Coaching Advancement
March 21, 2014
Over the past nine months we have marched down the field in our effort to enhance the health and safety preparation of those who coach school sports. There have been two big plays during this offensive drive.
Last May, the Representative Council adopted the requirement beginning in 2014-15 that all assistant and subvarsity high school coaches must complete the same rules/risk management session as high school varsity head coaches, or, in the alternative, complete one of several free, online health and safety programs posted for this purpose on MHSAA.com.
Last December, the Council adopted the requirement beginning in 2015-16 that all high school varsity head coaches must have current certification in CPR.
It’s my hope that we will not fumble now that we’re in the red zone, that we won’t drop the ball before crossing the goal line on this current health and safety drive focusing on enhanced preparation of coaches.
The next play the Representative Council is considering is to require that all persons hired for the first time at any MHSAA member high school as a varsity level head coach must have completed the Coaches Advancement Program Level 1 or 2.
More than 10,000 people already have done so; and other people who want to be high school varsity head coaches have more than two years to complete this requirement.
Finishing this drive won’t put Michigan’s high school coaching standards at the head of the class; but it will keep us in the classroom of best practices for coaches education. The standard of care is advancing nationwide and on all levels of sports.
Marriage Reflections
October 18, 2013
Recently, and for the first time, I drew parallels between marriage and the hiring of staff. It occurred when a gray-haired, ponytailed officiant in the Phoenix foothills exhorted the wedding couple to be “the mirror of their partner’s best values.”
We want our newest staff person to be everything we need and want, immediately filling every hole and completing our wish list. Frankly, that’s impossible.
But, the one thing I am sure we must have and can have is a person who mirrors the MHSAA’s best values – an individual who reflects the core values of school-sponsored, student-centered sports and of the MHSAA on its best days as it serves and supports educational athletics.
And just as it’s not lethally late for a husband in his fifth decade of marriage to work harder to reflect his wife’s best values, neither is it too tardy for veterans of the MHSAA staff to focus on our reflection of the best values of school sports and the organization that has served educational athletics for ten decades.