and every day) to better define and defend educational athletics.

These are the topics I hope to study, survey and discuss with my MHSAA colleagues and others during the next 10 months.