Not Merely a Sea Change
"The biggest change of direction from the previous plan is in the area of national events. The subcommittee has suggested consideration of several events that would emphasize and accentuate the national presence of the organization and provide a platform to promote its mission. The subcommittee recognized that national events for high school athletes and activities participants are already fixtures in the modern world. Consequently, the subcommittee believed it is the responsibility of the NFHS and its member state associations to engage themselves in these events, thereby furthering the status of the NFHS and its members as the caretakers of high school sports." - From the Introduction of the National Presence Subcommittee to the 2002-2005 Strategic Plan of the National Federation of State High School Associations
How dare these people tell us that it is the "responsibility"
of the membership of the Michigan High School Athletic Association to engage
in national events at all, much less for the unflattering purpose of "furthering
the status of the NFHS and its members."
Among the five reasons that the subcommittee agreed there is a strong need for
a national presence for the NFHS are these:
• "There is great value in preserving a distinction in the public
mind between high school sports, which emphasize participation, and major college
and professional sports, which by their very nature are exclusionary."
However, if the National Federation intends to embark upon national competition,
it will not "preserve a distinction in the public mind"
but will duplicate major college and professional sports and their "exclusionary
nature."
• "State associations benefit from having a publicly recognized source
of support and authority for their sometimes unpopular educational duty to enforce
fair rules, limits and consequences."
However, if the National Federation embarks upon national events, it will be
unable to assist state associations in the support of their
sometimes unpopular educational duty to enforce fair rules, limits and consequences,
because the National Federation itself will have exceeded reasonable
limits. The National Federation becomes like an obsessed coach or parent.
The National Presence Subcommittee includes among its recommended tactics for
developing and marketing high school athletics/activities programs on a national
scale, the following:
"7. Explore proposals for national championship events, such as cross country,
golf, cheer, bowling and debate.
"9. Explore establishment of national invitational tournaments during the
playing season in various sports."
These activities of the National Federation would be so much
at odds with the philosophies historically espoused by the
National Federation for educational athletics that the National Federation would
become even more of a non-player in the promotion of healthy
interscholastic athletic programs in America. Or worse, the National Federation
would convert from ally to adversary, contradicting even its own Handbook statements,
including these:
". . . the membership is pledged to keep school-sponsored contests in perspective
as a part of the total educational program at the local, conference, district
and state levels." (p. 19)
"THIS ACTION CONCERNING NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS (that they may not be sanctioned)
was the result of sentiment on the part of high school administrators that the
high schools are provided with enough competition by their own leagues and state
associations. If more competition were desired, it would be an easy matter for
such leagues or state association to prolong the season or to arrange postseason
games or to increase the number of tournaments." (pp. 26 & 27)
Ignoring the fact that it was formed in the 1920s to combat national high school
events and that every vote the membership has ever taken on national high school
championships has opposed national events, the National Federation Board of
Directors in June approved the National Federation’s endorsement of the
Universal Cheerleading Association national competition in February.
The justification – besides $350,000 a year for eight years – is
that cheerleading is not everywhere considered to be a sport and, besides, the
National Federation will not be conducting the competition, but merely endorsing
it. Pretty fine distinctions for an organization with 80 years of opposition
to national events. Distinctions that certainly deserved discussion and vote
by the member state organizations that the national body was created to listen
to and serve.
Meanwhile, it is only for a lack of financial backing that the National Federation
has put a hold on its involvement in regional showcase basketball camps for
boys in April and girls in July to which would be invited 20 or so players from
each state for a NIKE or Adidas type event, it is hoped.
This is a sea change, a fundamental change in flow for the organization. This
is a shift in philosophy and activity for our National Federation: catering
to the elite athlete, investing time and money into elite athletics. This is
every bit as "exclusionary" as the major college and professional
sports programs from which the National Presence
Subcommittee tried to distance the National Federation in its statement of needs.
All of this camp business was started as a result of problems within the NCAA
and its concerns for unsavory elements affecting Division I men's college basketball.
This initiative of the National Federation is intended to be a healthy alternative
to existing camps, some of which are indeed unsavory.
However, by conducting elite camps we bring more, not less, credibility to the
concept of elite camps and to all of the organizations, both healthy and unsavory,
that are providing special attention to elite athletes. There is no dearth of
special attention for elite athletes; this initiative adds to it, eliminates
none of it, and is in fact superfluous.
Moreover, another unintended consequence is that what is being done for basketball
inevitably will be requested for football, soccer, ice hockey, baseball and
many other sports. And state high school associations will have no way of justifying
inactivity toward the elite athletes in these sports while lavishing attention
on basketball players.
Then ultimately, state high school associations will find themselves spending
as much time on interstate camps and championships for the most elite athletes
as we now spend on in-state championships for thousands and thousands of students.
All of these developments together reveal without question a National Federation
that in spite of all of its lofty language about educational athletics is taking
us from educational to elite, from school year to year-round, from local JV
and varsity to national.
The negative effects may be impossible for a single state or even a few states
to ward off. The erosion of policy will follow the abandonment of philosophy.
National competition means national rules, and the lowest common denominator
will prevail. Because some state high school associations have no transfer rule,
we will have none. Because some state high school associations have no amateur
rule, we will have none. Because some state high school associations have no
out-of-season coaching limitations, we will have none. And on an on.
"The biggest change of direction from the previous plan"? It's a complete
abandonment of the fundamentals of interscholastic athletics. So it's not merely
a sea change; it's a devastating storm sending the ship of interscholastic athletics
adrift, perhaps forever.
In this summer's popular new novel, The Dive From Clausen's Pier by
Ann Packer, Kilroy says to the book's central character and narrator: "You
think 'Well, I'll go along just to get along' - and next thing you know,
you're somewhere you never wanted to be without a ticket back."
I won't go along just to get along; and I doubt the MHSAA will
either; but we must make efforts now to keep from being swept along in spite
of ourselves later.
It's time again for Michigan to fight the National Federation that Michigan
helped to form.