Glue and Grace
October 9, 2012
Recent events, obvious to you, caused me to return to an article the MHSAA published in August of 1999. Here it is again:
Three days after the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, a retired athletic administrator whom I respect greatly and listened to intently, called me to say this:
“You have an opportunity to speak to student-athletes in this state and across the country. Talk to them about Littleton.”
This administrator wanted me to convey to athletes that they were not a part of the many and complex causes of the Columbine carnage, but they play a small part of the solution to help assure such craziness doesn’t occur closer to home.
The administrator was referencing some of the media reports that suggested the youthful killers took offense to the “jocks.” Valid or not, these suggestions provide another wake-up call for those who claim that school-sponsored sports are healthy for the participants, school and community.
As a result, part of my conversations with student-athletes this year and the heart of my message to team captains in 1999-00, will be this:
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Break down the walls, real or perceived, between the athletes of your schools and other students. Avoid cliques limited to team members or even athletes in general.
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When you walk the school halls and shopping malls, greet fellow students warmly, regardless of their involvement in school sports or other activities. Let them know that you know they exist.
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Become more sensitive to the needs of others, especially those who are different than you. Appreciate that while you may be more gifted in some things, other students are more gifted in other things. Show a genuine interest in those things.
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Understand that you are not the center of the universe. Accept that it is your role to serve others, and not the other way around.
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Don’t condescend, but concentrate on the rich worth of other people. Seek them out. Involve them. Enter into their worlds and invite them into yours until such time as it is difficult to recognize different worlds in your school and community.
I believe this goal for the interscholastic athletic program, embraced by every administrator, participant and parent, would help us: That every participant be involved in academic and non-academic matters, athletic and non-athletic activities, be a star in one thing and a substitute in another, be on stage and backstage, in solo and ensemble, experiencing both winning and losing.
A student involved in such an experience as this could not help but provide glue and grace to a student body.
No student-athlete anywhere is remotely responsible for the massacre in Littleton, Colorado. But student-athletes everywhere have an opportunity to be a small part of an environment that assures such a tragedy is not repeated where they live, study and play. Talk to them.
Playoff Proposal Pauses
May 10, 2013
During the MHSAA Football Finals at Ford Field last November, I was approached by representatives of the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association with a request to have the MHSAA’s computing capabilities crunch the numbers for a concept that a couple of the coaches association’s members had for revising the MHSAA Football Playoff point system.
Within a few weeks the MHSAA hosted a meeting that brought together the coaches who introduced the concept with our numbers crunchers; and within a few days our staff had outlined the principles, revised the point system and retrofitted it to show how the system would have affected the 2012 playoffs.
There was initial excitement that we might be onto something, but that brief infatuation began to wane as we dug deeper and discussed the plan more widely.
The key ingredients of the proposal are (1) that a school would gain playoff points for every game its opponent wins, whether or not that school defeated that opponent, and (2) that the number of automatic qualifiers would be reduced in favor of a larger group of additional qualifiers based on a revised playoff points system that would favor schools which schedule larger and more successful opponents.
In spite of our staff’s helpfulness in bringing this proposal forward, we’ve lost optimism that it will accomplish what is hoped. Rather than making regular-season scheduling easier, it could make it harder as the “six-wins-and-in” mindset is replaced by the even worse “seven-wins-and-in” mindset. And any system that ignores a minimum number of wins and relies entirely on playoff points is even less fair than the current system to schools in the less densely populated areas of Michigan.
From our retrofitting of the proposed concept to the 2012 season, we know that teams with 6-3 records would be displaced in the playoffs by teams with 4-5 records, which is certain to go down badly and be difficult to explain to those communities. The revised point system would make it even more difficult than the current system for schools in less populated areas to find opponents of the size and strength to generate high playoff point averages without these schools driving 100, 200, 300 or more miles, one way, several times each season. For individual schools and some entire leagues, this will make football scheduling tougher, not easier. It is likely to add stress to those league affiliations, and to football scheduling generally.
In any event, there is no need to rush to 2013 or 2014 a proposal that’s called “Enhanced Strength of Schedule System” because schedules are 99 percent set for 2013 and nearly so for 2014. Even if adopted today, few schedules would be impacted before 2015. If a change like this one is to be implemented, schools must have ample notice, and our technology department must have enough time to program the new point system and then test it through an entire season.
The Representative Council acted wisely on May 6 when it paused the progress of this proposal. Some elements of it may be discussed at the MHSAA’s scheduled meetings this summer and fall.