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A Can-Do Response

January 5, 2015

Michigan has a tradition of some of the nation’s most lenient out-of-season coaching rules, especially in the summer; and yet, the few rules we have are sometimes blamed for driving students to non-school programs.

Nevertheless, there is some validity to the criticism. It is observably true that non-school programs seem to fill every void in the interscholastic calendar. The day after high school seasons end, many non-school programs begin. The day a school coach can no longer work with more than three or four students, a non-school coach begins to do so.

The challenge is to balance the negative effects of an “arms war” in high school sports against driving students toward non-school programs. It’s the balance of too few vs. too many rules out of season.

The out-of-the-box compromise for this dilemma could be to not regulate the off season as much as to conduct school-sponsored off-season programs in a healthier way than they normally occur, i.e., to move schools back in control of and in the center of the non-school season. To not merely regulate what schools and coaches can’t do, but actually run the programs they can do and want to do.

Of course, this would require more of what schools have less of – resources. School administrators who may be in agreement that schools should operate off-season programs to keep kids attached to in-season programs still balk because they lack resources. At a time when resources are being cut for basic support of in-season programs, how could they justify spending more for out-of-season outreach?

Ultimately, in discovering the sweet spot for out-of-season interaction between school coaches with student-athletes, we need to give at least as much attention to providing more opportunity for what they can do together as for what they can’t do.

Late Start

August 11, 2015

Business took me to Indianapolis for a meeting on Thursday, July 30. Of the eight other meeting participants, four lived in Indiana, three lived in Georgia and one in Montana.

I learned that school was already in session for many schools of both Indiana and Georgia, four weeks prior to the start of classes for most Montana schools ... and six weeks before state law allows public schools to commence classes for students in Michigan.

These dramatic differences undermine any seriousness or sense of urgency in this state’s efforts to improve public education.

The scene that replays in my memory is of an all-district in-service day at a Michigan school district where the staff was busy in the cafeteria, while the students lounged outside the school and milled about the school halls, bored.

“Our kids are already here and ready to be in class,” the school superintendent told me; “but state law penalizes us if we dare to begin teaching them.”

I think of this as school sports teams and marching bands and cheerleaders are already hard at work this week honing their skills in extracurricular activities. Wouldn’t it be great if lawmakers would allow our students to be doing the same in academic classrooms?

If our students are lagging behind academically, it might have something to do with the fact that they start each year two or three laps behind kids in other states.