Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) Executive Director Mark Uyl had the weekend to reflect on the decision to postpone the high school football season. Though he understands it hurt a lot of people, he does not have a single regret.
“If we were to move ahead with the fall,” he says. “I don’t think it was a guarantee we would have gotten games played.”
With that in mind, Uyl realized late last week, a fall football season wasn’t going to happen. While he had been singing a much more positive tune earlier in the week, the results of a late week survey among Michigan high schools tipped the scales in favor of not playing.
“You then looked at the comments and other feedback that we got and there was just a lot of heartburn, there was a lot of uncertainty,” he explained in an interview with 13 On Your Side Monday morning.
The MHSAA board met on Friday. A decision was made later that day. Some questioned the timing of the late afternoon announcement as well as the fact that that no athletic directors or coaches were tipped off. But without any apologies, Uyl says this was the way it had to go down.
“We’ll send out emails to our school athletic directors and within 45 seconds, someone has posted that to Twitter or Instagram and it is everywhere,” Uyl said. “There is no perfect time.”
Moving forward, Uyl says the board is already planning on what spring football will look like. He says a meeting is scheduled for Wednesday in which three different comeback plans will be presented.
“Most of them begin practice in March with a shortened regular season schedule, and then some sort of a tournament, playoff, postseason experience where everyone gets in,” Uyl said.
And while he wouldn’t guarantee any of the plans will come to fruition, he’s confident by the end of the school year, fans will be happy.
“We are going to play football this spring and we are going to figure out a way where it will fit and work with winter sports and spring sports,” he said.
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