Culture of Excellence
October 20, 2015
What are the marks of excellence in a high school’s extracurricular activities program that set the most welcoming schools apart? What are they doing to create and perpetuate a culture of excellence in good behavior?
Our counterpart organization in the state of Washington invited the MHSAA and other state high school associations to consider these questions, and to offer examples which would help to recognize the best practices of schools that have a tradition of excellence in good behavior and a welcoming environment.
We discovered that our initial thoughts were like skipping stones on a pond. They barely skimmed the surface of this topic, and we quickly plunged more deeply than answers like comfortable venues, convenient parking, friendly signage, staff assigned to greet contest officials and visiting teams, and upbeat cheering sections.
We concluded that all of these welcoming attributes are the result of committed leadership that communicates clearly and consistently about the expectations of educational athletics, and these expectations are exceptional in how different they are than at every other level of sports.
What is abundant in these schools and scarce in less-welcoming schools is the appointment, and continued training and support, of a full-time athletic administrator who spends all day, every day on the interscholastic program.
And this athletic administrator provides ongoing training and support to coaches, as well as to team captains and other student leadership.
These are the schools where the MHSAA Coaches Advancement Program is provided time and time again to coaches. These are the schools where students have attended the MHSAA’s Team Captains Clinics, Sportsmanship Summits and Women in Sports Leadership Conferences. This is where the School Broadcast Program is providing events regularly and promoting the school proudly.
Simply put, these are schools where administrators are dedicated to creating a proper perspective of school-sponsored, student-centered sports, and spend time on this daily. They have gone beyond signs and slogans to the much more difficult (but more rewarding) work of nurturing better leaders out of coaches and athletes, individual by individual, week after week, season after season.
Only in Football
November 22, 2011
There was a time when even undefeated teams might not qualify for the MHSAA Football Playoffs. Eventually, the playoffs were expanded to eight divisions, each of 32 teams, assuring any team which could manage six wins was an automatic qualifier, and also that many teams with only five wins would qualify (20 five-win teams in 2011).
It was anticipated that this would allow good teams to schedule like-size, nearby opponents without fear of a loss or two. But some observers now complain that mediocre teams won’t schedule certain nearby opponents because they fear a fourth loss that could keep them from certain postseason play. Long-standing league affiliations are being stressed by this mindset.
There are very smart, very sincere people who want the MHSAA to once again expand the playoffs to, they hope, eliminate these problems; but the MHSAA has already done its part to accommodate football’s “uniqueness.” For example. . .
- It is only in football that MHSAA tournaments have more than four classes and divisions. In football there are now eight divisions for the 11-player game, plus one division for the 8-player game.
- It is only in football that MHSAA tournaments are longer than three weeks. In football, it takes five weeks to crown champions in those eight divisions for the 11-player game.
- It is only in football where first-round tournament matchups can result in round-trip travel of 600, 700, 800 or more miles.
Proposals that would create even more extravagance – more 11-player divisions, more weeks of playoffs and more long trips – all because schools are reluctant to schedule nearby opponents during the regular season – are all proposals that should be sacked.