Collateral Damage
August 17, 2015
Whenever something unusually crazy happens at the college level that may adversely affect high school athletics, there are calls that the MHSAA do something to stop the stupidity. I can count on these requests whenever a Division I college program offers a scholarship to a pre-teen; and when it happened recently in Michigan, the MHSAA heard more complaints than ever.
What the critics do not appreciate is that the MHSAA has zero authority for NCAA recruiting rules and grant-in-aid policies. If we did, things might be much different. For example:
- There would be no recruitment in any form allowed before a student has completed 11th grade. There would be no offers or promises of scholarships prior to this date.
- Then, there would be no in-person recruitment allowed that does not occur at the student’s school and arranged through that school’s administration.
- When scholarships are offered, they would be for four or five years, irrevocable if the student maintains academic eligibility, whether or not the student plays a single minute.
All the commentary regarding the cesspool of college recruiting is wasted air or ink if it doesn’t focus on those who have the authority to change that environment. It’s the college coaches themselves, the administrators of those intercollegiate programs and the presidents of those institutions. Any corrective measures they suggest to high schools miss the point that they caused their problems and they alone can solve them. We are just collateral damage.
Enhancing Public Health
August 29, 2017
Due to overuse injuries from sport specialization that is too early, too intense and too prolonged, youth may be increasingly susceptible to sports-related injuries; but school sports themselves have never been safer – for obvious reasons:
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Equipment is the best it’s ever been.
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Coaches have never been better trained in health and safety.
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Practice and competition rules have never been more safety conscious.
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Officials have never had more authority to penalize unsafe play.
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Medical care and insurance has never been as available as it is today.
Our objective is not merely to keep making school-sponsored sports safer and safer year after year. In school sports – educational athletics – we also have the objective that students learn habits of a healthy lifestyle they can carry into adulthood.
In this way, school sports mitigates some of the damage of youth sports and contributes to the general good, to improved public health in America.
All that we do has that goal, and it’s a finish line we have not yet crossed.