Fresh Air
June 30, 2014
On well over 300 of every 365 days each year I take a brisk early morning walk. One of the many things I’ve noticed over the years is how the smell of the exhaust of even a single passing automobile will stale the fresh air for several minutes after the vehicle is out of sight.
I’ve often thought there was a metaphor here that I could use in commenting on school sports; and my recent reading of Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief gave shape to that thought when the novel’s central character said:
“. . . when we came to intersections, we would have to stop and then the blue whiteness of the exhaust would overtake us. We could see it and smell it. We thought we had left it behind us somewhere back on the road, but when we slowed down, it seemed to overtake and surround us.”
What we have in school sports that none of the so-called more “prestigious” brands of sports offer is fresh air. Purity. Wholesomeness.
This is our trump card, our ace-in-the-hole.
We lack the resources to compete on a marketing or promotional level with college and professional sports; and we look foolish and waste resources when we try.
But when we focus on local rivalries between nearby opponents – complete with pep bands and marching bands, fully-clad cheerleaders, pep assemblies, letter jackets and Homecoming parades and dances – we play to our strength. We’re local, amateur and just a touch corny. Charming is a better word.
As we travel in this direction, the air is clean and fresh. As we slow or even stop at the intersection of other choices, we will smell the foulness in the air and know immediately that the only course for educational athletics is the road we’re already on.
The Curse of Cutting
July 22, 2016
The current cover story for the summer issue of a national magazine for coaches and athletic directors tries to make “The Case for Cuts.” The author, from a private school in New England, fails the task.
He argues, for example, that cutting kids can be beneficial because athletes who sit the bench build resentment and that “keeping kids can lose kids.” Not true for good coaches.
He flippantly says that other opportunities are available to kids who get cut. Not true in most places.
The calling of a coach in school-sponsored sports is not to make things easy for himself or herself and to make it hard for kids to find healthy peer groups. The calling of a coach of educational athletics is to reach, engage and motivate as many students as possible in learning life lessons and developing interests and skills for physical activity that will last a lifetime.
School sports is not “The Apprentice” where kids get fired for a poor tryout. School sports is more often a safety net to help young people get fired up for school and life.
Every student we can keep engaged in school sports is a future advocate for school sports, as are these student-athletes’ parents.
Every kid we cut, and his/her parents, will more likely become our critics. If the school sports program has no time for me, or for my son or daughter, then I’ll have no time for it – no time to attend events or volunteer, much less the inclination to donate funds or vote for tax increases.
Coaches who cut teams for their convenience today cut the connection with people who most want to be involved. As much as anything, this threatens the future of school-sponsored sports.
Occasionally, facility limitations may require great creativity or, as a last resort, cutting; but almost always for outdoor sports and generally for indoor sports, cutting is an avoidable curse – one that should be exorcised from educational athletics.