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Dear Member Schools:
It
is with great anticipation that we look forward to another wonderful
year with
activities, both athletic and academic for the upcoming school year.
The
2005 – 2006 school year proved to be highly successful, mainly because
of the hard work and dedication of our administrators, coaches, and
sponsors
throughout the state.
The attendance at our
events appeared to be as good as ever and the games at Memorial Stadium
and in the Coliseum were indeed a happening. Pearl High School did an
outstanding job in hosting the State Marching Festival, Championship
Marching Festival, State Band Concert Festival, Choral Music Festival
and the state Track Meet. Clinton High School also hosted the State
Marching Festival and Madison Central High School hosted girls and boys powerlifting. The State Baseball Championships, held at
Trustmark were sponsored by Mississippi Sports Medicine. It was well
attended and proved to be a big success.
The
Athletic Director’s Association continues to grow on both the state and
national level. Activities such as cheerleading, speech and
debate, and the Lindy Callahan Scholar Athlete are second to none in
this country. More schools are placing emphasis on the awards
given to the Scholar Athlete Teams, as shown in the listing in the MHSAA
Year in Review magazine.
I am especially proud of
the progress we have made with our sportsmanship program, however, we
still have a long way to go. We still have some coaches that need to
learn self-control and to emulate the behavior they expect from their
players. Soccer, basketball and baseball had more than their
share of coach's ejections and we must do a better job this school year.
Good officiating
continues to be a concern for all of us, since many of the veteran
officials are retiring. We need to recruit good, quality, young people
to take their place. Our schools can help with this problem by
recommending people in their community that are high school graduates
and have the qualities it takes to work with our young people.
We have sanctioned
girl’s Powerlifting as a state championship, as well as sanctioning the
second girl’s State
Invitational Golf Tournament. The girl’s pole vault was a
second year event in track this year and the student athletes showed
great improvements. This will give more of our young people
an opportunity to participate. We will continue to work towards
improvement with all of our programs and ask that you call on us in the
MHSAA office if we can be of service to you at any time.
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