Challenging Change
January 2, 2014
Everywhere we turn, we hear or read that things ought to change because, well . . . “The times are changing.”
How we raise children, how we educate students, how we work and worship . . . everything is subject to change, we’re told, because “times change.”
I suppose if we had evidence that the changes made in previous decades, because “It’s the 80s” or “It’s the New Millennium,” had really improved our world, I might be more taken with change for change’s sake today. But I see little evidence of stronger families, better schools, more fulfilling work or more faithful congregations today than in previous decades. Rather, I see a world in worse shape in many ways, even in the only part of that world where I have any expertise: sports.
One of the problems of youth sports today is the over-programming of our kids. A superficial comparison with youth sports of 2014 vs. 1964 reveals that today we have many more well-organized leagues in many more sports for many more kids than 50 years ago. They have better facilities, equipment and uniforms. They have coaches and officials and even boards of directors to hear the complaints and protests.
By contrast, in the 1960s there were just a few organized leagues in a few sports for a few kids; but even those kids spent most of their playing time in pickup games where they chose up sides, set the ground rules, and made the calls themselves. They settled arguments on the spot. They had to bring their own equipment, and take care of it. And if the ball went out of play, they had to hunt for it until they found it; because a lost ball meant not only that the game was over, it might also have meant the entire season was over.
When did kids learn more from youth sports: in the 1960s world of pickup games they managed for themselves, or in the more recent world of adult-directed travel teams and tournaments and trophies? Just because “times are changing,” should we program out all that was good about youth sports 50 years ago?
Of course not. Which is why those in our schools who want more and more contests for younger and younger grade levels must be cautious. It is possible to get too much of a good thing, and to get a good thing too soon.
New World, New Needs
October 3, 2017
The core of our current transfer rule was debated by a predecessor organization 20 years before the Michigan High School Athletic Association existed, in 1904. The MHSAA’s first handbook stated the rule in 1925: a one-semester wait to play after a change of schools, unless accompanied by a residential change by the student and parents or guardians. A one-semester wait, with one exception.
In 1971, the number of stated exceptions went from one to twelve.
It’s in 1981 when sentiment seemed to shift toward a harder line when the exception from a “broken home” approved by both school principals was toughened to require a completed divorce decree and a form signed by both principals and the MHSAA executive director.
When the transfer rule was adopted, the world was different than today. In 1904, 1925, 1971, even 1981, it was both a different society and youth sports landscape.
There were many more three-sport athletes then than today and many more three-sport coaches. There were many fewer non-school youth sports programs then than now, and many fewer nonfaculty coaches. And, of course, there was no school of choice.
Increasing year-round single-sport specialization by both students and coaches; ubiquitous specialized sports camps, clinics, trainers, travel teams and leagues – where both students and parents are making friends; more reliance on drop-in, nonfaculty coaches for school teams; and expanding open enrollment laws have combined to change our world.
And they combine to suggest the need for more changes in the MHSAA transfer rule.