Future Actions
February 19, 2016
MHSAA committees have prepared not quite two dozen recommendations for Representative Council action later this spring. Once again this is a smaller than average number of proposals, and again they are modest in scope and significance. What has been different in recent years, and especially this year, is the length and depth of discussions by some of the committees.
Slowly, we are changing committee focus from tournament tweaks and other strictly transactional business to more strategic, even transformational issues.
Several committees talked longer than ever about health and safety issues, with attention to concussion and sports specialization, and how to accommodate and appeal to younger grade levels (6th, 7th and 8th).
I look forward to the day when these long discussions turn into provocative proposals. For example, I would love to hear that ...
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The MHSAA Football and Junior High/Middle School Committees recommend MHSAA sponsorship of flag football at the 6th- through 8th-grade levels.
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The MHSAA Soccer and Junior High/Middle School Committees recommend practice and game policies that reduce heading at the 6th- through 8th-grade levels.
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The MHSAA Golf Committee recommends MHSAA sponsorship of coed, Ryder Cup format golf.
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The MHSAA Tennis Committee recommends MHSAA sponsorship of coed team tennis.
There is so much more we could be doing to transform school sports for the 21st Century. New sports and formats, with increased attention to health and safety and the junior high/middle school level. This is our future, when talk turns to action.
War Stories
May 25, 2012
I recently returned from a national meeting of my counterparts – an annual gathering where legal and legislative topics are on the agenda. With increasing frequency, the business aspects of the gatherings are sidetracked by “war stories,” as my colleagues relate the latest attacks on their organizations by media, legislators, lawyers, parents and others as these good leaders assist their member schools in regulating interscholastic athletics.
It is well known that respect for authority figures and organizations of all kinds has been slipping for decades; and there are many reasons for it. What has made the decline even more apparent is the Internet where people can communicate with more speed and less consequence than before.
It is well studied that appropriateness of tone and language diminishes as one moves from face-to-face meetings, to telephonic conversations, to traditional letters, to emails, texts and Twitter.
People will usually research topics and learn more about the complexities of an issue before meetings and use dialogue to come to consensus during conversations. They will be more circumspect and contemplative in correspondence (which means, literally, an exchange of letters). But they will not hesitate to make assertions and cast aspersions without any factual basis in brief, one-sided email or social media comments; which usually adds nothing but acrimony to the issue.
Perhaps by being the No. 1 user of social media among the nation’s state high school associations, the MHSAA has made the problem worse. Perhaps by being the only state high school association executive director in the country to blog, I’ve also added to the problem.
Sports, after all, is not a subject that often suffers from too little communication. Perhaps, at least sometimes, it suffers from too much quantity and too little quality.