Hit Again
April 1, 2013
Education reform needs a Mulligan. A do-over. The opportunity to go back to “Go” and start over. For example . . .
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Back to a time before the attack on neighborhood schools closed those schools and contributed to neighborhood collapse and community disconnect.
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Before suburban schools were allowed to prey on and profit from an urban school’s misfortunes.
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Before large buses lumbered down narrow residential lanes to transport our littlest learners from the shadow of their local school to another across town, where all the other littlest students were gathered for more “cost-effective” education.
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Before schools shuffled off low-achieving students to alternative schools in order to elevate their ranking on standardized test scores.
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Before teachers based their lessons more on test preparation than learning.
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Before education re-segregated through specialized charter schools with non-inclusive curricula.
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Before public schools were barred from beginning their instructional days before Labor Day, or whenever their community thought it best for the education of its students.
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Back to a time when pedagogy more than politics planned and delivered education.
Let’s tee it up and hit again.
Hall of Fame Heritage
April 29, 2014
Here are two little known facts. The chair of the first-ever high school level swimming & diving rules committee was Allen W. Bush, the MHSAA’s second full-time executive director. And yours truly, the MHSAA’s fourth full-time executive director, was the editor of the committee’s first rule book published by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
This connection to the sport of swimming & diving early in my career has caused me to keep track of some of the sport’s key personnel, including Dave Robertson (IL), Dennis McGinly (PA), Dick Hannula (WA) and Glenn Kaye (FL) who all served on the first NFHS committee and are now in the National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association (NISCA) Hall of Fame.
Last month in Austin, Texas, NISCA inducted Ann Arbor-Pioneer’s legendary coach Dennis Hill into its Hall of Fame. Dennis coached boys swimming & diving for 45 years and girls swimming & diving for 38 years at Pioneer. He did so with both grace and great success, and it saddens me to learn that this gentleman has announced his well-deserved retirement.
Dennis was preceded into NISCA’s Hall of Fame by Michigan coaches G. Robert Mowerson (1975-Battle Creek), Willard Cooley (1980-Jackson), C. William Brandell (1984-Battle Creek-Lakeview), William Reaume (1988-Detroit-Denby), William Laury (1989-Detroit-Cody), Michael Lane (1998-Bloomfield Hills-Andover), and Richard Edwards (2010-Lansing-Eastern).
It’s people like these who have made and maintained Michigan’s excellent reputation among school-based swimming & diving programs across the US, overcoming the early efforts of the first wet-behind-the-ears rule book editor.