Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Shame on the MHSAA.

It looks like the Mississippi High School Athletic Association is bringing Mississippi's segregationist history (when it comes to basketball) to the 21st century.  Mississippi State had to sneak out of state to compete in the NCAA tourney.  Lanier's great 1964 team got screwed. Now it's the Callaway Chargers who are getting the shaft.  The Clarion-Ledger reported:

The Callaway boys basketball team has turned down its invitation to the Dick's Sporting Goods High School Nationals.

The Chargers, who won their fourth straight state championship last Friday, met two of the three requirements set forth by Dick's to be eligible for the high school basketball national championship.
Callaway is ranked in USA Today's Super 25 as the No. 4 program in the country and won a state title this season.

What the Chargers don't have is the approval of the Mississippi High School Activities Association to participate in the event from April 2-4.

The MHSAA does not allow its member schools to participate in postseason play, which it defines as games or tournaments after a sport's season is over. This rule has been in place since 1938 and applies to each of the sports/activities the MHSAA sponsors.

MHSAA executive director Don Hinton told The Clarion-Ledger that a change regarding this rule was discussed earlier this year but not in an official capacity.....

 The deadline for Callaway to either accept or decline its invitation to the national championship is 5 p.m. Tuesday.

"I felt like at this point in time there was a lot of pressure being put on my guys and whether they were going to go or not go," Callaway coach David Sanders said. "I didn't want to put them in a situation where they had to be political. I didn't want it to be tomorrow that they find out they couldn't go and then people were coming after us and the next thing we know we're in a full-fledged battle with the MHSAA."

Callaway requested a waiver late last week to allow for a temporary lift to the rule to allow the Chargers to participate in the tournament. Hinton told The Clarion-Ledger that "any change of policy or change in a rule would strictly be a board decision."

The MHSAA's executive committee went into an emergency session last Saturday to discuss the issue. The committee is still expected to vote on the decision on Tuesday, despite Callaway opting out of contention one day before the deadline. Article.

The MHSAA needs to fix this problem. Period.  Change the rule, grant a waiver, whatever.  Don't forget to pass a resolution asking, actually begging, Callaway to rescind its withdrawal.   It's your problem, now fix it.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

Completely agree. What an educational opportunity for these young men as well - to get to travel and see different parts of the country. It is absolutely ridiculous that it has to be discussed one day and voted on another - should be a quick, easy decision.

Anonymous said...

Seeing as how sports are a major driver for secondary schools ( High School) and the I.H.L's (College/Universities ) this definitely needs to be changed in order to showcase our talent in sports elsewhere in the country as it is a major 'highlight' of what we're told is a lagging state.

1938? I thought we were at least stuck in the 50's.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the rule is in place to keep the athletes from having to play year-round and actually spend some time on studies. How many mythical national championship tournaments could we come up with?

Anonymous said...

The rule in spirit is good. It exists so that teams cannot have more practice/competition than other teams. Allowing Callaway to participate in this tournament gives CHS another month of practice, and three more games against top flight competition, while every other team that Callaway competes against does not have this privilege.

However, I think a waiver should be granted in this case and in future cases where a Mississippi team has the opportunity.

But, the rumor mill is saying that Horatio doesn't want to risk injury to his prized son so he would not have been playing, which is why Callaway withdrew before the MHSAA even met on the matter.

Anonymous said...

This needs to bi fixed. The MHSAA must have had the fix in when Callaway played Laurel last week. Callaway got 6 time outs and no technical foul for doing so. What a shame.

Anonymous said...

Disagree. The rule against out-of-season competition exists to prevent coaches from demanding year-round participation from students (which they would do if they could, rest assured). If you make one exception, you open the floodgates. Good teams get the added advantage of what amounts to "bowl game practice" and students get further distraction from studies.

If you want to talk about principled exceptions, fine. Do that during the off-season so there is plenty of time to debate standard criteria that apply to everyone. But changing the rule at the last minute because a sporting goods store decided it could make some money off high school kids is not the way to handle it.

Anonymous said...

Where have you been? The athletes are already playing year-round.

Anonymous said...

Horatio ain't letting his prize mule plow unnecessarily.

Anonymous said...

Wow. Knee-jerk much?

