Battle of the Fans
March 27, 2012
Guests at the MHSAA Girls and Boys Basketball Tournaments at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center the past two weekends saw the result of the MHSAA’s first “Battle of the Fans.” The idea came from the MHSAA’s Student Advisory Council, and it spread through social media. Read about it here.
We embraced this idea of our Student Advisory Council because a “Battle of the Fans” is something we can do, and most other youth sports cannot. In the world of youth sports, fans are almost unique to school sports. Fans aren’t found at AAU tournaments or US Soccer Development Academies like they are at school sports events.
We embraced this idea because fans are a part of what defines school sports and makes high school sports different than other youth sports, and makes interscholastic athletics a tradition in the United States like nowhere else in the world.
We embraced this idea because some people say that high school sports attendance is down and school spirit is declining. This initiative demonstrates that is not true everywhere, and doesn’t need to be true anywhere. It can help to motivate better spirit in more schools.
We embraced this idea to get more people talking about what is and is not good sportsmanship, and to encourage students to reengage in school events in more positive ways. This should make for more and even better competition, and dialogue, in 2013.
Future Thinking
August 11, 2017
The prolific author Thomas Friedman has written more than once that those who don’t invest in the future tend not to do well there.
What might it mean to invest in the future of interscholastic athletics? What are the things we should be doing now that may not show immediate results, but are essential for securing a future for school-sponsored sports?
Two things, I believe, most of all ...
One is the emphasis on serving and supporting junior high/middle school programs. Getting to students and their parents at this stage and even earlier with the meaning of educational athletics. With a definition of success and demonstrations of sportsmanship that differ from other programs. With encouragement to sample different sports and to eschew year-round practice and competition in a single sport. Feeding the roots of high school sports with the nutrients of educational athletics.
The second is the education of coaches, the delivery system of most of these important messages about school sports. What the MHSAA does season after season with rules/risk management meetings and week after week with the Coaches Advancement Program, and what local school administrators do day after day to manage, mentor and motivate coaches. These efforts may not show quick returns, but they are essential investments in the future of school sports.
We cannot expect to do well in the future if we do not pay attention to our foundation – junior high/middle school programs – and to our infrastructure – coaches.