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The Character Network

March 6, 2015

“You can go other places to try to become a better athlete, but there’s no better place to become a better person than high school sports.”

There’s a hint of hyperbole in that statement, but it’s the sincere sentiments of one with an important dual perspective.

These are the words I heard spoken last month by Robert Rothberg, father of a high school senior who just completed her high school volleyball career. He is also chief executive officer of the NFHS Network that is producing thousands of high school events so family, friends and fans can follow their favorite local athletes, just like his daughter.

Like high school sports, the NFHS Network is for the masses, not merely the elite. Interscholastic athletics provides competition and character building opportunities for students of diverse sizes, shapes and skill levels; and the NFHS Network provides coverage that is just as diverse – from the local subvarsity and varsity level sponsored by schools of all types in all parts of almost all states, to many of the culminating state championship events.

To peek in on the network that focuses on character more than characters, go to MHSAA.tv.

In An Instant

August 4, 2015

The icebergs that enter the harbors along Newfoundland’s north shore started to form thousands of years ago. They broke from ice flows 10 times their size and then got caught in a current that carried them on a 1,000-mile, two-year journey to “Iceberg Alley.” Some of them drift into harbors and, with seven-eighths of their mass below the surface, they get grounded. Eventually they break apart and disappear.

My wife and I “discovered” one of these grounded ‘bergs near the shore of cozy little Coffee Cove. After a 15-minute hike, we got closer to this sparkling monster than third base is to home plate. We each snapped dozens of pictures.

Just as we were turning to begin our hike back to “civilization,” we heard what we thought was a loud gunshot. But what actually occurred was a portion of the iceberg breaking off and falling into the water.

What we had taken pictures of moments earlier no longer existed as it had at that time. In an instant, the iceberg had changed, without respect for the thousands of years in the making and the hundreds of miles of traveling.

A few days after we returned to Michigan, Rich Tompkins died, apparently healthy, just after waterskiing. Death came without respect for the miles Rich had traveled to serve student-athletes and coaches, and without regard to all the victories his teams had earned and MHSAA championships they had won.

I last saw Rich on Valentine’s Day at the first-ever Fremont High School Hall of Fame induction banquet where Rich and many of his athletes were honored. The pictures taken that night are of people and circumstances that can never be reassembled.

We need to more fully appreciate the miracle of such moments. They can be gone in an instant.