It’s time to either disband or completely overhaul the Mississippi High School Activities Association. For far too long the governing body over high schools in Mississippi has been the cause of heartbreak for teenagers.
My chief complaint is how the association determines which teams make the playoffs. Rather than taking a complete body of work into account — a team’s entire schedule of non-district and district games — the MHSAA’s system makes it to where only district games count toward the playoffs. For example, in football teams usually play 10 or 11 games with only four or five district games. Those five to seven non-district games have absolutely no meaning to whether a team makes the playoffs or not. Instead the top four teams from each district — based solely on district record — make the playoffs.
It creates situations like we saw in 2018 when West Marion went 7-4 and missed the playoffs while three teams with only one win got in. In volleyball, only two teams from each district make the postseason so there have been cases where a 15-4 team misses out on the postseason despite being clearly superior to most of the field simply because of its geographical location.
What is the point of even playing the non-district games if they have no bearing on the playoffs? The answer to that is simple: Money. Having those extra games pads the pockets of everyone involved, including the MHSAA itself. The association is supposed to be a non-profit organization, but did you know its employees combine to make more than $1 million annually? Or that there are three employees making at least $110,000 and three others making more than $80,000? That shouldn’t sit right with anyone affiliated with high school athletics.
Then there are the schools that are allowed to recruit their players while the majority of schools have to play with who happens to live in their area. For several years East Marion volleyball has been among the top teams in the state but got eliminated in the first round of the playoffs three years in a row by either Our Lady Academy or Resurrection Catholic, schools that are allowed to recruit the best of the best because they are private schools. How is that even remotely fair? Those private schools should either have a classification to themselves or be forced to split off from MHSAA and potentially join the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools, which Columbia Academy participates in.
Then there are the All-Star games. Players are nominated by coaches who pay dues to be part of the Mississippi Association of Coaches, but the players are then selected by the coaching staffs for that year’s game. One would think that the coaches alternate so there isn’t favoritism involved in the selection, but the coaches are just about the same year after year. Someone please tell me how only one player from Marion County — Columbia’s Greg Fortenberry — got selected to play in the North-South All-Star football game this year when the county is responsible for 23 players either playing college football or in the NFL. That’s the “good ole boy” network for you rearing its ugly head.
The main reason the MHSAA exists is to assist in the logistical side of things such as scheduling games and booking venues for tournaments and state championships. But a third party, Brandon Shields of Mississippi Gridiron, has scheduled more football games this year than the MHSAA has in the past decade.
It would take a mass exodus on the part of Mississippi’s schools to end the hypocrisy, but in today’s day and age of easy communication, everything the MHSAA does can be done by the coaches and third parties. I believe that because that’s what is already happening.
