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Help Wanted

November 22, 2011

You probably wouldn’t be much attracted to a “Help Wanted” posting in the classified ads of your local newspaper that read:

Help Wanted!
Long hours. Late nights.  Low pay.
Frequent criticism.

Almost every paid or volunteer position associated with local school sports would fit that description.

And yet, legions of people enlist in service to school sports each and every year.

Many do so because their own kids are involved as participants. Many others do it “to give back” to a program that provided them so many benefits as a participant years before.

I commend to your reading the Winter 2011-12 issue of benchmarks now online which features a very few of the very many people who have answered this “Help Wanted” call.  We are thankful for them all.

Community Development

April 1, 2015

When those who lead, manage and deliver school sports do their jobs well, the whole child – body, mind and spirit – is educated. Students learn to lead, and they learn to follow. They learn to become good team captains and good teammates.

When the job is done well, we place good sports on the path to becoming great citizens. We elevate both school spirit and GPAs. We lower dropout rates and discipline problems.

When the job is done well, school sports is an essential component of school improvement, as well as of the community building and place making strategies that every progressive city and town in Michigan is thinking about.

Successful schools are the ones in the center of community life; and when the job is well done, school sports programs are central to the life of those schools.

Building a school program without sports is like constructing the physical school building without the mortar that holds things together. Building a community without comprehensive schools is just as foolish.