Cooperative Concerns
July 12, 2016
When an organization receives positive media attention for a policy change, it’s probably best to accept the praise and get back to work. But that could be too easy and miss some teachable moments.
This summer, the Michigan High School Athletic Association has been the recipient of unqualified praise for allowing two or more high schools of any size to jointly sponsor sports teams at the subvarsity level, and for relaxing enrollment limits so that two or more high schools of the same school district could jointly sponsor varsity teams in all sports except basketball and football.
Media seemed to think that this was something revolutionary in Michigan. In fact, the concept of what we call “cooperative programs” in Michigan was borrowed from other Midwest states and began in Michigan during the 1988-89 school year when seven cooperative programs were first approved. Those seven co-ops involved 13 of the MHSAA’s smallest high schools.
Over the next almost three decades, policies have been revised over and over to assist students in schools of larger enrollments, sports of low participation and schools with special circumstances. All of this is admirable; but to be frank, not all results are positive.
The idea of cooperative programs is to increase opportunity. That has often occurred. But increasingly, schools are entering into co-ops not to create new opportunities for participation where they did not exist, but to save opportunities for participation where existing participation is declining – or worse, to combine two viable teams into one to save money.
This trend, and the slight softening of the fundamental principle of educational athletics – that each student competes for his or her own school’s teams – should soften the praise for our most recent expansion of cooperative programs in Michigan.
Entering 2016-17, the MHSAA has nearly 300 high school cooperative programs for nearly 500 sports teams, and nearly 100 junior high/middle school cooperative programs for approximately 340 sports teams. A growing number are not being created with the lofty goals of 1988-89. Instead of the word “create,” we more often see the word “survive” in the cooperative team applications.
My Best Man
January 15, 2013
Upon the death of my father last month, a sports writer from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who was preparing a story on my father’s career as athlete, coach and Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association executive director, asked for my insights about Dad and his impact on me. I could have written a book, but here’s what I had space to say . . . just the right length for a blog:
“Dad served at a time before electronic media and online meetings when state high school association executive directors traveled their states doing rules meetings, thus building stronger relationships with coaches and officials than is common in our work today. And in Dad's case, because he was THE expert in high school wrestling rules in the United States, Dad traveled the country presenting wrestling rules meetings in states where wrestling was an emerging high school sport. It is not an exaggeration to say Dad was the ‘father of high school wrestling in America.’
“Dad and I worked together when he headed the WIAA and I was an assistant director at the National Federation of State High School Associations in the 1970s, allowing us to form an even closer bond in both our personal and professional lives than most fathers and sons enjoy. In those days, when there was a particularly difficult speaking assignment at a national meeting on school sports, Dad would be one of the first people whose name came to mind to address that topic. He was a forceful speaker; and I expect that my nationwide speaking trail owes a great debt to the many times as a youngster that I traveled with Dad when he gave sports banquet speeches.
“I'm told I idolized Dad when he coached, and know I admired him as a state association executive, and he was my closest male friend ever -- even ‘Best Man’ at my wedding. He was a great model as a father, husband and leader.
“At his retirement dinner in December of 1985, a spokesperson on behalf of the state's coaches said: ‘John, we didn't always agree with your decisions, but we never once doubted your motives.’ I can't think of a greater compliment for any man who worked so long in such a controversial line of work, which Dad loved so much.”