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Inner Life

November 25, 2016

Good reading here from Jody Redman, Associate Director of the Minnesota State High School League:

“The goal of interscholastic and youth sports is not to prepare students for a college scholarship or some professional career. It just doesn’t happen that often.

“Seventy-eight percent of youth who play sport will quit by the age of 12 because it just isn’t fun anymore and 97 percent of the students who go on to play at the high school level will have a terminal experience when they graduate. They will no longer play organized sports as they have throughout their youth experience.

“So what’s the point? Why do we play?

“We play to develop students into people with sound moral character that will prepare them for a life that recognizes the humanity of others, that is rich with empathy and compassion and develops in them the moral courage to stand up for what is right. When we only focus on physical skills and accomplishments we don’t give them the skills that will help them over the course of their lifetime, skills that will make the world a better place. We give them very little that has any real inherent value.

“It is time to give sports back to the children who play them. To focus on the true purpose of sports in our children’s lives. For this to happen, we have to establish a clear path, one that defines purpose, promotes values that are important to students and their community and defines success beyond winning.

“When we define success by the holistic development of our children into moral adults of character and compassion, then sports will regain its proper place in our families, schools and communities and most importantly, for the children who play them.”

Ready for Some Football

August 12, 2014

How seriously should we take public criticism of tackle football when that public promotes boxing or cage fighting? Or how seriously should we take public criticism of football played with helmets when that public allows motorcyclists to ride without any helmets at all?

This fickle if not hypocritical focus on football deserves to be exposed. 

However, and more importantly, this does not reduce our obligation to rise above the obvious questions of fair and balanced criticism and keep pressing for a safer environment for schools’ most popular participation sport.

In Michigan this has led to new limitations on head-to-head contact in football practices that began for more than 600 high schools this week. Specifically, no team or individual may participate in more than one collision practice per day before the first game, and no more than two collision practices per week after the first game.

The new policies promote instruction in proper blocking and tackling technique. It is full speed head-to-head contact that is further reduced, not full speed shoulder contact with sleds, shields and dummies nor slow speed contact between players.

Last month, and perhaps two years too late to be helpful, the National Federation of State High School Associations hosted a high-profile, high-powered summit to discuss practice policies of the kind that we developed, debated and adopted during the past school year to be ready for this 2014 season.