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Cutting Kids

September 25, 2012

As an athlete, I dreaded the days.  Even when I was a returning starter, I approached with anxiety the page taped to the locker room door that would indicate who made the high school basketball team (and, by omission, who didn’t).

As a coach, I refused to do it.  I wasn’t even tempted to cut anybody from my squads.  But I was lucky.  I coached football and golf, and the outdoor practice venues gave us enough room for almost limitless opportunities.

As a parent, I’ve cried over it.  Watching my older son be cut from a non-school basketball program for junior high boys (he switched to wrestling in high school and had a fine career).  Watching my younger son be cut four times from the travel soccer team (he made it on the fifth try and started for his high school freshman and junior varsity soccer teams during the two years after that).

At no time have I been more deeply troubled and saddened than watching the world of sports, to which I devote my working life, say, “No thank you” to my sons, to whom I dedicated my entire life.

As an administrator, I grieve over the process every year.  I listen to complaints of parents.  I watch them go from allies to enemies of high school sports.

Why would we limit squad sizes for outdoor sports?

Why would we cut freshmen who haven’t even matured yet and have only a little idea what they might like or be good at?

Why would we not find room for a senior who has been on the team for three years and continues to have a good attitude and work ethic?

Why would we turn away eligible boys and girls who would rather work and sweat after school than cruise and loiter?

Why do we persist in shutting out and turning against us the parents who would be our advocates today and the students who would be our advocates in the future?

More than Fun and Games

September 24, 2014

Five years ago there were many skeptics when the MHSAA redesigned its website and included twice-weekly blogs by the executive director and active Facebook and Twitter pages as well as YouTube channels, and gave constituents and critics alike an opportunity to post comments. Some skeptics said we were being distracted with frivolous fun and games, and others said all this interaction would be a persistent source of problems.

In fact, for the MHSAA, this constituent engagement has been about much more than fun and games and it’s been a means to solve problems.

Our primary use of social media and other means of constituent engagement has been to drive people to high school events and to the MHSAA website where the distinctive messages of educational athletics would stand out.

Rather than creating problems, allowing the crowd to enter scores on MHSAA.com has led us to post more accurate scores more rapidly than when we depended on school coaches or administrators alone.

More recently we have been reviewing our event emergency plans and our office business continuation plans, which had been developed before social media became a fact of life; and now we are revising those documents to make social media the primary means of communication during such problems.

It is entirely through social media, primarily Facebook and YouTube – that the MHSAA has caused people to be talking about sportsmanship and inciting larger, more positive student and adult spectator sections at high school contests. That’s our award-winning “Battle of the Fans” that moves into its fourth year in 2014-15.