Abbreviation | MSHSL |
---|---|
Formation | 1916 |
Type | Volunteer; NPO |
Legal status | Association |
Purpose | Athletic/Educational |
Headquarters | 2100 Freeway Blvd. Brooklyn Center, MN 55430 |
Region served
|
Minnesota |
Membership
|
~500 schools |
Official language
|
English |
Executive Director
|
David Stead |
Affiliations | National Federation of State High School Associations |
Staff
|
22 |
Website | mshsl.org |
Remarks | (763) 560-2262 |
The Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) is a voluntary, non-profit association for the support and governance of interscholastic activities at high schools in Minnesota, United States. The association supports interscholastic athletics and fine arts programs for member schools. As of 2010, the organization cited a membership of nearly 500 public and private schools, including home schools, charter schools and 435 high schools. The State High School League is an affiliate of the National Federation of State High School Associations.
The League also addresses sportsmanship, chemical health, scholarship recognition, and oversees tournament officials and judges. The League provides educational programs for coaches. The organization's operating revenue is derived solely from tournament ticket sales, broadcast rights, corporate sponsorship, and sale of tournament merchandise.
The MSHSL was founded in 1916 as the State High School Athletic Association in order to promote and regulate school athletics. It later expanded its mission to include fine arts programs.
Beginning with the 2014-15 season, the MSHSL created geographic football districts from which regular season scheduling would be derived. This was prompted by the occurrence of several prominent programs having to find opponents from outside the state in order to fill out an eight game schedule.
In 2014 the MNHSL board introduced a measure to concerning policy on transgender athletes. In October 2014, after several hearings, the board vote to table the measure.
On April 17, 1975 the member schools of the Minnesota State High School League approved amendments that provided the changes necessary to implement reorganization for two class competition. Prior to this, schools of all sizes were competing against each other. The idea behind the division was to reduce the inherent advantage that was given to the larger schools. The Board of Directors assigned the largest 128 schools by enrollment to the AA classification. All other member schools were assigned to Class A. Each class is then split into eight sections, with the number of teams in each section varying. In April 1983 the Board of Directors adopted a policy which assigned schools with a minimum enrollment of 500 students to Class AA and schools with an enrollment 1-499 to Class A. Depending on the number of schools participating in an activity, additional classes may be needed or no class system may be needed at all. The highest current class in any activity is AAAAAA (6A) for football.