As it turns out, the tournament is operated by a marketing group that may or may not provide the same protections (e.g. insurance) for athletes as MHSAA-operated and sanctioned events. (Not that any parents would sue if there was a career-ending injury to their future NBA Hall of Famer who currently rides the bench.) Secondly, Mississippi appears to be in the majority with respect to the number of states that allow HS teams to play out-of-season games. And (D), the MHSAA has a number of other rules to ensure that all teams have the same amount of time for practices and games in a season. There are plenty of reasons for this.

Maybe the rule should be changed. I don't particularly care either way. But it shouldn't be changed to fit a particular circumstance. (Especially when Andy Kennedy is so desperately trying to deliver this trip for Newman. Oh, you didn't know Every Cab Driver's Worst Nightmare is all in the middle of this?)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the explanation. The useless news media I'd seen referred merely to "a rule," with no context.

Anonymous said...

In response to 10:58, the rule has been around since 1938. I would say there has been ample time to address. Second, other states are sending teams. Doesn't appear they have an issue with letting teams compete after the high school season.

And on a different note, MHSAA is the same organization that didn't resolve a rule that essentially made the Madison Central boys and girls soccer coach to miss half of a semi final boys game because the coach was traveling back from a girls semi final soccer game that they were forced to play on the same day. The MHSAA wouldn't resolve the issue to allow the games to be played on different days. Pretty sorry organization. Sounds like a government run organization.

Anonymous said...

So, who would pay for the trip?

Anonymous said...

The issue is 99% about money. The sporting goods chain sees an opportunity to make money; MHSAA can't figure out a way to take 30% of the take.

Anonymous said...

Exactly. 11:19am. No context.

Just curious who would have been paying for this so called "educational" trip to NYC? Parents? School's athletic budget? Sponsors?

Anonymous said...

How is this on par with MSU sneaking out of the state 50 years ago?

Anonymous said...

MHSAA granted a waiver back in 2005...

Anonymous said...

Who would pay for the trip? Well Kenny Stokes has already offered to charter a bus! Boy are you uninformed.

Anonymous said...

How is this "segregationist" issue. The rule applies to all public schools. I do feel that the team should be allowed to participate in the tourney, and that the rule needs to be modified. This would be a great opportunity for these young men. I also think the MHSAA is nothing more than a money-hungry organization run by a bunch of tools. I am certainly no fan. However, when you interject race, i.e. play the race card, you cheapen you argument. Please, don't be Jesse, Al, or Eric.

Anonymous said...

I am very disappointed that the organizers of this event will not be able to profit off these high school kids.

Anonymous said...

Leave the rule but have an exception that allows a team to play in a postseason tournament if that team won their respective state championship. Put a limit as to one (1) month after the conclusion of the season to play in any tournaments to insure that there is no year-round play. There, problem solved. What's next.

Kenny Stokes School of Race Tactics said...

KF, if you're gonna drop an incendiary charge like "segregationist past", you had DAMN sure better back it up and explain how this is being employed as a tool of segregation. That's liberal double-speak - if you don't like a situation, claim it's racist to cower your opposition.

You are full of s**t if you don't justify that statement.

Anonymous said...

'shame'. There is no shame here. With out this rule this would be a constant thing in many sports. Can XYZ team go and play here? Suppose it was a football team who asked for another month on their season. The basketball coach was counting on three of those players to be starters. Plus not this team gets and extra month practice. What about missing exams or state testing ? These all star games don't care about that. So now the school prinicpal has to be the bad guy and not let the kids miss exams ?? I agree with the rule in 1938 or in 2038. Let the MSHAA control the schedules.

Lands Sakes, Man said...

The current situation has nothing whatever to do with MSU sneaking out of state and Kingfish knew it when he lobbed that incendiary device. He tends to do that on a slow day. But, so do Bill Minor and Jerry Mitchell.

Oh.............YAWN.

Anonymous said...

According to another news outlet, the trip would have been paid for by the tournament and Calloway given a 10k check. College recruiters would have been all over the Garden watching these boys play. Too bad MsHAA didn't let them go.

Anonymous said...

Well congratulations on giving these kids a bad shake.
There IS a reason the Super Bowl kid left and went to Alabama.
This state really knows how to piss some good opportunities away. Whatever. No one can reason with you people. At all.

Anonymous said...

