EAST LANSING — The Representative Council of the Michigan High School Athletic Association took several actions during its spring meeting, May 5-6 in Gaylord, including approving the addition of boys volleyball and girls field hockey to the lineup of MHSAA-sponsored tournament sports beginning in 2025-26 and reorganizing the winter championship calendar to end one week earlier.
After a yearlong conversation about emerging sports at MHSAA member schools, the council approved a Volleyball Committee recommendation to begin sponsorship of boys volleyball with the 2025-26 school year.
The council also voted to begin sponsorship of girls field hockey beginning at the same time. Girls field hockey will be played during the fall season, and boys volleyball during the spring season, with the 2024-25 school year to serve as a development period as the MHSAA works with the current governing organizations for those sports.
These will be the first sports added to the MHSAA’s tournament offerings since girls and boys lacrosse joined the lineup during the 2004-05 school year.
Changes to the winter calendar will take effect in 2025-26 and include several adjustments to the state finals schedules and practice starts that overall will lead to the winter sports season concluding one week earlier. The changes reflect a fall survey that showed nearly 80 percent of MHSAA member schools felt the winter should be shortened.
The reshaped winter sports calendar also completes competition before schools begin their spring breaks and places championships on dates that avoid potential facility conflicts.
Beginning with 2025-26, the last weekend in February will include the team wrestling, bowling and competitive cheer finals with skiing finals remaining on the Monday of that week. The first weekend in March will include the individual wrestling, boys ice hockey and girls gymnastics finals.
The boys basketball finals will move to the second weekend of March with the Lower Peninsula boys swimming and diving finals, and the girls basketball finals will permanently conclude the winter season during the third weekend of March. With basketball seasons ending earlier, basketball practices will be able to begin five days earlier on a Wednesday to keep tryouts/first practice dates from falling during Thanksgiving week.
More changes to the MHSAA tournament competition will begin in 2024-25. The council voted to add a team championship for girls wrestling to be awarded to the school with the most success in the girls bracket of the individual finals. A girls individual bracket was added for the 2021-22 season, and the team championship will be awarded based on individual finishes — similarly to how boys team championships were awarded before the dual format finals were created with the 1987-88 season.
Also for 2024-25, the council approved basketball and soccer committee recommendations to seed the entire district tournaments in those sports using Michigan Power Ratings (MPR) data, which previously was used to seed only the top two teams in each bracket for girls and boys basketball and girls and boys soccer.
The council also approved a classification change in football intended to protect the state’s smallest schools sponsoring the 11-player format. Continuing a conversation from its winter meeting in March, the council approved a Football Committee recommendation to cap the enrollment of Division 8 schools at 250 students and then divide the rest of the 11-player schools evenly to determine the enrollment lines for the other seven divisions.
As more small schools have switched to 8-player, larger schools have shifted into Division 8 for 11-player. This classification change guarantees Division 8 schools will play only similarly small schools during the postseason, taking effect with the 2025-26 school year.
To continue supporting schools providing teams at multiple levels despite low participation, the council voted to allow athletes in two more sports to compete on teams at two levels on the same day.
The council approved a Bowling Committee recommendation allowing bowlers to participate in sub-varsity and varsity competition on the same day, provided the events are separate. Bowlers may still be listed on only one match roster and bowl for one team during each event.
A Girls Lacrosse Committee recommendation to allow athletes to play in no more than five quarters in one day was also approved, with overtime an extension of the fourth quarter. At multi-team girls lacrosse tournaments where both school teams are playing, an athlete would be allowed to play in as many halves or quarters as what the school’s highest team level that day is playing.
The Council bolstered the penalty for inappropriate behavior toward game officials, approving an Officials Review Committee recommendation modifying the penalty for any coach or athlete who is ejected for spitting at, hitting, slapping, kicking, pushing or intentionally and/or aggressively physically contacting a game official at any time during that competition or after being ejected.
The offending coach or athlete shall be suspended from competition for the next 14 calendar days and must complete an online sportsmanship course. The offending coach also will not be eligible to coach in the MHSAA tournament for that sport during that season nor will he or she be allowed to be present at the site or within sight, sound or communication of a tournament event for that team.
Here is a summary of other notable actions taken by the Representative Council that will take effect during the 2024-25 school year unless noted:
Regulations
• The council approved a change to the athletic-related transfer rule stating that an athlete is ineligible in all sports participated in during the current or previous school year if that student has transferred to a school where a coach is employed who previously was a school employee or third-party contractor at the athlete’s former school. This change of language bolsters the regulation to include links to a coach at the new school who previously was employed in any way by the previous school.
• The council approved a change to the football practice and competition rule to state that a school may not take part in an interscholastic scrimmage with another school until the Wednesday of the second week of practice and only if the team has conducted football practice on at least seven separate previous days. A joint practice with another school is considered a scrimmage and may not take place until those seven days of practice have been completed.
Sports Medicine
• The council approved a Sports Medicine Advisory Committee recommendation to require high schools to attest by each season’s established deadline that their high school sports coaches have emergency action plans specific to location which are posted, dispersed, rehearsed, discussed and documented within their practice plans.
• The council also approved a committee recommendation requiring MHSAA tournament host sites to have an AED (automated external defibrillator) within visible distance of the event.
Officials
• The council approved an Officials Review Committee recommendation requiring a set minimum number of officials required to work an event, designated by sport and level (varsity or sub-varsity).
Sport Matters
• BASEBALL: The council approved a Baseball Committee recommendation requiring varsity teams to submit their pitch count information electronically by noon the day following every game.
• BOWLING: The council approved a Bowling Committee recommendation allowing for regionals — team and individuals — to be competed on consecutive days between Wednesday and Saturday of that week to increase the possibility of more bowling centers being able to host. Previously, regionals could be bowled only on Fridays and Saturdays.
• GOLF: The council approved a Golf Committee recommendation to form a Golf Site Selection Committee to review regional tournament groupings and determine host schools and courses.
• SOCCER: The council approved another Soccer Committee proposal to institute a running clock during the first half of matches when the goal differential is eight or more.
• SWIMMING & DIVING: The council approved a Swimming & Diving Committee recommendation requiring all times entered for MHSAA finals for both individual and relay swim events to be the times that are the fastest achieved in varsity competition during the current season and electronically verifiable on SwimCloud.com.
• TENNIS: The council approved a Tennis Committee recommendation requiring the MHSAA to reduce the number of regional tournaments for a season from eight to six if the number of teams participating that season is fewer than 288.
• TRACK & FIELD: The council approved a Cross Country/Track & Field Committee recommendation allowing for athletes to qualify for MHSAA finals by reaching predetermined standards during a window beginning April 1 of that season and extending until that athlete’s regional meet.
• WRESTLING: The council approved a Wrestling Committee recommendation to amend the penalty for a team when a wrestler competes at an ineligible weight class during a dual event. If the ineligible wrestler is discovered during the involved match, that wrestler forfeits that match and the opposing team will be awarded six team points, plus the head coach of the team with the ineligible wrestler will be assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty resulting in a one-point team score deduction. If the ineligible wrestler is discovered after the involved match, any points earned by the offending wrestler are removed from the team score, along with the point for unsportsmanlike conduct, and six points are added to the offended team’s total. In both instances, neither wrestler involved in the match in question may compete again in that dual. If the ineligible wrestler is discovered after the dual is completed, the teams have left the mat area and the scorebook has been signed by the official, the results and team score will stand.
