Don’t Look Back
November 23, 2011
In August of 1986, at the end of the one week of overlap between the previous MHSAA executive director, Vern Norris, and the start of my tenure, I found an envelope on my desk from Mr. Norris that read: “No words of advice. Just make your decisions and don’t look back.” That’s Lesson No. 5 of six in this series of blogs.
In our work, time is of the essence. We don’t have the luxury of long deliberations. The next game may be today; the next round of the tournament tomorrow.
In our work, staff is limited. We don’t have subpoena power. We have few staff spread thinly over many responsibilities.
In our work, because it’s in a competitive arena, people are sometimes disingenuous. Some have personal agendas, impure motives sometimes. They care who wins and loses; we don’t.
And most people have miserable memories. I’m skeptical that people recall well the details of events; and people are even worse when recalling details of conversations.
So, in our work, we make one more call and then, with good intentions and reliance on rules, we get on with the decision and try not to look back.
It’s hard to do, but a good deal healthier if we can.
Committees Fail Critical Issues
June 7, 2013
Typically, each sport committee meets once each year for three to five hours, during which time it considers proposals that come from schools, leagues and the state’s coaches association for the sport; and the proposals most often deal with allowing more regular-season events and more qualifiers to the MHSAA postseason tournament.
Occasionally there is a proposal that might improve sportsmanship. But much more often the proposals would increase conflicts between academics and athletics and/or strain overstressed local budgets. And almost never is there a proposal that would address the health and safety of participants (the Wrestling Committee has been an occasional exception and the Competitive Cheer Committee is a routine exception).
While coaches associations must shoulder some of the blame because they’ve brought MHSAA committees “trivial” topics, at least in comparison to the tougher health and safety topics, much of the cause of MHSAA committee ineffectiveness is that the committees don’t meet long enough or often enough to research serious problems and develop well-thought-out solutions. That is forgivable because it is difficult to get commitments from busy people all across Michigan to be absent from their regular jobs and travel dozens or even hundreds of miles, and to do so multiple times each year – which is what it takes to more fully understand complex problems and more carefully construct solutions. Meetings have to be few and they have to be efficient.
However, facing the worst publicity football has seen since the mid-1970s, we knew we had to supplement the football committee process. We did so by appointing a special Football Task Force of optimum size and experienced, representative makeup to meet on however many occasions are necessary during 2013 to accomplish three purposes:
- Review practice policies to improve acclimatization of players and reduce head trauma.
- Review competition rules to reduce head trauma and the frequency of the sport’s most injurious game situations.
- Develop promotions that extol the value of football to students, schools and communities and the safety record of school-based football.
The promotional efforts have begun to be rolled out; game rule modifications are being investigated; and four proposals for changing football practice policies have been prepared. They will be the topic of our next posting.