The problem is not the trip, the problem is Newman not attending MSU and the white peoples at MHSSA is not going to let them play, because of this..
It's always MHSSA vs a black basketball player..
Charles Rhodes Lanier, same thing..

Anonymous said...

This is but one of many screw ups under the current MHSAA administration. Name the sport: football, hoops, soccer, volleyball, etc., and the current MHSAA screws up over and over.

Email them and the their response will be silly and completely ungrammatical as well.

I've heard there is a bill in the legislature to shut the MHSAA down and place high school athletics under the Dept of Education. I hope this happens. While I have little confidence in the DOE, such a change can't be worse than the current state.

Don't Fall For It said...

As usual, Kingfish stirs a pot of grits, then watches it boil over.

Consider this: A high school baseball team does well in February and is invited to play in some unofficial regionals in Florida. They go. All is well. Then as a result, they are invited to play in a Cuban Round Robin representing the US. They go. Winning that one, they're invited to Argentina, then back to California for an international display of high school athletics.

Before you know it, this one team has played baseball for nine months and they're just sophomores and junior.

This is why we have seasons and maximum practice days and rules regarding when you can dress in pads or simply get together in the gym for wind sprints and when the season must, by rule, end.

So, instead of pretending this is a bunch of mean old white men who don't want a group of black boys to experience the atmosphere of New York, turn your damned caps around!

Anonymous said...

Instead of complaining, just start all seasons a few weeks later. Example: football= less heat related injuries/deaths. Seems like the coaches and schools up north have common sense. What do we have? We're just crying in our gumbo....as always, because we're too stubborn and ignorant to change our ways.

Anonymous said...

11:29 pm There is a simple " fix" to your dire description that every other state high school associations has found.

You simply limit the number of post season tournament invitations a high school can accept! And, you do that with an understanding of the tournament schedules for post season play in the different sports!

These young men are being denied an honor they earned.

They are being denied increased exposure to college recruitment. They are especially being denied the opportunity for scholarships to smaller colleges that might not have a large recruiting budget and so choose post season tournaments.

They are being denied the learning experiences that come with expanding your horizons in seeing new places and things and meeting people from different places.


There's the possibility that they want to keep MS. kids "down on the farm" by limiting access to out of state recruiters! They want them to either play at a MS college or junior college or not at all!

So the MSHSA is either grossly incompetent, grossly derelict in their duties, corrupt or racist or a combination

There are simply no other explanations for this outrageous behavior!



Anonymous said...

Don't fall for it, actually there are sports that do not have seasons. Cheerleaders for example is a year round activity under MHSAA. Google Ocean Springs Cheerleaders and you will see they competed in a National tournament/event in 2014, just last year. Even if only one activity/sport is allowed to play/compete year round, MHSAA cant say its about academics. I think our kids should be allowed to compete on the national scene but I agree with the regular season and limiting the amount of national tournaments/games so that there is still enough time for academics.

Anonymous said...

9:28, yeah there is a reason the "Super Bowl kid left and went to Alabama"

He was a complete thug and no Division I school would tough him out of Hinds. Hell, he even got kicked off the Hinds team.

He ended up at West Alabama, a glorified junior college where he got in trouble there.

But hey, lets have a parade for him and wonder why our kids end up being thugs.

Anonymous said...

These are kids. Let them play. Mississippi receive few honors as it is, so these kids should have been allowed to play and represent Mississippi in a favorable light. As far as practicing year round, they play ball year round anyway, i.e., at home, playgrounds, and rec centers.

Don't Fall For It said...

8:47 lays out a sensible solution to the situational problem I documented at 11:29. I gave you the explanation for the current rule. 8:47 laid out a solution. The solution cannot be put in place overnight.

Nobody is being denied anything. Everybody is being told to follow the rule. Has nothing to do with race although that's all some people will ever see.

The reason basketballs are orange is because white people didn't want them to be black.

Anonymous said...

I read where at least 40 other state associations don't approve participating in these for-profit events either. Open this can of worms and there will be national championship tournaments year round, just like little league baseball now.

Voice of Reason said...

12:24; Hold on there! We can't let that sort of reason permeate the conversation. We have to foster the notion that this is white people in Mississippi denying black boys an opportunity to experience success.

Anonymous said...

Don't call me racists anymore I'm voting for Ben and Allen



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