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Second Half by MHSAA

Family Practice

September 21, 2011

During my first winter on the job with the MHSAA I took my 4th-grade son to his first basketball practice, and I watched uncomfortably when his coach directed him to set a pick.  My son didn’t have a clue what that meant, and was embarrassed; and I felt like a complete and utter failure as a sports dad.

During the drive home, my son asked me what the coach meant when he said “set a pick and then roll to the basket.”

So when we arrived home, I recruited his mom to guard my son as he dribbled the basketball in the living room, pretending the basket was over the fireplace hearth.  I came up behind her and blocked her path as my son dribbled by, opening his path to the “basket.”

We repeated the drill, but this time his mom was wiser and scooted by me to guard my son; and when she did so, I rolled toward the “basket” and called for the ball.  My son offered a perfect pass as I moved unguarded toward the goal.

We repeated the plays with me dribbling and my son setting the pick on his mom, and then rolling toward the goal.

Pick and roll, family style.

And my son couldn’t wait for the next practice.

Risky Business

May 19, 2015

At a time when efforts to promote student-athlete health and safety are more obviously than ever at the top of our daily to-do list, it may seem ill-advised to suggest that kids need more danger in their lives. But they do! And that’s the point of 50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) by Penguin Books.

From mastering the perfect somersault (#3) to melting glass (#47), and from climbing a tree (#28) to walking home from school (#18), authors Gever Tulley and Julie Spiegler demonstrate two obvious but often overlooked points: (1) that most of us learn by doing; and (2) that a sterile, bubble-wrapped world teaches us less than one in which we are allowed to play with fire (#45).

After-school sports and activities provide safe and supervised danger. A place to learn new skills, meet different people, perform under pressure and test one’s limits. A supervised place to engage in life before going out in the less supervised real world.