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Competitive Classes

May 7, 2013

After the classifications and divisions for MHSAA tournaments in 2013-14 were posted on mhsaa.com last month, there were more questions and comments than in previous years.

Some of this results from electronic media – how quickly our information gets distributed far and wide, and how easy it is for people to email their opinions.  This isn’t bad.

But we were able to discern in the feedback that there is poor public understanding of school enrollment trends in Michigan.  For example, many people objected that the spread between the largest and smallest schools in the classifications and divisions has grown too large.

In fact, taking the long view, the difference between the largest and smallest schools has been shrinking:

  • In Class D, the difference between the largest and smallest school has trended downward over the past 25 years, and will be approximately 20 percent smaller for 2013-14 than in 1989 (to 189 from 247).
  • The same is true in Class C, although less dramatically (to 221 from 259).
  • The same is true in Classes B and A, although less consistently (from 496 to 464 in Class B; and from 2,111 to 1,888 in Class A).

If there is need for more than four classes in basketball or girls volleyball, or for more than four “equal divisions” in most other sports, it is not because of the reason most often cited.  That reason – that the enrollment spread is growing too large – is not supported by the facts.

Simons Says

December 12, 2014

As an almost inveterate traveler – one who begins planning his next adventure to sweeten the sadness during the return trip of the current adventure – I took special note of and pleasure in this statement of Eric Simons in his book Darwin Slept Here:

“Optimism may be one of the biggest benefits of travel. When you spend all your time in a small area, trekking back and forth to work, getting all your news on the Internet, it’s easy to think the world is a lot worse off than it is. Then you get out in it, even for a short bit, and you get a summit view or find a friendly person who cares about nature just like you do, and then even when you go home, you remember: Hey, it’s not all bad. We’re really doing ok.”

When I see advertisements that promote travel as an escape, I cannot agree. For me, travel is a change from the daily routine, but it’s hardly an escape. In fact, I see more sights, hear more sounds, smell more scents and taste more flavors when I travel. I interact with countless more people – in airports, markets, parks, museums. But even moments of isolation – perhaps on a remote beach or trail – are somehow richer, more contemplative, when traveling.

It is not escape but engagement with new cultures and customs that travel causes; and it creates opportunities for personal reflection that routine obscures.

As Simons says, “Traveling connects us to the world and renews our capacity to wonder.”