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A Bright Spot

April 22, 2014

One of the most foolish moves school districts have made as funding for their schools has been reduced, or redirected to various mandates, is to eliminate the position of full-time athletic administrator.

Some districts have combined the job with classroom instruction; other districts have hyphenated the position with other administrative responsibilities. Many districts have reduced clerical support and event management assistance. Hours have been cut and professional training has become an afterthought or luxury.

And still the districts send out their student-athletes to compete and collide in front of crowds of emotional onlookers. These districts are risking problems far more expensive than whatever was saved by this shortsighted approach to staffing.

One of the few bright spots in this bleak picture is the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, which has made initial and ongoing training for athletic directors one of its highest strategic objectives.

Last month, over three days at its annual mid-winter conference, the MIAAA provided 138 leadership training courses of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association to 88 of our state’s athletic directors.

A team of 20 leadership training instructors, coordinated by Mike Garvey (Kalamazoo Hackett), delivers this national training program year-round to Michigan’s athletic directors. As a result of their efforts and the hunger of our athletic directors, Michigan leads the nation in the number of persons who have received the NIAAA’s Certified Athletic Administrator (CAA) designation.

The MIAAA also is establishing a mentoring program to help the CAAs take the next step, to Certified Master Athletic Administrator (CMAA). Michigan has 47 CMAAs.

Again this August, the MIAAA will conduct a Leadership Academy focusing on newer administrators. Meg Seng (Ann Arbor Greenhills) and Fred Smith (Buchanan) co-chair the academy, and the MHSAA co-sponsors it.

The MIAAA, and its commitment to deliver an athletic program worthy of the label “educational,” is one of our state’s greatest resources.

Fantasy Land

March 8, 2013

Advocating at the national level for unachievable ideals not only diminishes the importance of those achieving reasonable accomplishments at the grassroots level, it also threatens the future of organized sports for the masses; and few organizations in a position to know better are doing as much to create these unintended consequences as the National Athletic Trainers Association.

It is a NATA-driven “Youth Sports Safety Alliance” that has developed a six-page manifesto for youth sports, including NATA’s “Secondary School Student Athletes’ Bill of Rights” which is mostly beyond the means of youth sports sponsors, and has marched to Capitol Hill to urge the federal legislature’s action to pursue those goals, among which is the conveniently unstated objective of advancing job opportunities and security for athletic trainers themselves.

MHSAA surveys indicate that, conservatively, fewer than 20 percent of Michigan high schools and junior high/middle schools have a full-time certified athletic trainer on staff.  In fact, only a minority of schools think such a full-time position is necessary, given other cheaper options available to them in the form of contracted services of medical groups and the volunteered services of many other medical professionals.  An even smaller minority has the means to pay for a full-time certified athletic trainer, given all the cuts in state aid to schools; and many schools – urban, suburban, rural and remote – wonder where in their communities they would find a certified athletic trainer if such were mandated everywhere.

NATA’s earlier recommendations in the extreme for acclimatization of players at the start of the football season have already resulted in a state law in Maryland that football coaches there criticize for leading to a less safe sport now that they have less time to teach technique and prepare players for first-game contact.  In theory, NATA’s notions are nice ideas; but in practice, they are less safe for the participants.  And anything that is less safe for the participants not only endangers today’s players, it also jeopardizes the future of the game.  Which, by the way, does nothing to enhance employment opportunities for trainers.