LANSING - Apr 2, 2007 - Nine long years of legal wrangling later, the Communities for Equity can claim victory over the Michigan High School Athletic Association in their gender-equity lawsuit.

The United States Supreme Court declined to hear the MHSAA's appeal of a 2002 ruling by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court that ordered the high school association to switch six boys and girls sports seasons. With the MHSAA's last avenue of appeal closed off the changes will take effect beginning with the Fall, 2007 sports season.

The affected sports:

* Girls volleyball will move from winter to fall;

* Girls basketball will move from fall to winter;

* Boys tennis and girls golf will move from spring to fall;

* Girls tennis and boys golf will move from fall to spring;

* The Upper Peninsula will offer a girls soccer tournament in the fall and a boys tourney in the spring.

Local schools will all be affected by the volleyball and girls basketball switch, while all the NEMC schools (other than Whittemore-Prescott) will be affected by the boys golf switch to spring. Statewide, 717 girls basketball teams, 713 volleyball teams, 566 boys golf teams, 314 girls golf teams, 356 boys tennis teams and 351 girls tenns teams -- more than 70,000 athletes (not accounting for multi-sport athletes) will be affected.

"The North East Michigan Conference has been working on alternate scheduling to accomodate any change in seasons," said NEMC executive secretary Steve Hennigar. "We have a meeting in mid-April at which time we should be finalizing our policies."

Among the challenges Hennigar cited:

* Lack of officials to work basketball games. According to the MHSAA, many game officials also work boys basketball and college games in the winter; playing girls basketball at the same time will further dilute the available number of referees.

* Coordinating gym time for practices and games, and whether or not to change junior high schedules (which were not included in the court order) as well;

* Volleyball scheduling, while not facing the same issues, may have some of its Saturday tournament activity curtailed. Day-long tournaments in gyms without adequate climate control will become a challenge, while colleges such as Northwood and SVSU may no longer be able to host tournaments that they have in the past, as their own volleyball seasons will be in full swing.

"We have spoken with athletic directors from Iowa, Indian, Illinois and Wisconsin recently to see how they do things," Hennigar said. "There is no consensus and certainly no 'right way' to schedule the boys and girls in the same season. There seem to be as many ways to do it as there are groups doing it."

Another issue with no easy answer: statewide, there are many coaches who coach both boys and girls basketball at their schools who will now be forced to choose between one and the other.

Tawas Area's Todd Kaems faces that dilemma. Kaems, the longtime Braves' girls coach, also took the reins of the boys basketball team this winter after assisting Paul Becker for several years.

"I don't know how it affects me at this point," he said. "I love the game, and to have to choose between girls and boys, which is inevitably the question that I will be asked, is something I hoped I would never have to do. If I have to choose -- and that appears to be what will happen -- I have no idea right now. That would take some serious time and consideration on my part. It's like asking a parent to choose one kid over the other for whatever reason."

It won't just be athletic directors and coaches having to make tough choices; student-athletes will have to make some decisions they may not have anticipated making. Girls who played volleyball in the winter and ran cross country or swam in the fall will no longer have that option. Boys who golfed in the fall and ran track or played baseball in the spring will have to make a choice as well.

Of course, girls basketball players will now have the cross country option available to them in the fall as well.

The CFE filed suit against the MHSAA in 1998, contending that holding girls sports seasons in what it called "nontraditional or inferior" time frames prevented Michigan girls from equal access to colege scholarships and national recognition. It was filed by parents of volleyball players, pointing out that the national Letter of Intent signing dates for college scholarships occur before Michigan girls start their volleyball season, among other grievances.

For basketball, its less clear what the advantage of switching seasons would be. During court proceedings, several college women's coaches testified that being able to attend high school games in the fall -- when college teams were still out-of-season -- actually made Michigan scheduling advantageous.

The MHSAA argued that it was scheduling seasons at the behest of its membership. To bolster its case, it cited surveys of its member schools that showed 82 percent opposed realigning seasons.

"The MHSAA is disappointed that the Supreme Court has decided against reviewing this case," the association said in a statement released Monday. "Now is the time for our schools to step up and work with the decision of the Court to continue to maximize the quantity and quality of interscholastic athletic participation opportunities for young people in our state."

Pertinent sites:

Communities for Equity

MHSAA - Tracking the Lawsuit