Health and Safety A, B, Cs
August 18, 2015
At a recent staff meeting I asked those who had attended the annual summer meeting of the National Federation of State High School Associations to report their most prominent impression. One person said, and the others agreed, that almost every session and every topic eventually turned to health and safety.
Indeed, that is the filter through which we determine priorities, the lens through which we view every problem, and the scale on which we weigh every decision ... now more than ever.
This mindset is not the result of epidemic dangers in school sports, but because the limitless reporting of isolated incidents has created the impression that school sports is dangerous.
In fact, these are the healthiest times ever to be a high school athlete. Never have we known more and done more to improve every aspect of the experience. Give me any letter of the alphabet, and I can give you a positive progress report: A – Acclimatization policies; B – Bat standards; C – CPR requirement ... and so on.
Often our impressive progress is used against us. Make an improvement and someone is sure to spout off: “See? It isn’t safe. We need to ban it or at least remove sports from schools.”
This is why we usually pair program improvements with promotions to re-emphasize the value and values of school sports for students, schools and society, and the impressive health and safety record of school-sponsored sports.
Click “Health & Safety” for a comprehensive review of what’s going on.
Thinking of Don Quixote
October 10, 2017
The athletic transfer problem is not confined to high schools alone. Recently, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has had a work group studying the NCAA transfer rule for Division I institutions.
The problem has been of particular concern in Division I men’s basketball where more than 20 percent of scholarship players changed schools between last season and this.
The work group appeared to have narrowed its study to two options: Make every transfer student ineligible for one year; OR, Allow every transfer student immediate eligibility. And the second option seemed to have had the early momentum.
But last Wednesday, the work group announced that the proposal to grant immediate eligibility to transfer students who meet certain academic standards will not advance during the current NCAA legislative cycle. Two days later the report was corrected: there's still a chance for change by 2018-19.
Major college conference commissioners and NCAA leadership have surveyed the landscape. They see athletes arriving on their college campuses from an environment where, if they weren’t happy with a team, they changed teams.
Apparently, the non-school, travel team attitude is bigger than the NCAA may want to battle.
Yet here we are, thinking of how to wage war on athletic transfers in high schools.