Keven Merkel - Minnesota High School League
Posted by Steve Frazier
on Dec 03, 2013
Our Program on December 3rd was Kevin Merkel, director of the Minnesota High School League. Kevin’s early career was as coach and athletic director at Grand Marais, in Iowa, and at Northfield, Minnesota, before joining the MHSL as director. The MHSL was founded in 1919 to establish uniform rules for interscholastic contests. Broadened gradually, the league is a non-profit voluntary association of high schools, including many private schools. Any school in the state that satisfies the Minnesota compulsory- attendance laws can become a member. There are over 500 high schools that are members of the league. The costs of the league are covered by income from high school state tournaments and donations, not taxes. The league encourages and regulates all of the inter-school student competitions in the state. These include regular sports events (baseball, basketball, football, track, swimming, hockey) for both boys and girls, speech and music related events (including debate, one-act plays), and a number of adapted sports. Most of us only see the referees and umpires that are assigned by the league to keep the games fair and orderly; the largest amount of the work of the league is behind the scenes setting up the schedules and state tournaments that seem to run so smoothly. With an annual budget of over $8 million dollars, the MHSL is really a big business.