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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.

Program Priorities

January 10, 2014

Many school districts face more requests from their constituents for sports programs than they have the resources to accommodate, so they are forced to make very difficult decisions. For three decades, when I’ve been consulted, I have offered and stood by this advice.

First, I advance the premise that if the activity is educational, there is just as much potential for the education to occur at the junior high/middle school and subvarsity levels as at the varsity level. Just as we would not discriminate against one race or gender, we should not disadvantage one age or ability level. In fact, with a little less pressure to win, it is likely to see more education at subvarsity levels and more reason to sponsor them.

Second, I advocate the position that schools should avoid sponsorship of any activity for which a qualified head coach cannot be secured. Qualified personnel are, in order of priority:

  1.  a teacher within the building who has current CPR certification and completed CAP.
  2.  a teacher within the district who has current CPR certification and completed CAP.
  3.  a teacher in another district who has current CPR certification and completed CAP.
  4.  a certified teacher from the community who has current CPR certification and completed CAP.
  5.  a non-certified person who has current CPR certification and completed CAP.

I urge schools not to descend lower than this for program leadership. Coaches are the delivery system of the education in educational athletics; they are the critical link in the educational process. More problems occur than are worth the effort if the program is in the hands of an unqualified coach.

Next, I urge that schools rank sports on the basis of cost per participant, and give higher priority to sports that spread funds over the greatest number of participants.

Next, I urge that schools place lowest in priority the sports that cannot be operated on school facilities and create transportation, supervision and liability issues, and give higher priority to those conducted at or very near the school.

Next, I urge that schools place lowest in priority the sports which are most readily available in the community, without school involvement. If resources are precious, then duplicating school programs should be a low priority; doing what the community can’t do or doesn’t do should be given a much higher priority.

While I’m a fan of school sports, I recognize that an athletic program has as much potential to do harm as to do good. Programs without qualified coaches that are conducted for small numbers of students at remote venues and without comprehensive school oversight and support may create more problems for schools than the good they do for students.

Bare bones budgeting will require brutally honest assessments based on priorities like these.