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Life Saving

January 22, 2013

Just prior to last month’s holidays, all MHSAA staff completed a refresher course in CPR and use of AEDs.

Next month – Feb. 4-8 – a consortium of governmental and non-governmental groups is planning and promoting “Michigan Schools CPR/AED Drill Week.”

Early intervention by calling 9-1-1 and the use of the most up-to-date CPR procedures and an AED are the critical factors to increase the chance of surviving cardiac arrest.

Plan now to use Feb. 4-8, 2013, as a focal point for extra attention to the simple steps that can help save the lives of our students, colleagues, friends and neighbors.  A helpful website is http://www.aeddrill.com.

Hopefully, this one week will be used to increase expectations that AED drills will occur with regularity – perhaps every semester – at every MHSAA member school.

NFL Misdirection

September 26, 2014

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell did something I really respect; and then he didn’t.

On Aug. 28, the commissioner sent a letter to the NFL’s 32 owners in which he admitted that he “didn’t get it right” when he assessed a mere two-game suspension for a player who was seen on videotape to be involved in domestic abuse. I admire his admission. (The player later would be suspended indefinitely from the league following additional evidence in the incident)

Unfortunately, the commissioner accompanied his mea culpa by describing a series of initiatives the league will undertake, one of which – once again – attempts to deflect a public relations disaster upon high schools.

When the NFL was under attack for the head trauma its players were experiencing, the league responded with a state-by-state campaign to impose youth concussion laws which, in most places, were mostly unfunded mandates that are more about symbolism than substance.

Now, again under attack for malfeasance by a workforce with more money than maturity, the league’s leadership is deflecting the blame to college, high school and youth football programs by planning educational efforts aimed at those levels.

Commissioner! Clean up your mess, but leave us alone. You are gutting public support of school sports with one televised game Thursday, three on Sunday and another on Monday, and adding Saturday games in December. Don’t have this out-of-control league lecture our level about restraint and responsibility.

Ours is the level that prohibits sack dances and end zone prances. We insist that our interscholastic players demonstrate maturity that the NFL’s players do not.