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Less Means More

June 4, 2013

About a decade ago a trend began that is nearly a tidal wave today.  An exceptionally drastic act a decade ago is now an expected rite of each spring and summer.  Beginning in April and extending to September, trained and experienced athletic directors leave their jobs, and no one really replaces them.

Casualties of burnout and buyouts – in either case caused by a reduction of discretionary resources for local schools – full-time athletic directors retire or resign or are reassigned.  Replaced by part-time personnel or a school district employee with more hyphens in the job title than digits in the take-home pay.

The natural first reaction of the MHSAA was to think about ways to simplify and reduce the responsibilities it asks athletic directors to handle.  To dumb-down the expectations, if you will.

But lately, we’ve realized that first reaction is the wrong response to the cutbacks at the local level.  The better response – the necessary response – is for the MHSAA to both demand more and do more, in each case, to assure schools are maintaining a program worthy of the label “educational athletics.”

Here’s just some of what’s been happening as the MHSAA attempts to plug the holes that school districts have been opening in interscholastic athletic programs as they reallocate their precious resources:

  • First-year athletic directors are required to attend an in-person orientation at the MHSAA.  For other athletic directors, the MHSAA conducts league-based programs each August and six regional Athletic Director In-Service programs in September and October.  For athletic department secretaries the MHSAA began a separate in-service program in 2012.
  • Beginning in 2012-13, the MHSAA has provided athletic department management software to member high schools free of charge, and two dozen face-to-face training sessions have been conducted.  The software is progressively integrating local tasks with MHSAA policies and procedures, both to reduce the workload and improve rules compliance at the local level.
  • While frequent coaches meetings and meaningful mentoring were once the expectation of athletic directors, their lack of time and experience has resulted in less effective supervision of coaches.  This led a decade ago to a retooling of the MHSAA’s coaching education program – the Coaches Advancement Program – which the MHSAA delivers anytime to school districts anywhere they can assemble their coaches.  Currently, the MHSAA is advancing three enhancements to the preparation of coaches in the critical area of participant health and safety.

o On May 5, 2013, the Representative Council adopted the requirement beginning in 2014-15 that all assistant and subvarsity coaches complete the same online rules meeting as varsity head coaches or, in the alternative, one of the free online health and safety courses posted on MHSAA.com.

o The next two enhancements to be considered are (1) the requirement that all varsity head coaches hold current CPR certification (as of 2015-16); and (2) that all varsity head coaches hired on or after July 1, 2016 have completed CAP Level 1 or 2.

  • The MHSAA’s adoption of a “Model Policy for Managing Heat & Humidity” is another example of pushing forward on critical issues of school sports and not assuming that under-resourced and understaffed school athletic departments will have the time to develop and adopt their own policies and procedures that are appropriate for school-based, student-centered sports.

As schools find they must do less, the MHSAA sees it must do more.  That wasn’t the design for school sports in Michigan, but now the times demand it.

Change of Pace

January 30, 2015

Michael Schwimer is little known to us in Michigan. He was a 6-8, 240-pound relief pitcher out of the University of Virginia who was drafted in the 10th round by the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008.

In his minor league career, Schwimer earned 20 wins against 10 losses with a respectable 2.51 ERA. He struck out an eye-popping 12 batters per nine innings.

When Schwimer made his Major League Baseball debut for the Phillies in August of 2011, he served up a game-tying home run to the first batter he faced. He was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in February of 2013, and was released by the Blue Jays the following August. You might say Schwimer majored in the minors. That’s where he peaked as a professional baseball player.

As a player, Schwimer made few waves. He wasn’t a “game changer.” And yet, he may still be known as one who helped to change the game itself.

Schwimer is widely reported to be the first MLB player to use a glove that was made of synthetics, not leather (which weighs twice as much), and was made using a plaster cast of his hand. It was a custom-made, form-fitting glove.

The result looks almost like a toy glove, fit for T-ball; but MLB gave it a “thumbs up” in December of 2011. MLB players have been warming to the glove, although very slowly.

To which Schwimer responds: “It takes forever for any change to occur. But when change happens, it happens really fast.”

That almost sounds like something Yogi Berra would have said – like, “it takes forever for change to occur, and then it doesn’t.” But experience very often teaches us the truth of this sentiment.

As the MHSAA reprocesses two of its toughest topics ever – out-of-season coaching rules and 6th-graders’ roles in school sports and the MHSAA – it seems like there is no progress toward change. And no change is the possible outcome of both long journeys.

But it’s also possible that, for one or both topics, the time will come when wisdom and will combine to create constructive change, which then seems to be occurring almost overnight.

My hope is that we find that formula before a rash of problems causes a tipping point that results in a rush toward solutions that are poorly conceived and/or politically imposed by outside entities.