Milford to leave the KLAA

Milford has been in the KLAA for about 10 years now and has accumulated 9 division championships of a possible 224 in those 9 years. They have been division champs in volleyball, basketball, Boys and Girls cc, and boys and girls track.

Being in the KLAA West Division, four of the five opponents Milford faces have a significant enrollment advantage. Milford High School has about 1,400 students, while Grand Blanc High School’s population is about double at 2,800 students.

Currently, Milford is in a division with Grand Blanc, Brighton, Hartland, Howell and Pinckney. All of those schools have enrollment that peaks over 2,000 students, except Milford and Pinckney.

Due to the imbalance of student enrollment of the schools in the district, Milford is looking to leave the KLAA in 2017.

“Nothing has been made for sure yet. I would say there is an 85% chance that it all goes through,” stated Milford Athletic Director Jim Marszalek.

“The KLAA was designed to be able to have 2 Howell schools, but when they didn’t it left us with the 2nd biggest high school and declining enrollment at Milford trying to make this a rushed move. This was long overdue,” he said.

In order to leave the KLAA, Milford would be forming a new division with rival Lakeland, three Walled Lake schools, Waterford Mott and Waterford Kettering, Pinckney, South Lyon, and South Lyon East.  

This evens out the playing field and helps out many sports such as football, baseball, and basketball, where Milford has struggled to compete with the larger schools.

The equal playing field can help a lot more than just the sports, as it can help students who didn’t want to play sports because of the odds of them being able to have a good season were against them.

It helps the coaches too. Head Baseball Coach Spencer Adams said that Milford will have an easier time being competitive because the schools in the new division will not have so much more competition.

Coach Adams talked about many things about the timing of it. Both he and head football coach Tim Gough had the same ideas in wanting it to come earlier, let alone having to wait an extra year for this to happen. Both coaches have high hopes for their junior class and it’s sad that they won’t be a part of the equal playing field that everyone else is getting.

The new division that Milford will be moving into is definitely an even playing field, with more even division championships. Pinckney has 13,South Lyon 18, South Lyon East 4, and Walled Lake Western has 21.

 Marszalek also gave the reason why the new division can’t be effective next year, due to the KLAA’s rule of a one year notice on leaving.  Further information about the potential change will be made available later this year.