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?
Broadening the Scope
September 8, 2017
There are two categories of projects that deserve most of our attention in school sports, no matter where or on what level we work. They are important either because they deal with chronic problems or because they address core principles.
Among many, the chronic problems include declining numbers of registered officials and increasing numbers of athletic transfers, as well as football scheduling. It is mostly because these are persistent problems for many at the local level that they have become priorities for MHSAA management’s time and attention.
Addressing chronic problems can often feel like walking a treadmill. We can work up a sweat, but get nowhere. Arrive at no new and better place. But the effort is important and may keep things from getting worse. Which is why many hours are being spent on these three chronic problems this year: officials, transfers and scheduling.
Of potentially greater value and lasting impact are the projects most directly addressing core principles of educational athletics, such as sportsmanship, health and safety and the scope of our programs. Backsliding on these topics can be most damaging to school-sponsored sports, and the damage – or missed opportunity – can have devastating future effects.
So, while we deal with the chronic issues of the day, we are devoting ourselves daily to more effective sportsmanship resources, even more enhancements for promoting participant health and safety, and increasing the scope of school sports in ways that are consistent with the core values of educational athletics.
School sports does not need longer seasons and travel. It does not need more games and hype. In these ways, the scope of school sports is just fine ... consistent with the objectives of the sponsoring organizations – schools – which is to educate young people. Academics before athletics.
Where school sports must consider a larger scope is in who the programs are serving. There is both need and opportunity to reach younger students and provide more service and support to junior high/middle school sports – the feeder system of educational athletics.
There is both need and opportunity to reach students with athletic interests outside the 14 MHSAA tournament sports the MHSAA provides girls and the 14 for boys. Many thousands more students want to participate in other sports – the sports of their passion – under their school’s banner and in MHSAA tournaments. There may also be both need and opportunity to involve more students with disabilities in school-sponsored sports programs.
The scope is just fine for the sports we sponsor. Broadening the scope of whom we serve is a core principle project that deserves our attention.