The Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) is preparing to file for bankruptcy. MHSAA executive director Jack Roberts informed the public that as a result of a U.S. district court’s ruling to award $7.4 million in legal fees to the plaintiff’s lawyers in the seasons switching case, the organization would have to take necessary precautions to ensure the future of the organization.

This will mean filing for Chapter 11. This will not end the organization, but it would be naïve to suggest that a bill of that magnitude and bankruptcy won’t hurt it significantly.

Allow me to bring you up to speed on the aforementioned case. In 1998, a pair of mothers from Grand Rapids filed a case against the MHSAA claiming their volleyball playing daughters were being discriminated against as a result of the MHSAA’s season arrangements. Unlike every other state, Michigan’s high school girls’ sports seasons did not coincide with college sports seasons, which the mothers claimed hurt their daughters’ chances at being recruited (sidenote: both daughters eventually earned Division I scholarships.) A district court eventually agreed, the seasons were switched this year, and now the MHSAA has to front the winning side’s legal bills.

The fact that this case was ever even considered is ridiculous. Although opportunities provided by high school athletic organizations may sometimes lead to success at the college ranks, it should in no way ever be their mission. The purpose of the organization is to teach student-athletes sportsmanship and teamwork and provide them with the opportunity to participate in HIGH SCHOOL athletics. If in the process they get recruited, great, but these cases are so much in the minority that an evaluation of even the most successful high school athletic organizations based on future succes at the college level would find that all are resounding failures.

Those who actually are good enough to get recruited and earn scholarships are by all means freaks of nature. If the MHSAA can be found responsible for kids not being recruited, what’s next? Gyms that weren’t open late enough? Cafeterias that served food non-conducive to the 5 percent body fat of the elite college athlete? What about a condemnation of nature itself, which makes 99.9 percent of us not fast, strong, big or talented enough to dream of competing at such a level?

Plus, the MHSAA is not an all powerful tyrannical ruler which rules with an iron fist. It is an independently run organization which makes decisions based on the opinions of the majority of its member schools. This body’s opinion was that the arrangement of the sports seasons enhanced the athletes’ HIGH SCHOOL experience by allowing opportunities that wouldn’t be there otherwise, such as allowing basketball coaches who coached both boys and girls teams not to have to choose between the two. This is but one of the reasons the majority of the schools voted to arrange the seasons the way they had four times since 1979. The most recent poll, taken in 1998, found 82 percent of the 514 participating schools to be in favor of the status quo, yet the lawsuit raged on.

The ruling sets a terrible precedent. What’s to keep a quarterback stuck in a Wing-T from suing a high school for not employing a coach who runs an offense that showcases his arm strength to college recruiters? What about a hitter on a softball team forced to bunt and-run instead of putting up gaudy power numbers that would have college coaches licking their chops? The court’s ruling suggests that it is a high school athletic body’s responsibility to facilitate student-athletes’ success at the next level, giving cases such as these considerable ground to stand on.

The MHSAA cannot point to an economic slump nor an industrial slowdown for its forthcoming financial woes, but rest assured the synchronization of such will make its livelihood all the more difficult to sustain. Schools cutting programs/teachers at record numbers and companies laying off more and more employees every day will be asked for support and sponsorship that they simply will not be able to provide. 

Time will tell what the future will hold for the MHSAA. With any luck they will be able to fight through this grave injustice and get back to their specialty: providing HIGH SCHOOL athletes with the opportunity to participate in HIGH SCHOOL athletics. Let’s just hope it’s not too late.