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8/21/2006 The Cincinnati courts have ruled once again. The MHSAA has it backwards. Two years ago Alaska was in the same boat, now Michigan stands alone. While the rest of the country plays Girls basketball in the spring and girls volleyball in the fall, only Michigan does it the other way other around. While I don’t have a definitive opinion about this, I’m very curious as to why our home state doesn’t simply fall in-line? I took a trip home last February where I grew up in California, and just for giggles, I went to a basketball game at my old high school. I walked into a packed gym at 6:30pm and I was surprised to see a girls game being played. I asked somebody, am I mixed up? No, they said, we have a double-header every Tuesday and Friday. The girls play at 6:00pm, and the boys play at 8:00pm. The charge of admission was the same, but the big crowd indicated to me that they sold a lot more tickets, than if you’d added up the attendance of a fall girls game and a boys spring game separately. Additionally, the combined schedules made it easier for fans to enjoy the home team games, while cheering on their sons and daughters and enjoying the camaraderie of the hometown and the student body. Plus, the event itself helped put women’s athletics on par with men’s… as well they should be. The MHSAA has stubbornly held its ground and some have stated it’s better because the athletes get more exposure and have a better chance at a scholarship. This is a vacuous argument, since 97% of HS athletes don’t earn scholarships anyway, and the other 49 states seem to do just fine. So, I guess I would feel a little better if the MHSAA was a little more candid about their ideology. If they saw the same packed house I did, I bet they might re-think it. (c) 2006 Novi
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