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Elite Soccer?

August 5, 2014

Every four years, the Winter Olympics brings obscure cold-weather sports to American homes; and a few months after that, the World Cup brings the world’s most popular game to the American conscience and conversation.

Predictably, those who don’t understand or don’t like soccer ridiculed the sport, while the sport’s devotees ignored ugly blemishes on the face of the “beautiful game.”

It’s my hope that those who play or coach school-based soccer, or who aspire to, saw the spacing, the strategy and the one-on-one skills of soccer at its highest level on its biggest stage. It really is beautiful!

But I wish even more that those who play or coach school-based soccer, or hope to, will ignore the feigning and the flopping. Grown, athletic men seemed to be tripped up by the slightest push or pull, and then tumbled with comical force, and then trembled dramatically as they held their head or gripped an ankle with both hands.

Oh, there were times when the shoves were real and forceful and the injuries were real and painful; but the vast majority of the players who fell were faking both incident and injury.

At times last month I thought I was watching World Wrestling Federation actors, not World Cup athletes. And in that regard, I prefer our high school version of the world’s highest profile sport.

Upon Further Review

November 6, 2015

Michigan was among the first dozen statewide high school associations in the U.S. to reduce the amount of contact during football practices. Since Michigan acted prior to the 2014 football season, the National Federation of State High School Associations has adopted recommendations, and all remaining state high school associations have adopted new restrictions.

The task force that acted early in Michigan to make the proposals that were supported by this state’s football coaches association and the MHSAA Representative Council wanted policies that could be clearly understood and easily enforced. The task force concluded that counting minutes of contact during a practice or a week was not the best approach.

Who would track the minutes for each and every player? Does the minute of contact count for a player who is only observing and not actually participating in the contact drill or scrimmage?

In limiting Michigan teams and players to one collision practice a day prior to the first game and two collision practices per week the rest of the season, the task force recommendation avoided the need to have coaches and administrators track and record the minutes of each and every player on each and every team each and every day and to determine what types of activities and what degree of involvement counted against 30- or 60- or 90-minute maximums.

It is anticipated that the MHSAA Football Committee will review in early 2016 what other states have done since the MHSAA acted in early 2014, but it is not assumed that changes are needed to existing practice policies. Further review may confirm earlier judgments about policies that are both protective of players and practical for coaches and administrators.