Levelling The Playing Field

The MHSAA released the following statement today:

As part of our charter to promote competition amongst high school athletes while avoiding more damaging lawsuits, the MHSAA continually reviews and updates its policies with a view to providing a uniform level of incompetence across the state. For some time the association has been concerned that a number of situations may conspire to give an advantage to certain schools. To address this situation the MHSAA will immediately implement its Level Playing Field Initiative. MHSAA has partnered with Michigan State University to offer a post-graduate diploma in Advanced Soccer Mathematics to assist athletic directors in understanding these policy changes which can be summarized as follows:

In calculating a school’s classification by enrollment numbers a multiplier factor will be assessed:
1 – Private schools will be assessed 1.75 x enrollment because the MHSAA really wants to stick it to the rich kids.
2 – Catholic private schools will be assessed the same 1.75 multiplier AND will have one goal subtracted during each game to compensate for the influence of having a higher power on their side.
3 – A mulitiplier of 1.21 will be applied to high school teams which roster more than 5 club/travel soccer players. The exception to this will be teams who roster players from the Eagles club because our Chief Executive’s daughter plays for this club. In addition high school teams who roster players from the Wazdar club will actually have a negative 0.75 multiplier assessed to compensate for the distinct disadvantage that having players from this club provides.

A ‘fat factor’ of 2.3674 will applied to teams who routinely provide a locally based referee who is old and out of shape. This factor will be increased to 2.8765 if the opposing team can provide a doctor’s certified confirmation that the referee is clinically obese. The factor will be removed if any referee should actually expire during one of his rare forays outside the center circle. An additional fat factor of 0.250 will be applied if the ref has one knee brace, or 0.375 if he has two knee braces.

Midtown High School will have two goals subtracted and a red card automatically issued to their goal keeper for all games that are refereed by that cantankerous old guy who doesn’t like their assistant coach.

During regional finals all teams will be allowed to dress one parent in the opposing teams colors. If a team is defending a narrow lead but is under pressure in the closing minutes the ‘ringer parent’ will be permitted to run onto the field, threaten the ref and have the game abandoned with the score in their favor. Private schools can have two ringer parents because they always get more than everyone else.

The MHSAA has gone to the trouble of retrospectively applying these rules to the spring 2008 season, and is pleased to be able to tell you that the outcome is that all 4,325 games played ended in a 0 – 0 tie.