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?
Controlled Fires
July 24, 2012
Forest fires have recently been scorching the United States with unusual reach and rage. Infernos in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, as well as Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming, have made news in our state.
Behind the headlines of the lightning-ignited 150-square-mile devastation near Fort Collins, Colorado is the analysis of forestry and conservation experts that it has been the absence of small fires that has helped to fuel the large fire. Turns out that Smokey the Bear’s campaign to prevent forest fires may be partly at fault.
In most of life, little problems here and there help to avoid larger problems later. The little fires consume the fuel that would feed a catastrophic conflagration exploding out of pent-up fears or frustrations or long-festering problems.
Even those who work in the “prevention business” – whether that’s the US Forest Service or a statewide athletic association – must tolerate a few fires. They can have positive, productive effects, one of which is to keep small problems from growing large and more destructive.